BECOMING A BETTER TEACHER BY BECOMING A REFLECTIVE TEACHER
Excerpts[1]
Teachers matter. And what matter most about teachers
is whether they are learners. (…) students need “teachers who can learn from
teaching as well as learning for teaching.
Teacher learning matters. It matters to students and
it matters to teachers themselves. To become a better teacher you must learn from
teaching. The best way to learn from your teaching is to become a
reflective teacher.
L01 Improving your reflection skills to improve your teaching
…effective teachers know how to coordinate a diverse
array of instructional elements (such as planning lesson design, time
management, instructional methods, student motivation, assessment techniques)
and adapt them to differences in student needs, materials, and purposes. (…) to
be consistently effective, you need to observe and analyze what you do in the
classroom. In essence you will be conducting formative assessment. it helps
teachers to clearly see the difference between the intent and the effect of
their actions.
Being reflective means bringing a scholarly mind-set
to your work, using techniques that provide you with the information you need
to inquire critically into your decisions and actions as a teacher. In next
sections we will explore some of such techniques.
Student Feedback
Students are one useful source of information about
the effectiveness of your actions. (…) after several months of watching and
interacting with you, they have some well-formed opinions on what they like and
don’t like about your methods and behaviors.it is worth collecting and
reflecting on thus typo of feedback.
The easiest way and least intrusive way to collect
this information is to just watch how students behave over the course of
several lessons. If they are chatting one to another, looking bored or confused
or anxious more often than they appear to be engaged in the task at hand,
that’s a clear signal that something is wrong and needs to be fixed as quick as
possible.
You can also solicit student feedback in more formal
ways. Ask students (a sample or entire class) to tell you what they liked about
a lesson , what they didn’t like, and why.
Peer and Self-Assessment Techniques
Classroom Observation Schedules. Feedback from fellow
teachers and supervisors is a resource particularly valuable, since they have the
background and pedagogical knowledge to help you understand why some things worked well and other things
did not.
One of the simplest classroom observation instruments
to create and use is the checklist. Next figure contains a set of six
relatively brief topics checklists.
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Examples of classroom
observation checklists |
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1. Characteristics of a Good Learning Environment · Samples of exemplary work are displayed. · Criteria charts, rubrics or expectations
are visible. · There is evidence of students making
choices. · Furniture arrangements allow for
individual, small-groups, and a whole-class work. · Written expectations for behavior and
subject matter are displayed. · There are a variety of materials and
activities to address different learning styles. · There are discussions that involve many
different students and points of view. |
2. Observing individual students who are not on-task. · What is the student doing while others are
learning? · Where is the student sitting? · How often does the teacher make contact
with the student? · What is the nature of the interaction? Ask
the student: · What do you think this lesson is about? · What would help you understand this better? · What would make it more interesting? · What do you do if you don’t understand
something? · How do you get help? |
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3. Characteristics of a good teaching · Content and standards are being explicitly
taught. · A variety of instructional strategies are
integrated into all lessons. · Individual progress is monitored. · There are interventions for students not
demonstrating mastery. · A variety of assessment techniques are
used. · There is evidence of staff development
impact. |
4. Questions to ask students who are on-task · What are you learning? · Why do you need to know this information? · How is this like other things you’ve
learned? · What will this help you do in the future? · What do you do if you get stuck? · How do you know if your work is good
enough? · If you want to make your work better, do
you know how to improve it? · Do you talk about your work with your
parents or other adults? |
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5. Patterns of Teacher behavior. · Gender and racial equity are observed in
interactions with students. · There is recognition and positive
reinforcement of effort as well as achievement. · Students are treated as individuals. |
6. Characteristics of Student Learning · Students communicate ideas clearly, orally
and in writing. · Students plan to organize their own work. · Students use a variety of resources. · Students create new products and ideas. · Students use prior knowledge to solve
problems. · Students collaborate with peers and adults
in projects, drafts and investigations. |
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Source: Examples of
Classroom Observation checklists from L. Schmidt “Getting smarter about
supervising instruction” in McCown Rick & Snowman Jack. (2013). Ed
Psych Student Edition. © Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Belmont, CA. Page
361 |
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Lesson Study: Is a
system for building and sharing practitioner knowledge that involves
teachers in learning from colleagues as they research, plan teach, observe, and
discuss a classroom lesson. Lesson study is focused by a cycle of inquiry
conducted by a research team of three to as many as eight teachers.
Cycle begins with the study phase: research
team consider curriculum, standards, learning goals, select topic for the
“research” lesson: The planning phase includes selection/revising a
lesson plan focused on learning outcomes identified in study phase. Lesson plan
includes planning data collection on student learning and providing a rationale
for the activities and assessment that will be part of the lesson. In Teaching
phase the lesson is taught by one member of the research team, other
members observe the lesson and collect data. In reflection phase data
are shared and implications for improving teaching and learning are examined.
Self-recorded lesson: If
it is not possible for you to team with colleagues – or in addition to working
with a team – you might consider examining your own teaching through
self-recorded lessons. 1st step: decide the class (or part of
classes), how long and the day to be recorded. [the goal is to get a
representative sample of your teaching practices]. 2nd Inform your
students your intend to record the sample to improve your instructional methods.
Analysis of the sample can result [for students] in a
longer time to respond to high level questions, more opportunities to ask
questions, more feedback, review and integrate previous concepts with new
lessons…
Guided reflection protocol: After choosing one or more
teaching episodes to examine, try to answer as honestly as possible these four
questions: 1.- what happened? Just describe when/where the incident occurred,
who was involved and what occurred just prior, during and immediately after the
incident. [avoid analysis]. 2.- Why did it happen? Identify the events
that produced the incident. 3.- What might it mean? The word might
intend to help you to realize that there are usually several possible
interpretations of the meaning of an incident. 4.- What are the implications
for my practice? Consider what you might do differently in a similar
situation.
Reflective journal: Every
teacher should be an expert in both subject matter and how children learn in
classrooms. The goal, and the challenge, is to figure out how to present the
subject matter so that the students understand it, remember it and use it. (…)
a reflective journal will help you in constantly prepare, observe, and reflect on
how closely your instructional practices relate to theory and research and
produce the desire outcome.
A reflective journal has two basic purposes: (1) To
serve as a repository of instructional ideas and techniques that you have
either created from your own experience or gleaned from other sources, and (2)
to give yourself a format for recording your observations and reflections on
teaching.
The form your reflective journal takes will probably change
over the years to reflect your experiences and changing needs. But to begin we
suggest that you organize the first journal around the following topics:
b) Understanding student differences.
d) Motivation.
f) Assessment of classroom learning.
g) Understanding standardized assessment.
Research has shown that keeping a personal journal
about one’s teaching activities and outcomes helps teachers improve their
effectiveness because it forces them to focus on what they do, why they do it,
and what kind of results they typically obtain.
Portfolio: It can be
used along with the reflective journal. Compile a portfolio of your efforts to
achieve certain teaching goals and use that to examine your effectiveness. [evidence
of successes and failures made up the portfolio]. Focus your reflections on
these questions: What did I do? What did I learn? And Now what will I do? To
improve teaching. By asking and answering questions you can build a narrative
account in your reflective journal.
In thinking about the contents of your portfolio, you
might want to start with the following list of items.
1. A title page.
2.
A table of contents.
3.
A statement of your educational
philosophy, which may include the reasons that you chose teaching as a career.
4.
A resume.
5.
A statement of your teaching
goals.
6.
Example(s) of a lesson plan,
keyed to state standards.
7.
Examples of learning activities
(especially those that contain innovative ideas).
8.
Samples of student’s work. (Include
photographs and videos if possible).
9.
Teaching evaluations.
10.
Reflections about how teaching (or
student teaching) has contributed to your growth as a person and as a teacher.
11. Official documents (transcripts, teaching certificates, test
scores).
L02 Using
technology for reflecting inquiry
Two important changes have occurred, and those
changes have resulted in more portals for learning about teaching and
learning from teaching. One of those changes is the increased emphasis
on professional collaboration among teachers. (…) the second change that is
allowing teachers more opportunities for learning about teaching and learning
from teaching, is that portals now provide digital tools that was lacking; in
particular, reading and writing blogs and wikis. A wiki is a website that is created
by one or more people and can be edited by anyone who has access to the site. Blogs
become a forum for public articulation - and public articulation is essential
for educators interested in refining and revising their thinking about teaching
and learning.
Technological tools for reflection can be very helpful to teachers at any stage of their professional development. If your intention is to learn from teaching, the digital portals that provide access to information and the thoughts and experiences of fellow educators can help you do just that.
Reflection questions
Am I making a strong enough effort to consider the
positive and negative outcomes of the approaches I use in the classroom?
How was my teaching philosophy changed since I
started teaching?
THE
END
REFERENCES
McCown Rick & Snowman Jack. (2013). Ed Psych Student Edition.
© Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Belmont, CA. USA
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