How
is my class going? How are my student? What am I doing well in the classroom?
What could have gone better today? How can I make a positive learning
experience for students even better? What do I want to be doing professionally
in ten years, five years or even next year? Understanding the principles and
theories of educational psychology is essential for teachers but simply
understanding is not enough. Future teachers must embrace sound educational
principles and seek opportunities for growth throughout their careers. Therefore,
teachers have to focus on reflection in their teaching process and have a
reflective thinking. What is reflection?
Reflective
teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you
do it, and thinking about if it works – a process of self – observation and
self – evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in our
classroom, and by analyzing and evaluating this information, we identify and
explore our own practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes
and improvements in our teaching. Reflective teaching is, therefore, a means of
professional development which begins in our classroom.
Consider
John Dewey's famous quote "We don't learn from experience. We learn from
reflecting on experience.'' According to Dewey, the process of reflection for
teachers begins when they have a problem, it can be viewed as creative problem
solving, most often with a student's inability to understand their lessons. As
this problem cannot be solved, "teachers step back to analyze their
experiences," according to Dewey and reflective teaching. "This
stepping back can occur either in the midst of the action or after the action is
completed. Teachers should model this expectation by reflecting themselves and
involving students in their own reflection. Teaching students to reflect on
their work by noticing and correcting their own mistakes as well as which
activities and behaviours allowed them to be successful a vital part of the
learning experience.
Methods
you can use reflection as a way to simply learn more about your own practice,
improve a certain practice (small groups and cooperative learning, for example)
or to focus on a problem students are having. Such as: 1- Keep a journal, after
each class, take some notes about what was taught and how students responded,
positive or negative. Reflect on this information at the end of the day, noting
what you could do differently, or what worked well. 2- Student feedback, after
a lesson or activity, or at the end of the class, ask students to briefly and
honestly describe what they learned, and what if anything didn't work well in
the lesson. Allow them to provide the feedback anonymously. Collect the
responses and take notes in your journal on their observations for improving or
changing the teaching practices.
Reflective
teaching is a cyclical process, because once you start to implement changes,
then the reflective and evaluative cycle begins again. As a result of your
reflection you may just decide that what you are doing is the best way. And
that is what professional
development is all about.
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