Activity 1: My Reflective Practice

Wow.... 16 weeks of Mindlab done and dusted, 4 assignments handed in and here I am, writing a blog for the first time and thinking how am I going to keep myself on track for the next 16 weeks?

I have never written a blog before, let alone a professional, reflective blog. So this way of reflecting on my practice is very new, but exciting. 

Currently any written professional reflections I make are typed on a word document, printed out and then put into my Registered Teacher Criteria evidence folder. I agree with Finlay (2008) when she states that reflective practice can become 'bland and mechanical' due to time constraints. This is how I reflect; I go through the same motions and my reflections become superficial. I often make little to no formal reference to theory, but rather focus on practice. 

An example of my current reflective journal template

Our class notes and reading this week had us look at Zeichner and Liston's (cited in Finlay, 2008, p.4) five levels of reflection. 

• rapid reflection
• repair
• review
• research
• retheorizing and reformulating 

I frequently reflect rapidly and within the repair level. I am always 'thinking on the spot' and then jotting down notes or thoughts onto my planner for the next day or changing what I am teaching in the moment. I think this is a very natural part of being a teacher. It is practice based reflection, not involving theory. Because I teach alongside another New Entrant teacher, we are constantly reflecting with each other in informal conversation, discussing what changes we need to make in our teaching practice based on student cues. If I have a real 'hunch' abut something or something is not quite meshing with my current understandings about teaching, that is when I will reflect more deeply in my journal, which is at the review level. This I do not do often and above I have outlined why and how I go about this. 

For myself, I see a starting point in Gibbs' (1988) model for reflection (cited in Finlay, 2008, p.8). This lends itself well to the teacher inquiry cycle and is a clear process in which to reflect in the review level and perhaps the research level. It goes a step further than what I do already; it asks that you analyse, perhaps through theory, and create an action plan. This will help me to reflect more deeply and make effective change in my practice. 

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, (cited in Finlay, 2008, p.8)

How could I reach a higher level of reflection?

I believe our teacher inquiry process fits in the level of research. I collect student data and reflect on research and readings to shape and inform my inquiry goal and essentially change my practice. However I have found, after looking deeper into teacher inquiry in this course, research reflection will not effectively support change in practice if the scanning, focusing and developing a hunch stages of spiral inquiry are not given justice. This is something that as I step into a Team Leader role next year, I am very conscious of. I will endeavour to support my team in their research reflection by giving time to these parts of the spiral inquiry, so that we can together reach higher levels of reflection. Hopefully, when we become more skilled at this, our reflections may step into the retheorizing and reformulating level where we align academic theory to teaching practice (Finlay, 2008). 

Reference:

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file…