Reflective Practice! What is it about and why is it important?
Becoming a reflective practitioner is like becoming your own teacher, it is essentially the concept of stopping and reflecting on your work in order to find ways of improvement. In my opinion I find reflective practice much like a puzzle, in which an individual uses their thinking skills to complete the puzzle and fill in the missing pieces where improvement is required in an individual’s profession. i.e. improving an individual’s teaching skills within the classroom. However, reflective practice is a never ending puzzle in my opinion as there is always room for improvement. Becoming a reflective practitioner is important in order to have the ability in identifying matters, opinions and ideas. It is essential to become a reflective practitioner as reflection allows an individual to learn through changes in relation to their thinking skills and be able to apply and practice the new knowledge acquired through reflection. Becoming a reflective practitioner consists of the following four levels of reflection, these include: Your reaction to a certain matter which is the starting point of reflection, identifying the reasoning behind your reaction to the matter, exploring the works of your reaction and lastly identifying the impacts that your reflection may have on future practice. Becoming a reflective allows you to reflect and think about what you do in order to identify how you are able to improve by learning through personal experiences. In order to think reflectively it is essential to do the following: “Be honest about your responses, face difficult questions, explore your strengths and weakness, and be open to change” (Tanti, 2016. Lecture week 4).
“The tools most frequently used to assist the development of professional reflective practice in the teacher education context include reflective learning journals, autobiographies, portfolios, critical group audience and mentoring”. (Tools for Reflective Practice, Accessed 3rd Sep 2016). In my opinion, I strongly recommend keeping journals as it allows educators to note down important information/concerns in which they have in their minds, this can allow them to then reflect on these notes to improve on their practice and better their teaching skills. Journals allow a person to keep track of important dates and notes which is why I recommend using a journal. As a university student, i find diaries and journals very useful as they allow me to keep track of important dates and notes in which I receive from tutors on how I can improve my work.
As a future primary school educator, I believe reflective practice is important as teachers can reflect on their work and identify ways in order to improve, this allows them to learn through their experiences while also providing primary students with a high quality education. What can I improve on? What are my goals and what am I attempting to achieve? How does this impact my students? How can I provide my students with better teaching skills and a better chance of understanding? These are all questions that as future educators we can ask ourselves whilst reflecting in order to make sure that our students receive the best education that they deserve and provide ourselves with the opportunity to improve as teachers.
Barbara Larrivee states that “When teachers become reflective practitioners, they move beyond a knowledge base of discrete skills to a stage where they integrate and modify skills to fit specific contexts, and eventually, to a point where the skills are internalized enabling them to invent new strategies” (Larrivee, 2010).
REFERENCES:
Tools for Reflective Practice. Retrieved 3rd August, 2016 from http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/reflectivepractice/reflect/Tools%20for%20reflective%20practice.pdf
Larrivee, B. (2010). Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective practice. Pp 293–307.
