With my current
reflective practice I find myself critically reflecting by note take and
conversing with colleagues. As the team leader, I often have opportunities to
investigate their practice with a more critical eye to ensure that they are
meeting the school’s expectations and to encouraging them use the “Teaching as
Inquiry” model. During my journey into Mindlab, I have gleaned information from
research to make evidence-based decisions on my own practice.
I feel that my
reflections have been very haphazard and I am not doing myself any favours. I
know that I am inquiring into my practice with colleagues and have thought about
‘how’ and ’why’ to making learning more responsive for my learners. My plans
often change daily and usually to the cues come from what the children are inquiring
into. But the recording of my thinking is not always evident.
What have I learnt? In light of the research, by creating a reflective journal (Larrivee
(2000) as part of the Mindlab requirement will ensure time is set aside for
deep and regular reflection. I am looking forward for this being a way for me
to be more critical of my own practice by analysing the good, bad and the ugly
of what is happening in the classroom, for me and my learners. I am beginning
to understand how a reflective journal is an important evaluative learning tool
as a learner and as a professional. By making regular time to reflect, it
will become habit forming as well so that as time moves on I will not find
reflective writing a ’chore’ but a ‘way of being’.
Where to next? – the Zeichner and Liston’s Five Levels of
Reflection (1996) have given me food for thought on how I need to take my
reflection to the next level. I need to be more systematic and sustain my
thoughts over time. This will be more achievable as I begin my TAI, where I can
put into practice research, re- theorizing and reformulating my ideas and that
of others, be they academics or colleagues.
To enhance the
quality of my reflective practice, I will be using a model similar to the
3 steps of reflection ( Jay and Johnson’s 2002 reflective model) to help
structure my reflective journal entries. The questions I will
asking myself are: What have I learnt? Where to next? What am I uneasy about?
What am I uneasy about? The
things that are making me feel uneasy are, how will I find time to make my reflective
journal thorough that shows enough depth and complexity to what I am trying to
achieve as I am not a ‘wordsmith’ and find recording a challenge. What sort of
comments will I receive? I am hoping they will question my practice, but can I
cope with that. When commenting on other’s reflections, will I be able to give
them feed forward that will assist them to go
beyond what they are currently doing, or will I discourage them to share.
So here we go...
References
Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based
Professional Learning Centre, Open University. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf
Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a
typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.
Larrivee, B. (2000).Transforming teaching practice: becoming the
critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1(3),
293-307
Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (1996).
Reflective teaching: An Introduction. Makwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Inc. Publishes, New Jersey
Just starting up my tab to my Mind Lab blog too - feel free to comment :-) Great to see you being reflective about your reflections. Have you managed to find a regular time to do your reflections and have you found this has helped your practice?
ReplyDeleteMy time is precious. I try to do this in early hours on a Sunday morning.
ReplyDelete