Reflection of my practice: an example of reflection in practice

An aspect of training to be a teacher is becoming a reflective teacher  (Pollard 2014), and as I’ve just started my first round of subject tutor visits its something that is becoming apparent that students are findings difficult. I think there are two primary reasons for them not doing it:

• Firstly getting in the classroom is the most pressured issue for them: tomorrow morning at 8.50 that year 9 group will be there ready for teaching regardless of whether you’ve done your reflection!
• Secondly, reflecting on your practice is hard, and if they’re like me, students will avoid it because it is so hard and at this stage seeing why it would help them is difficult (taking me back to the first point) – so lets not bother!

So yesterday I began to think about what I could do differently to help them engage with reflecting on their practice - I can’t change them, I can only change my approach. The approach I’m trying today is to reflect on my practice using the format and frameworks we give them to use, and then to share it here on my blog.

This reflection comes with health warnings:

• its my reflection about my practice to help me understand and improve my practice
• I am not a student teacher, I am lecturer who has been teaching for over twenty years

Put simply: the reflection content below can’t be copied or used to directly inform a student’s reflection, but the structure might help them write their own.

I’ve used Reflective Writing: a basic introduction by Martin Hampton to structure my reflection.

Description: What happened?

A trainee teacher had written ‘class discussion’ in their lesson plan but the observed practice was teacher-led Q&A. My feedback was about how hard it was to hold a class discussion, and maybe they needed to think about how they could structure the discussion differently, or use questions differently. What followed was a useful conversation (I hope) but I came away remembering similar conversations with trainees in previous years and I was left asking myself ‘Why do I keep having this conversation?’, ‘Does it make sense to the student?’, ‘What are they gaining from it?’.

Interpretation: What is the most interesting idea from this event? How can it be explained with theory? 

For me, the most meaningful aspect of the event was considering the difference and purpose of class discussion and questioning. These have been two aspects of pedagogy that I have struggled with in my own practice (see Hardy 2004), which might be a factor in its significance for me. Alternatively this might be due to my frustration with trainees’ lesson planning, their understanding of classroom talk and the different types. Mortimer and Scott   (in Pollard 2014) identify four types of communicate approaches:

1. Interactive/dialogic

2. Non-interactive/dialogic

3. Interactive/ authoritative

4. Non-interactive/ authoritative

(Mortimer and Scott 2007 in Pollard 2014, p.314)

What I think I usually see in trainee teacher’s lessons is interactive/authoritative talk, where they are asking questions to guide the pupils to a specific point of view, but when planning the trainee calls sees it as interactive/dialogic talk (class discussion).

Outcome: What have I learned from this?

Having read more about these four approaches and used them to analyse my feedback and the students’ lessons it’s helped me recognise that I rely on an interactive/authoritative talk during the post-lesson feedback. I know that a more productive method of helping them understand how they are communicating is by having an exploratory conversation (interactive/dialogic). For example by exploring with the trainee who has written ‘classroom discussion’ but actually asked closed questions we both might come to a new perspective and understanding of what was happening and how this could be different in the future. I think this could be an important process for me to continue practicing because it will help me adapt my approach and also help my trainees see the value in 'engaging in a process of systematic and informed enquiry’  (Philpott 2013, p.20).

References

Hardy, A., 2004. Questioning styles: observations of differences in practice at key stage 2 and key stage 3.  In: Sheffield, 2004. 2004: DATA. Available at: http://bit.ly/11GPpzz [Accessed 20 November 2014]
Philpott, C., 2013. Who has all the answers in education (and why should you believe them)?  In: C. Mercier, C. Philpott and H. Scott, eds.,  Professional issues in secondary teaching [electronic resource]. London: SAGE, 2013, pp. 7-22.
Pollard, A., 2014.  Reflective teaching in schools [electronic resource]. 4th edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Looking for more?

I came across an activity from the companion website for Reflective Teaching in Schools that I think would help student teachers understand how their lessons actually happen:

·       To consider the qualities of interaction in a lesson