Reflective Practice

Teaching practices often reflect an unquestioned acceptance of strategies and programs defined by others about what is best for students. Teachers need to examine their own practice and new alternatives so that the learning and teaching strategies they use are consistent with their values, beliefs, and assumptions about learning.

This task can be accomplished through a process of self and collaborative reflection. Reflective practice is not new for teachers but is a systematic inquiry that can begin alone with reflecting on your own teaching and learning experiences and becomes collective when informed by your interactions with colleagues, students, and research.

Reflective practice begins with critical reflection in which a teacher questions and examines his/her own assumptions and practice about teaching. Examining one’s own positive and negative learning experiences can help a teacher understand why s/he gravitates toward certain ways of doing things and avoids others. This process helps teachers identify and communicate the values and beliefs that underlie the teaching and learning strategies they use.

After self-reflection, it is important for teachers to make their thinking public and therefore open to dialogue with their colleagues. In this way, teachers can reexamine their understanding of problems, assumptions, and responses against ideas offered by their colleagues who work in similar situations.
Ongoing internal examination and external dialogue have the potential to help a teacher become more effective in the classroom. The ultimate winners other than the teachers, who will become more confident and assured in why and how they do things, are the students. They will benefit from more effective learning experiences.

Source: Dr. Doug Miller, NESS Facilitator, HRD