Do I really need to become a reflective practitioner?

"Pencils and Moleskines 04" by Paul Worthington is licensed with CC BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

A vital requirement of becoming an effective teacher is engaging in professional reflective practice. This is of utmost importance and a skill that should be taught during the pre-service years (Pedro*, 2005) and must be continued throughout their career to ensure a higher level of professional practise with an emphasis on student learning (Larrivee, 2008). The ability of learning how to effectively become a reflective practitioner is not something that can be taught quickly. It takes time for an individual to overcome their fears of being criticised and learn how to turn constructive feedback into meaningful changes (Russell*, 2005).

I find that this can be challenging and embarrassing which is something that I will personally need to overcome. Individual reflective practice requires recognition of my own mistakes and imperfections whilst reflective practice with a peer or mentor can be more challenging as it involves exposing these personal flaws to others. 
 
“Reflection, meant to make teaching and learning understandable and open, has itself been an invisible process to many of our pre‐service teachers.” (Ward & McCotter, 2004, p. 255)
 
Pre-service teachers can practise personal reflections via journals, either through a simple dialogue journal, or a more effective response journal. Pre-service teachers who journaled reflectively were found to have more insight into their shortcomings and were able to more effectively learn from this (Lee, 2007). While this is a good way to start becoming a reflective practitioner, I need to be able to open myself to constructive feedback from peers. A method that has been trialled is using a teacher mentor who helps guide and assist a pre-service teacher through their studies, with an emphasis on reflective practises and how these will help shape an individual’s teaching identity (Walkington, 2005). 

One important system that can be used as a starting point for preservice teachers is the Gibbs reflective cycle. While this is a necessary starting point the ultimate goal for any teacher should be to reach “a higher order where teachers examine the ethical, social and political consequences of their teaching, grappling with the ultimate purposes of schooling.”(Larrivee, 2008 p. 2). 

An issue that teachers face is a lack of time. Being able to engage in meaningful reflective practise takes time, especially if there is peer feedback involved. As teachers currently have an extraneous workload often preservice teachers will be unable to find mentors (Walkington, 2005), as they graduate to practicing teachers, they might find that their workload and the expectations from the students’ parents become overbearing, effectively pushing reflective practises to the backburner (Farrell, 2003). Yet, if at the time of graduation, the pre-service teacher is already equipped with the skills necessary to reach a higher level of reflection then they will enter their career with a strong outline of their professional identity and can continue to use their techniques of reflection to grow and shape their identity further, with no impact from lack of time (Harford & MacRuairc, 2008). 

As I develop my professional identity and professional practice, I will utilise timetabling to ensure I reflect weekly, both personally and with my peers. By keeping a response journal, I can reflect on a daily basis without losing time. Peer reflections would hopefully be bi-weekly, either via face-to-face meet ups or online video chats, with supportive peers to reduce embarrassment.


ReferencesFarrell, T. S. (2003). Reflective practice in action: 80 reflection breaks for busy teachers. Corwin Press. 
​
Harford, J., & MacRuairc, G. (2008). Engaging student teachers in meaningful reflective practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(7), 1884-1892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2008.02.010

Larrivee, B. (2008). Development of a tool to assess teachers’ level of reflective practice. Reflective Practice, 9(3), 341-360. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802207451

Lee, I. (2007). Preparing pre-service English teachers for reflective practice. ELT Journal, 61(4), 321-329. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccm022

Pedro *, J. Y. (2005). Reflection in teacher education: Exploring pre‐service teachers’ meanings of reflective practice. Reflective Practice, 6(1), 49-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462394042000326860

Russell*, T. (2005). Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice, 6(2), 199-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940500105833

Walkington, J. (2005). Becoming a teacher: Encouraging development of teacher identity through reflective practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(1), 53-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866052000341124

Ward, J. R., & McCotter, S. S. (2004). Reflection as a visible outcome for preservice teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(3), 243-257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2004.02.004