Day 28: Effective Reflective Practice

Source:

Loughran, J. J. (2002). Effective reflective practice in search of meaning in learning about teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 33-43.

What is Sacred:

What I know for sure is that a reflective teacher is an effective teacher, so I have been working on upping the reflection game from the intro to teaching course up to the last practicum in an attempt to get teacher candidates not just practicing reflection on their experience, but sharing it and now, according to this article, using what is shared to create some common assertions around a problem of practice. That is a new aha for me.

I think what is most sacred about this is its emphasis on examining a variety of view points by first "seeing." That is easier said than done sometimes because we have to get rid of our assumptions in order to really see and be able to spot problems. I like this rationale the most:

To counter the likelihood that practice may be routinized, teacher educators and their student teachers need to pay particular attention to the nature of the problems they are confronted by in their teaching about teaching and their learning about learning. (34)

That's the key, I think. You cannot acknowledge, or ACT upon a problem if you do not see it as a problem. If it is just "the way things are" (students are bored, disengaged, etc. because THEY _____ - insert rationale here - poor, lazy, poor home life. . .) then we don't have any power to change that.

Connection to Current/Future Work:
I have been in this game for a while, it is like my apps. I have my preferences, I know what I like so I don't tend to drop everything for the newest thing (no Pokemon Go). I believe in nurturing creative practitioners. I didn't need to be sold on that, but what I truly can use in this article is the next step - share your reflection so that others can see that they are not alone, that they can solve problems together, etc. BUT the add on - now that you shared, meet together in small groups to debrief the sharing and come up with some common assertions based on the reflections.

Now we're cooking with gas (I don't know what that means).

Comments

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