Reflective Practice - Week 17

My experience of reflective practice so far has largely been limited to curriculum areas. When I did my training we were encouraged to reflect on how our units of teaching had gone, but we also had to reflect on how we working towards practicing the professional standards of being a teacher, we were required to do this after each placement every term.

However now I feel like I never record my reflections, as finding time to sit down and record my thoughts and critically evaluate what is happening in my classroom and how my practice is impacting this seems difficult. I often reflect through conversations with colleagues or just at the end of the day thinking about the day and what could be done better.
As a school we have the online tool of interlead, so this provides a way to record my reflections, and it is where I would like to record my reflections on my practice.

In the article by Finlay (2008) she states that it is a "...process through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice... it is a way to examine assumption... being self-aware an critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations." I relate strongly to this quote because I believe the purpose behind self reflection is to evaluate what we are doing in the classroom and what changes need to be made. I liked how she identifies that assumptions need to be examined as I find as teachers we can address situations coming from a place of assuming we know what is going on. Recently in our school we had professional development on spirals of inquiry, I found that this tool is especially useful in reflecting and diving deeply into what is going on the classroom.

However for the purposes of the next three weeks I would like to you the Jay and Johnson's Reflective model.



Stage 1 - descriptive
My Current reflective practice revolves around thinking what is happening in the class, whether this is before or after school, or thinking in the classroom about if a lesson is working. In our senior syndicate meetings we take time to talk about what is happening in the classroom, what is going well, what needs to be worked on and how we plan to do it. As a syndicate we often talk after school about what is going on for us and what we need to work on. However I find it hard to record these thoughts and go back to them as they either not recorded or recorded amongst meeting notes. As above I said we have interlead at our school and I would like to use this to be more critical and reflective in regards to my practice. I often feel I do not have time to record my reflections and feel that I am not getting to the root of the issue. I would like to use spirals of inquiry and reflective writing more in practice to develop my self as a teacher.

Stage 2 - comparative.
When I consider how teachers do reflective practice, from my staff a lot is done in isolation for end of term reflections or done in conversation. We quite often reflect individually and after we have reflected bring it to our colleagues, or only bring problems to our colleagues. We I completed the quiz I found that the area I am lacking in is the written recording what I need to work on in an area of my teaching. To develop a better reflective practice I need to take the time to reflect regularly and share my blog or interlead posts with staff to ensure I am getting the perspectives of others. I feel more reading into spirals of inquiry and seeing how other teachers practice (following their blogs) will be beneficial to me.

Stage 3 - critical reflection

As my blog is made public and other teachers are able to connect into my blog through Mindlab or Manaiakalani, I hope to get perspectives from other professionals around the country and further a field. I would find it particularly useful to connect in with teachers in my cluster. I feel that using this process will help to become a better professional and reflect on what is working and what needs to be changed. I think having a space to write reflections and share it with others will only benefit. Having regular times to blog and share what is happening will allow me to think more deeply about what is happening in my classroom. I am encouraged to see what happens on my journey.

Reference list

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.