Reflective_Practice

I believe that reflective practice is a very important tool in today’s education. As I am relatively new to teaching I have found that I am faced with new challenges and obstacles in both the classroom and the workshop environment each day. I believe that for myself to have a good lesson I need to be self critical of past lessons, picking out not only the good parts but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. Since covering reflective practice in Cert Ed class I found that I have become more aware of being critical towards my own lessons. The ability to reflect critically on one’s experience, integrate knowledge gained from experience with knowledge possessed, and take action on insights is considered by some adult educators to be a distinguishing feature of the adult learner (Brookfield 1998; Ecclestone 1996; Mezirow 1991). For example I am currently teaching two groups of level 2 plastering students in theory and have found that each group reacts differently to how I am teaching them. The group I teach on Monday morning react better to group discussions or debates where as Fridays group reacted better to group activities but don’t seem to get involved so much in discussions as the Monday group. At first I thought it could have been the days and times they had been timetabled or that some of the students were shy so I decided to change tactics on the way I took the lesson and reflected on what went well or not on each lesson. I asked the students what they thought of the lesson and how they thought it could be improved in any way without agreement on what reflective practice is, it is difficult to decide on teaching learning strategies. Reflective practice may be a developmental learning process (Williamson 1997) may have different levels of attainment (Wellington 1996), and may be affected by a learner’s cognitive ability (James and Clarke 1994), willingness to engage in the process (Bright 1996; Haddock 1997), and orientation to change (Wellington 1996). However, there does seem to be some agreement that critical reflection consists of a process that can be taught to adults. Brookfield (1988) identified four processes central to learning how to be critically reflective: assumption analysis, contextual awareness, imaginative speculation, and reflective scepticism. I found that by asking the learners it gives the learners some ownership of the lesson and how they wanted it to continue. It also pointed me in the right direction on where I was going wrong. I found that had I not asked the learners for their feedback my lessons would not have went as well since. I have since give a lot of the learners more time on learning activities and also given some learners mentor positions within the group this has been a big help as peer teaching creates good group discussions and gives me a good insight to what is being learned. From reflecting on my past lessons I have found that I need to cater to every student in each group and let them develop there own skills within the classroom or workshop. I feel that my own personality has a big effect on my teaching and how the learners react to me in class I have been self critical of this when dealing with some learners. I realise that not every lesson is going to be perfect and that I will probably go back to how I prefer to teach without really knowing that im doing it, but I feel that being able to reflect on past lessons or even during a lesson can only help me to become a better teacher.