Reflective Teaching

Introduction

 Reflective teaching is an activity to recall what has been done in the

classroom, and evaluate the process of teaching itself.
 The purpose of doing this is to improve the quality of teaching.
 Teaching is a complex and highly skilled activity, and teachers must
exercise judgement in deciding how to act to support learning most
effectively.
 Open-minded consideration of evidence, about one’s own work
or that of others, enriches the quality of such judgement so that
practice becomes ‘evidence-informed’.
 High-quality teaching, and thus
learner progress, is dependent on the existence of such professional
expertise.
CONT…

 Reflective practice is the process of looking back at what, why, and how you
took an action and learning through your experience.
 Applying reflective practice in your teaching profession means reflecting on a
lesson you taught to improve your teaching process and student-learning
outcomes.
 Reflective practice can be a beneficial process in teacher professional
development, both for pre-service and in-service teachers. This digest
reviews the concept, levels, techniques for, and benefits of reflective
practice.
Cont…

 Reflective teaching is therefore a means of professional development which

begins in our class
 Why it is important
 Beginning the process of reflection
 Teacher diary
 Peer observation
 Recording lessons
 Student feedback
 What to do next
 Think, Talk, Read, and Ask
Four parts of Reflective Teaching

 Concrete experience,
 Reflective observation,
 Abstract conceptualization
 and Active experimentation (Kolb, Boyatzis & Mainemelis, 1999; McLeod,
2010).
5R framework for reflection

The 5R framework for reflection will guide you through:

 Reporting
 Responding
 Relating
 Reasoning,
 Reconstructing
Characteristics of reflective teaching

Some characteristics of a reflective teacher include the ability

 To self-analyze,
 Identify their own strengths, weaknesses,
 Objectives and threats,
 as well as good time-management skills,
 self-acceptance, and the well for, and implementation of, self-improvement
of self and teaching practices.
Reflective model according to Gibbs

The reflective model according to Gibbs is based on several stages,

 Description
 Feelings
 Evaluation
 Analysis
 Conclusions
 Personal action plan
Reflective model according to Gibbs

 Description
What happened?
At this stage you are asked to describe the situation and not to make any
judgements or draw conclusions. Try to be as detailed as possible, but remain
descriptive.
 Feelings:
What were your reactions and feelings?
Again you are not to analyse the situation, yet. You are asked to describe your
emotional response to the situation you have experienced.
CONT…

 Evaluation:
What was good or bad about the experience?
At this stage you are considering the situation and your responses more
objectively to make your first value judgements. You should also consider the
experience from other people’s perspective in addition to your own.
 Analysis:
What sense can you make of the situation? What was really going on? Were
different people’s experiences similar or different?
Once you have considered the situation in an evaluative way, you can start to
analyse it in greater detail by considering the above questions. At this stage
you should also bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you..
CONT…

 Conclusions:
What can be concluded from these experiences and the analyses you have
undertaken? What can be concluded about your personal situation and your way of
working?
When you draw conclusions you ought to consider the general applicability as well
as your specific situation. Think about what your conclusions mean for you
personally, for your immediate context and then more widely for others, too.
 Personal action plan:
What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time? What steps
are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?
In order for you to improve on your practice and learn from specific experiences
you need to take this stage particularly seriously. Think about what you can do
differently and how you will improve your practice. Complete a simple action plan
with key pointers about what you will do and how you will decide that your
practice has improved.
Reflective Practice Model by Donald
Schon (1983)
 The Schon reflective model presents the concept of 'reflection in action' and
'reflection on action':
Reflection in action
Reflection on action
 Reflection in action
 Experiencing
 Thinking on your feet
 Thinking about what to do next
 Acting straight away
Cont…

 Reflection on action
Experiencing
Thinking on your feet
Thinking about what to do next
Acting straight away
 Reflection according to Donald Schon is the ability of professionals to ‘think
what they are doing while they are doing it’. He states that managing the
indeterminate zones of professional practice requires the ability to think on
the run and use previous experience to new conditions. This is important and
needs the ability to reflect-in-action
What are the steps in reflective teaching?

 Retrospection
Recalling classroom experience
 Self evaluation
Analyzing your feeling and actions
 Re-orientation
Learning from self evaluation-changing your future action.
What is the importance of Reflective Practice in
Teaching?

 Reflecting on what and how you teach leads to professional development.

 Critical self-evaluation promotes growth and learning, as per a 2014 study at
The Harvard Business School. You’re able to tackle a classroom problem by
changing your teaching style/strategy.
 The importance of Reflective teaching practice is that it positively impacts
you, students, parents, school, and the whole education system.
 Reflective teaching is an in-depth process of collecting student and teacher
feedback; recording it in journals/diaries; analyzing it, drawing conclusions
about your positives and negatives; and changing your plans of action.
 Teachers become self-aware through Reflective Teaching. They gain control of
their feelings and external factors.
What are some effective reflective
teaching strategies?
 Through peers’ points of view-
Discuss classroom problems with colleagues. Take their advice and feedback.
You’ll find unique solutions through a reflective approach in teaching.
 Through personal experiences-
You know your strengths and weaknesses better than others. Writing teacher’s
diary is an excellent strategy to practice reflective teaching.
 Through literature and research-
Read teaching-learning books and journals where teachers share classroom
observations and learnings. Read teacher blogs and listen to teacher podcasts
for reflective teaching
Advantages of practicing reflective
teaching in school
 Reflective teaching creates a conducive learning environment and brings
innovation at school. Reflective practices help teachers work confidently.
 In the words of Tony Ghaye (PhD., Expert in Reflective Practices), it gives
teachers “courage to work competently and
 You can handle personal and professional problems by-
Finding room for improvement in your teaching; taking advice from other
teachers; and maintaining positive mental health.
Disadvantages of practicing reflective
teaching in school
 Reflective teaching is time-consuming and teachers are mostly short of time.
 It can also become a negative process. Focusing on your faults is
demotivating.
 Reflective practices can be biased. If a student doesn’t like your subject,
they’ll have negative feedback for you. Teacher politics also affect peer
reviews.