Week 17 / My Reflective Practice

Week 17 / My Reflective Practice

“Unless teachers develop the practice of critical reflection, they stay trapped in unexamined judgements, interpretations, assumptions and expectations. Approaching teaching as a reflective practitioner involves fusing personal beliefs and values into a professional identity” (LArrivee 2000, p.293)

This quote resonates with me as an RTLB as we need to be open minded, not pass judgement on the stakeholders we are dealing with. Encouraging teachers to be reflective, the RTLB role is about enabling others to reflect on their practice. My new role as an RTLB has meant a shift in the way I approach my role in education. I have had to make a change in my teaching practice and also the way I reflect. As I can’t reflect on my actual practise in the classroom with the children I now reflect on the way I interact with teachers, SENCO, senior management parents and other support people. My role is more of a collaborative approach as I am working within a team of other RTLB and not in an individual classroom. Each case is discussed with the team. With each case there is a set meeting time to discuss how and where the case is going. We talk about what is happening in the case and discuss what I don’t understand. The great thing about the RTLB role is that reflection is part of the job and is scheduled in and not as an extra “when you have time” which we know teachers don’t have a lot of. We actually get time to talk with colleagues. I find this my most common form of reflection. When completing the survey to 'Evaluate your reflective practice' I said that I talk with my colleagues however I know now that I need to take the reflection further.

 As Zeichner and Liston (1996) explain there are 5 different levels of reflection. I can see that I am at the review and research levels, level 3 moving into level 4. I am thinking, discussing and recording my reflections. I seek out some data and research to inform and change my practise. I want to move to Level 5 where the teacher critically examines their own practice and theories in the light of academic theories. While reading the Finlay (2008) article and a little further research I realised that I am unaware of the differents models of reflection. I know now that I don’t carry out the full process of reflection. If I compare the way I reflect to the three fundamental processes suggested by Quinn (1988, 2000), I know that I use retrospect to think back to the experience and use some aspects self-evaluation, such as critically analysing the actions and feelings of those involved. I need to start looking more into research and theory. Reorientation is where I need to use the results of my self evaluation to influence future approaches in similar situations.

 An online platform for my reflections is not something that I have tried or even contemplated. I haven't sort out other peoples written opinions about my reflections before. However, Larrivee (2000) suggests that giving and receiving feedback can have huge benefits for reflection, change and further investigation. Yang (2009) recommends that an online forum, such as a blog or twitter, is a great place to voice questions you have and gain insights from other educators. Blogging is something that I am going to try by opening myself up to receiving feedback from the education community.

As Finlay (2008) says "It also tends to involve the individual practitioner in being self-aware and critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations.The point is to recapture practice experiences and mull them over critically in order to gain new understandings and so improve future practice. This is understood as part of the process of life-long learning."

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

 Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

 Larrivee, B. (2000).Transforming teaching practice: becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1(3), 293-307.

 Yang, S., H. (2009). Using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of practice. Educational Technology & Society, 12(2), 11-21.

 Zeichner,K. M. and Liston, D. P. (1996) Reflective Teaching: An Introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers