A Case for a Reflective Approach to Teaching ‘Practicum Debriefing’with Implications for Teacher Educators and Education (original) (raw)
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The Role of the Teacher Practitioner: Reflective Practice
Academia.edu
When an educational establishment decides to promote reflective practice in its midst and expects all stakeholders (teachers, students, and administrators) to become reflective practitioners and advocates, there ought to be a firm understanding of the meaning of the term reflection and of the concept of reflective practice. This research paper will address all relevant issues concerning the practice of reflection, highlighting the primacy of professional development as a reliable and robust link between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. The paper will also explore the current research with regard to reflective practice. A comprehensive literature review of the practice within the educational field will be alluded to. Best approaches to integrate relevant strategies and to address issues emanating from the practice will also be included. Finally, recommendations for future development and a synthesis of the various elements needed for efficient reflective practice will be provided.
Reflective Practice, 2015
Over the past 30 years, the teaching profession has embraced the notion of the teacher as a reflective practitioner, which has led to an increased emphasis on teacher education programmes offering learning experiences that model and encourage reflective practice. This qualitative instrumental case study research explored the usefulness, benefits, and challenge of an innovative approach to teaching practicum debriefingnamely, an exercise called the reflective approach to teaching practicum debriefing (RATPD). Examples of the usefulness and benefits of the approach are (1) it encouraged student teachers to not only focus on observing the techniques and methods of teaching and the daily issues that teachers face in their practice, but to also consider self as a teacher and (2) it encouraged critical thinking, self-directed critical thinking, and selfawareness. The main challenge of the RATPD is that students are sometimes reluctant to share their perception and what they truly believe and feel about a particular issue or situation. Implications for teacher educators and education are discussed.
Teacher as a Reflective Practitioner: Nurturing Teacher’s Character
Book Chapter , 2022
To have a voice means to be reflexive and reflexivity is a social scientific variety of self-consciousness (Delamont, 1992). Reflection is important, and some might acknowledge that they do not really know how to get the best from it. According to Ghaye (2011), reflective practices help us understand the links between what we do and how we might improve our effectiveness. Reflective practices help people to understand the significance of work, and provide new insights for developing this work. They also help us understand the links between feeling, thinking and doing -how we feel affects how we think- (ibid, 2011). This paper will try to help teachers to develop their understanding and skills of learning through reflection. It is hoped that this work can help teachers to explore the power and potency of reflecting on strengths and weaknesses, make sense of teaching and be the best that they can be.
The reflective practitioner in teaching: Toward a research agenda
Teaching and Teacher Education, 1993
Recognizing the apparent appeal that the image of a teacher as a "reflective practitioner" has for teacher educators and noting the lack of clarity and consistency which accompanies its discussion, this project undertook to develop a description of what reflective practice in teaching would "look like." The paper presents 12 critical attributes that would indicate a teacher's stance toward reflection, accompanied by four assumptions on which the attributes are based. Finally, the utility of these attributes is discussed in terms of both a research agenda and teacher education program decisions that they might inform. 34x WILLIS D. COPELAND et al. 'van Manen (1977) did not put a label on this second level of reflection. We believe "interpretative understanding" describes it accurately.
At the top of every syllabus: Examining and becoming (critical) reflective practitioners
In this paper, we explore what it means to become a reflective practitioner in the field of teacher preparation. We are two new teacher educators working at different universities in the Northeast United States. One is a mid-sized private university in an urban area, the other a mid-sized public university in a rural area. In our positions, we prepare, teach, and supervise undergraduate and graduate students as they work to complete state certification requirements to teach in early childhood and elementary classrooms. Both of our programs utilize (at least nominally) a reflective practitioner model for teacher preparation. Over the course of one semester, we engaged in the dual-level process of collaboratively examining what it means to become critical reflective practitioners (Brookfield, 1998; Larrivee, 2000; LaBoskey, 2004) while also preparing social justice oriented pre-service teachers. The reflective practitioner model originated with John Dewey (1933), who described reflective thinking as a process that involves experiencing and questioning very practical problems during learning. This framework was formalized for the field of teacher education by Donald Schön who defined reflective practice as the continuous and cyclical process of examining both one's own actions and the context and values which influence those practices (1983, 1987). The reflective practitioner, according to Schön, aims to connect theory with practice, using inquiry to explore the challenges a teacher faces when working with students in the classroom. Over the past thirty years, Schön's work has become widely adopted by teacher education programs across the United States (Loughran, 2002; Richert, 1990; Valli, 1993; Zeichner, 1987). This " reflective teaching movement " emerged as a way for programs to answer the call for teachers to become more adept at understanding their students' complex social, cultural and political learning contexts (Liu, 2015, p. 137). But, for many teacher preparation programs, the grounding concept behind reflective practice has become disjointed with the practice of preparing teachers, with multiple, unclear definitions of how to engage in reflective practice (Zeichner & Liu, 2010).
The Reflective Practitioner and the Curriculum of Teacher Education
Journal of Education for Teaching, 1991
In this paper three different meanings ascribed to reflective teaching are examined. The first, Cruikshank's Reflective Teaching Model, sees reflective teaching as the ability to analyze one's own teaching practices. Schon's "Reflection in Action," on the other hand, argues that the professional practitioner is one who can think while acting and thus respond to the uncertainty, uniqueness, and conflict involved in the situations in which professionals practice. The third perspective toward reflective teacher education, the work of Zeichner, posits three levels of reflection: technical elements, situational and institutional contexts, and moral and ethical issues. The three models are described and compared, with references to other studies and theories on reflection. Teaching strategies intended to facilitate the development of reflection are discussed. These strategies are seen as ways to promote critical inquiry among preservice teachers. (JD)
Engaging student teachers in meaningful reflective practice
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2008
This paper examines the use of peer-videoing in the classroom as a tool to promote reflective practice among student teachers. Twenty pre-service teachers from a variety of subject disciplines participating in a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education programme in an Irish university participated in the study. The practice of encouraging student teachers working in the same school to participate in structured video analysis avoids the impact of external observers whose role is largely evaluative and endorses a collaborative model that promotes dialogue and shared learning. This practice promotes a culture of observation and critical dialogue in a profession which has traditionally been characterised by isolation, while at the same time fostering and validating the voice and experience of the student teacher. Locating the discussion within the framework of the theoretical literature on reflective practice, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the international debate over best practice in supporting, encouraging and scaffolding reflective practice. It comments on the implications of reflective dialogue for the modernisation of teacher education and offers guidelines on how best to scaffold and promote reflectivity. r
Developing Reflective Practice as Part of Teacher Training with the Use of Critical Incidents
Neofilolog
Preparing thoughtful reflective practitioners has become a common concept in the teacher education literature. Prior educational experiences offer excellent opportunity for students to reflect on authentic teaching examples and provide constructive ways to engage in reflective practice. This study examines critical incidents as a tool for developing reflective thinking skills among teacher trainees (N=11). The research on use of critical incidents for training comprised a questionnaire and group discussions. The instrument used for analyzing critical incidents included personal details, factual information and open-ended questions concerning reasons for and consequences of the incident, associated emotions, reflections connected with it, lessons from this incident and its implications for the future. Overall, although some crucial issues arose, the technique proved useful for training, and was assessed as positive and valuable by the teacher trainees. Some pedagogical implications w...
Reinventing Reflective Learning Methods in Teacher Education
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013
This paper discusses the importance of teaching the capacity to be reflective at earlier stages of the professional development, so that individuals can be more receptive to change throughout their career. It presents the case of 14 teacher trainees, whose use of reflective processes in relation to their understanding of professional identity and growth was investigated by means of a systematic enquiry method. Results showed that this approach can facilitate in-depth reflection, lead to autonomous learners that can make sense of the way old beliefs interfere with new theories and who are able to make the right decisions for changing professional practice.
Reflective teaching and teacher education contributions from teacher training
1999
The argument in this paper is that insights from teacher thinking have contributed a great deal to the notion of reflective teaching in teacher education. After clarifying some of the definitions of reflection as they are revealed in the literature, the area of teacher thinking is brought into the topic by highlighting the importance of understanding the way teachers think about their work. In the final section of the paper suggestions about some procedures that could foster teachers' reflection on their practices are presented.