Reflective Practice in Teaching

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Reflective Practice in Teaching

• Linda Larson
• CSULB

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What is reflective practice?

• On going process of examining and refining
  practice
• Focused on
• Personal
• Pedagogical
• Curricular
• Intellectual
• Societal
• And or ethical context
• Not always critically

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Theorists of reflective practice

• Advocates practitioners must research own
  worksites
• Use this context to understand, question and
  investigate authentic
• Practitioners should generate own contextually
  specific theories rather than just importing them

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Indeterminate zone of action
New Action Triggers Reflection
Reflect After the Action
Reflect During the Action
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Collaborative Reflection

• Collaborative
• Learn to describe tacit knowledge
• Test ideas and understand
• Learn to communicate about practice

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Why critical reflection important?

• Help teacher take informed action
• Teachers develop rationale for practice
• Avoid self-laceration
• Enlivens classroom-why you do what you do
• Helps teachers understand the effect they have on
  students

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4 Reflective lenses view practice

• Teachers use their own reflective writing
• Student lens-are students taking from practice
  what you intend
• Colleague lens-critical feedback
• Theoretical literature-multiple interpretations

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How to do it?

• Henderson in his book, Reflective Teaching
  Professional Artistry Through Inquiry sees
  teaching as a craft. He states,
• Just as writers, sculptors, painters, and
  composers must develop their craft, so must
  teachers. Throughout their career, they must
  continually refine their skills in the general
  areas of program designing, lesson planning, and
  classroom management. They must become highly
  skilled problem solvers while engaged in complex
  teaching-learning activities.

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Reflective Loop
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So how do we do it?

• Discussion
• Examples