Week 17: Evaluating My Reflective Practice

(Based on Jay and Johnson’s Reflective Model, 2002)

When I studied to become a teacher back in 2006, I was under the impression that I would always have the time and energy to effectively reflect and feed forward into future practice… that happens, and I am sure others would agree… just not as often or as deeply as we would like.

During my journey to become a teacher, we wrote copious reflective notes on each student, each lesson, throughout each day and then individually or collaboratively wrote extensive reflections at the conclusion of each unit of teaching. I have always loved writing and exercising my reflective skills – I felt in my element communicating my self-awareness and understandings (Eby, 2000) in order to develop better, brighter learning for students in future classroom escapades.

I had reveled in the level of reflection that my old teaching study had promised but now, as a practicing teacher 10 years on, an accurate depiction would be as follows:

Reflections within class daily – this occurs “thinking on my feet” in response to student engagement and the journey of learning within a session (what Schon, 1983, refers to as intuitively).

Reflections weekly – this occurs when thinking about how the learning sessions with students have gone, how far we have come, any hold ups or difficulties to be addressed in the coming sessions to enable the most efficient use of time and knowledge during the remaining sessions.  Sometimes this is noted in my weekly planner, but most often mind banked in the car on the way to work.

Reflections each term – this occurs within the writing of my appraisal document or in reflective notes upon my unit plans (in a variety of colours as my thoughts evolve). It often takes place nearing the end of each half term or full term with a focus on the success and pitfalls of the units taught and how to adapt teaching and resources to make a more positive impact in the future term of learning with the students.

If considering this alongside Zeicher and Liston (1996) levels of reflection, it seems I am reaching the targets of Rapid Reflection, Repair and Review… however, Research and Retheorizing and Reformulating could become more of a focus in my future reflective practice. Hmmm… but where to find the time and head space to process theories, read readings and collect data? This seems to be such a massive challenge for teachers today.

For me, an achievable step in enhancing my reflective practice would be as Yang (2009) suggests – keeping a reflective blog, (I have loved writing in a diary for 7 years). The entries would allow for further dallies into self-awareness, they can be timely and relevant and I can edit and add to entries with ease. Another positive is that this avenue naturally encourages the gathering of input/data (comments) of other educational experts or fellow teachers… creating social awareness and perhaps movement into reflexivity (Finlay, 2008).

What would the implications of this be on my current teaching and reflective practice? I imagine that my confidence and knowledge as a teacher would build significantly… I would feel enriched by exploring and cementing the concepts of how and why I construct learning with my students the way I do. I would also have found a way to obtain the advice, feedback and experiences of my peers, which would move me from an intense level of introspection to reflective conversations (Ghaye, 2000) and the potential to resolve more problems collaboratively – an exciting prospect indeed!