Peer Feedback: Why I Think Reflection Is so Important
Why I think Reflection is so Important
In week 4, as a cohort we focused on the driving question: “ Why do I need to become a reflective practitioner?”. I was apprehensive about this topic because I had completely no idea what “Reflective Practitioning” even meant, what it could even involve and how it could benefit me in anyway throughout my teaching career. I soon learnt that reflection was crucial for our growth and progression as educators.
I’m going to use the example of a pre-service teacher because that was the example that really enlightened me and made me understand what this whole “reflective practitioning” stuff was about.
What is Reflective Practice?
Reflective Practice is essentially the act of:
- Documenting and recording what you have done throughout your journey. This can include lesson plans, your thoughts, your students feedback and what ever you think is important. You can use a physical journal like a diary or a web based journal ( a blog, just like this)
- Looking back,analysing what you have done and taking on board feedback. Gil-Garcia and Cintron states we can only learn from “ self- assessment, collaborative critique, self reflection and goal setting”. When we are doing this, we need to focus on the pros and cons of our practice.
- With this knowledge of what we are doing right and wrong, we as educators can now take it all on board and change and develop new teaching techniques that will be most effective.As reinforced by MacNaughton , reflective thinking is “an intellectually engaging activity geared to changing practices by transforming knowledge”.
Now back to the title of this post,
Why I think Reflection is so important.
I believe reflection and feedback go hand in hand and if used properly can benefit us as future teachers tremendously.
As a student I have constantly been reminded of the value of feedback. However, I had always questioned why feedback was considered something so great. This tutorial had really opened my eyes to the concept of feedback and how to properly utilise it through reflection. It is simple, if you are not reflecting and thinking about what you could’ve done better, could’ve changed, or what you had done perfectly, then you are just letting that valuable feed back go to waste.
I think it is so important to start getting in the habit of journal writing right now, to enable us to become highly effective “reflective practitioners” in the future. Reflective practice is a tool I believe we should all utilise to review and develop our teaching methods as preservice teachers.
References:
Gil-Garcia, A., & Cintron, Z. (2002). The reflective journal as a learning and professional development tool for teachers and administrators.
MacNaughton, G. (2003). Reflecting on early childhood curriculum. In G. MacNaughton, Shaping Early Childhood. England: Open University Press.
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