College of Education and Behavioral Sciences

Course Title: Teacher as Reflective Practitioner (PGDT

422, Credit 3)

Instructor :

Address:
Chapter One: Concept Reflective Practitioner
and Related Issues
1.1.Objectives
After completing this chapter, you will be able to:
• Explain what a reflective teacher means,
• Describe the importance of being a reflective
teacher,
• Describe the various roles of a teacher as a
reflective practitioner
1.2.Defining Reflection
• Reflection is a systematic, rigorous/careful,
disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in
scientific inquiry.
• Reflective thinking is a series of logical
rational steps based on the scientific method of
defining, analyzing, and solving a problem
• It is a meaning-making process that moves a
practitioner/teacher from one experience to
the next with deeper understanding of its
relationship with and connections to other
experiences and ideas.
• It is the thread that makes continuity of
learning possible and ensures the progress of
the individual and, ultimately, society.
1.3.Benefit of Reflection
Generally, reflection informs practice. It is also
helpful:
• to understand yourself, your motives,
perceptions, attitudes and values associated
with the delivery of services
• to see practice afresh and challenge the
assumptions about delivery of services
• to discuss with others how the episode might be
approached differently (and encourage a
learning community of practice)
1.4.Gib’s Model of reflection (reflective cycle)
• description,
• feelings,
• evaluation,
• analysis,
• general conclusion,
• specific conclusions
• action plan
1.5.Reflection in context
• Think about a lesson I taught.
• Describe a part of a lesson that went well.
Why?
• Describe a part of a lesson that didn’t go well.
Why?
• What might I do differently to make that part
go better?
All change begins with the notion of self

• Think: what is a good lesson/ teacher;

• Share: thoughts about teaching;

• Understand the need to “think about our teaching and reflect “

• Expand our understanding of the teaching/learning process;

• Enlarge our repertoire of options as effective teachers;

• Enhance learning opportunities for our students.

Three attitudes are necessary for us to
become a reflective teachers:
Respect for diversity
• Open-mindedness. Humility/ humbleness
Hope in the learner

Considers consequences
• Responsibility. Makes meaning of experiences for
teacher & learner

Curious about subject

• Wholeheartedness. and impact of teaching on learning

(J. Dewey)
1.6.Reflective Opportunities
• Enhance student learning
• Enhance professional development as an
academician
• Continuous professional development as a
teacher /practitioner
• It allows individuals to think about technique,
assimilate it, relate it to other aspects of their
experiences, and to change or adapt it.
• Reflectiveness implies the use of metacognitive
skills (thinking about thinking), creative abilities
and taking a critical stance/stand.
• This requires individuals to reach a level of
social maturity that allows them to distance
themselves from social pressures, take different
perspectives, make independent judgments and
take responsibility for their actions.
 1.7.Activity 1
Tick the column that represents you most accurately
Statement Almost
always
Sometim
es
Almost never

I formulate clear objectives for my lessons

I check with my students to see if objectives have been

achieved
I review my lesson plans regularly

I enjoy keeping up to date with my subject knowledge and

using new information in my lessons
I enjoy reviewing my teaching methods

I collect my students’ marks regularly and use these to help

me plan my teaching
I am interested in my students’ opinions

I encourage my students to debate their ideas

I watch my students carefully when they are working on

their own
I listen to my students when they are talking in groups

I am responsible for what happens in my classroom

I am interested in my students’ opinions

Statement Almost
always
Someti
mes
Almost
never

I encourage my students to debate their ideas

I watch my students carefully when they are working
on their own
I listen to my students when they are talking in
groups
I am responsible for what happens in my classroom
I read pedagogy books and try to apply educational
theory to my lessons
I like putting new ideas into action and evaluating
their impact
I talk to colleagues about my lessons
I try to look at things from the students’ angle
I am partly responsible for my students success and
failure
In our department, we always discuss the
implications of introducing new ideas
In our institution, we all discuss and contribute to new
policies
It should be apparent that the more ticks you have in the
first column, the more reflective you are already.
1.8.Some of the roles of Reflective Teachers in Secondary Schools
1.8.1.Instructional Roles
• facilitates students active involvement
• praise and motivate students
• create a democratic environment in the classroom
• know the subject matter
• logically treat the subject matter
• use clear and understandable vocabularies
• use a variety of instructional tools and procedures
• know the learning style strengths, weaknesses and prior knowledge of
students
• well prepared and organized
• self reflection and modification
• flexibility
• recognizes individual difference
1.8.2.Managerial roles
• Leadership role
• Figurehead role
• Liaison role
• Spokes- person role
• Disseminator role
• Monitors role
• Negotiator role
• Resource allocator role
• Entrepreneurial role
• Disturbance handler role
•
1.8.3.Ethical Roles
• Treat students impartially regardless of race, religion, background etc
• Be a good role model
• Avoid inappropriate relationships with students
• Respect students and colleagues
• Keep confidential issues of the student
• Proper sharing of resources with staff members
• Regularly conduct classes
• Do not be engaged in other duties which harm the teaching- learning
process
1.8.4.Counselling Roles/Career Advisor
• Give advice to students facing different academic and personal
problems
• Give direction to students on how to perform better
• Help and advice students in their future career choices
Which roles are new for you and which areas do you want to improve?
1.9.Reflective Practices
• The process of reflection and the development
of critical thinking are transferable skills that
the practitioner is encouraged to develop.
• Practitioners are able to transform practice
through insight and critical reasoning.
In summery, reflection can lead to:
• personal growth
• professional growth
• meaningful social change.
Chapter Two: Teaching and Reflection
2.1.Objectives
• Define the term teaching
• Apply Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive domain that
can be used in reflection
2.2.Definition of Teaching
Akora( 2011)
• Teaching is the act of providing activities that facilitate
learning;
• It is something that takes place only when learning is
done.
• If the student are not learning something significant, the
teaching is not teaching, when the student fails, the
teacher fails more.
Silberman(1966)
• Teaching is both art and science.
• It is an art because it calls for the exercise of
talent and creativity• but it is a science for it
involves a repertoire of teaching techniques,
procedures, and skills that can be
systematically studied and described.
• To teach is to cause to learn.
Howee (1970),
• The teacher is not a dispenser of knowledge nor
a person in charge of the education that goes on
in the classroom.
• The teacher's role is one of producing the
climate, providing the resources, stimulating
the student to explore, investigate and seek
answer, in a rich environment, the teacher
becomes a guide and facilitator than a director.
• Teaching on the other hand, involves motivation,
assigner, interrogation clarifier, illumination,
assessment ad evaluation, and directing the
intellectual exchange that leads to learning.

• Teaching effectiveness is not predictable at

training program level.
• Teaching effectiveness is determined by:
Personal qualities (intelligence, motivation,
diligence/ industrious , creativity, discipline,
organization, interpersonal skills, work ethics,
etc.)
-professional quality
-subject knowledge
-teaching facilities
-school management
-supportive staff (Carey, 2009).
 2.3.Teacher’s Thinking and Teaching
• Nowadays there is an emerging shift of focus among
education from the externals of teaching, such as content,
methodology, and discipline to the inner world of individual
teachers.
• Accordingly, several educators are arguing that teacher’s
thinking has profound influences on entire educational
process in general and on the teaching learning process in
particular.
• Teachers' perceptions and behaviors (their personal world) are
shaped by their individual beliefs, values, attitudes,
dispositions, images, and meanings .
• Effective teachers come in many shapes, sizes, and
temperaments.
• Their effectiveness arises from their individual
personalities and thinking, the beliefs they have about
teaching and learning, how they conceptualize their
work, and the ways in which they interact with
students.
• Teachers' personal beliefs and values provide the
foundation for their behavior.

• The images they use to describe their work shape the

world in which they and their students operate.
• Because teachers' mental models of "reality" are highly
individualistic, no two classrooms are, or can be, the
same.
2.4.Activity 2
1.What is your attitude towards teaching?
1,Very bad 2. Bad 3. Good 4.Very good
2. If it is bad or very bad what could be the
possible cause ? give priority (1the least cause
-5the most cause )
My self image about teaching is wrong
Low salary
Low recognition
High work load
Low confidence in my subject
2.5.A Taxonomy of Lower to Higher Order
Reflection
2.5.1.Bloom's Remembering: What did I do?
• Teacher Reflection: What was the lesson?
Did it address all the content? Was it
completed on time? How did students "score"
on the assessment?
2.5.2.Bloom's Understanding: What was
important about what I did? Did I meet my goals?
Teacher Reflection:
• Can I explain the major components of the
lesson?
• Do I understand how they connect with the
previous/next unit of study?
• Where does this unit fit into the curriculum?
• What instructional strategies were used?
• Did I follow best practices and address the
standards?
2.5.3.Bloom's Application: When did I do this
before? Where could I use this again?
Teacher Reflection:
• Did I build on content, product or process from
previous lessons?
• How does this lesson scaffold the learning for
the next lesson?
• How could I adapt the instructional approach to
another lesson?
• How could this lesson be modified for different
learners?
2.5.4.Bloom's Analysis: Do I see any patterns or
relationships in what I did?
• Teacher Reflection:
• What background knowledge and skills did I assume
students were bringing to the lesson?
• Were the instructional strategies I used the right ones for
this assignment?
• Do I see any patterns in how I approached the lesson - such
as pacing, grouping?
• Do I see patterns in my teaching style - for example do I
comment after every student reply?
• What were the results of the approach I used - was it
effective, or could I have eliminated or reorganized steps?
2.5.5.Bloom's Evaluation: How well did I do? What
worked? What do I need to improve?
Teacher Reflection:
• What are we learning and is it important?
•Were my assumptions about student background knowledge and
skills accurate?
•Were any elements of the lesson more effective than other
elements?
• Did some aspects need improvement?
• Were the needs of all learners met?
• What levels of mastery did students reach?
•What have I learned about my strengths and my areas in need of
improvement?
• How am I progressing as a teacher?
2.5.6.Bloom's Creation: What should I do next?
• What's my plan / design?
Teacher Reflection:
•How would I incorporate the best aspects of this lesson in
the future?
• What changes would I make to correct areas in need of
improvement?
• How can I best use my strengths to improve?
• What steps should I take or resources should I use to meet
my challenges?
• Is there training or networking that would help me to meet
my professional goals?
• What suggestions do I have for our leadership or my peers
to improve our learning environment?
2.6.Characteristics of a Reflective Teacher
• Examines his or her own reactions to students
• Is curious about student’s details activities
• Reads professional literature to learn more
• Does not continue in a course of action that he
has realized is not working.
• Analyzes his own lessons to see what worked and
what did not.
• Recognizes the inherent differences in his classes
• Seeks feedback from many sources, such as other
teachers, students, parents, and administrators.
2.7.Teacher as Life-long Learner
• New approaches to teacher learning must
develop in parallel to new conceptions of
schools and student learning.
• This model is guided by the following five
criteria
a. Personal Learning Plan
• Teachers should maintain a personal learning
plan to guide their professional growth.
• This plan should take into account the needs and
interests of the teacher and identify criteria for
success
b. Reliable Learning Context
• To develop teachers as life-long learners, the
context of their professional practice must be
seen as one in which learning occurs.
• In teachers’ learning: learning must be
relevant to the context in which the teacher is
serving and that learning should be active.
 C. Reflective and Collegial Dialogue
• Teachers should take the time to reflect on their
learning by answering the following kinds of questions.
What am I learning?
-Is this working?
-What should I change?
-What is the next step?
-How are students responding?
-How have I changed?
-How am I behaving differently?
-How is what I am doing impacting
me professionally and personally?
d. Ongoing Assessment
The assessment should:
• encourage improvement in teacher practice,
• inform necessary changes in students, and
• provide the input for the next step in the
learning process.
• assessment practices that yield helpful
formative and summative evaluation results.
e. System Supports
• Designing professional development is
impossible without the necessary supports
from the system in which the professional
development will take place.

• There are different types of supports from the

school system that are necessary to advance
the role of teacher as life-long learner.
Unit Three: The Notion of Reflective Teaching
3.1.Objectives
• Describe the process of reflective teaching
• Explain reflective teaching
• Differentiate between routine Action Vs
Reflective Teaching
3.2.The Process of Reflective Teaching
3.2.1. Gathering Information
1. Teacher diary
i. lesson-Did the students understand what we did in
the lesson?
ii. Activities and materials-Did the materials and
activities keep the students interested?
iii. Students-Were all the students on task (i.e. doing
what they were supposed to be doing)?
iv. Classroom management-Did activities last the
right length of time? Use whole class work, group
work, pair work or individual work?
2. Peer observation
3. Recording lessons
4. Student Feedback
B. What to do next
1. Think
2.Talk
3. Read
4. Ask
3.2.2. Reflective Teaching: Meaning
• looking at what you do in the classroom,
• thinking about why you do it, and
• thinking about if it works
• So, it is a process of self-observation and self-
evaluation as one conducts a lesson.
• By collecting information about what goes on
in our classroom, and by analyzing and
evaluating this information, we identify and
explore our own practices and underlying
beliefs.
3.2.3. Routine Action Vs Reflective Teaching
• Routine action is the one guided primarily by
traditional instruction and imitation which actions
amount to prejudices (prejudgments, not
judgments that rest upon a survey of evidence).

• Reflective teaching is, instead, based on active,

persistent, and careful consideration for the
purpose of solving an observed problem in a
given teaching learning process.
3.2.4. Effective strategies for fostering reflection
• Effective strategies for fostering reflection are
based on four core elements of reflection known
as “the 4C's” (Eyler and Giles 1999). These
elements are described below:
• Continuous- The reflective process
implemented and maintained continuously
before, during, and after the service-learning
experience.
• Challenging-Learners are challenged to move
from surface learning to deeper/critical thinking
through the use of thought provoking strategies
by the teacher or community facilitator.
Connected- The teaching learning experience is
directly linked, or connected, to the learning
objectives of the course or activity and allows
for “synthesizing action and thought.”

Contextualized- Reflection is contextualized

when it “corresponds” to the course content,
topics and experience in a meaningful way.
Unit Four፡ Action Research as a Strategy for
Reflection
4.1.Objectives
• Define the term action research
• Describe the nature of action research
• Describe action research procedure in
reflection
4.2. Action Research
• Action research is a process of uncovering/finding
solutions through progressive problem solving
activities by a practitioner or a group of
practitioners in a given work area like teachers or
lecturers engaged in their daily contact with
children or students.
• Action research is a practical way for individuals to
explore the nature of their practice and to improve
it.
• Action research encourages practitioners to become
knowledge-makers, rather than merely knowledge-
users.
4.3. Nature of Action Research
• Action research concerns actors – those people
carrying out their professional actions from day to
day activities - and its purpose is to understand and
to improve those actions.
• It is about trying to understand professional action
from the inside; as a result, it is research that is
carried out by practitioners on their own practice,
not (as in other forms of research), done by
someone on somebody else’s practice.
• Action research in education is grounded in the
working lives of teachers, as they experience them
(Stenhouse,1975).
• Action research is participatory or team work
in nature
• Action research is not scientifically as rigorous
as other modes of research.
• Action research is cycle of planning, action,
monitoring, and reflection
• Is relatively flexible
• Action research can thus be used to:
-understand one’s own practice;
-understand how to make one’s practice better;
-understand how to accommodate outside
change in one’s practice;
-understand how to change the outside in order
to make one’s practice better.
4.4. What can a teacher investigate through
action research?
• Action research can be used to investigate
practical, everyday issues:
• Action research investigates everyday problems
experienced by teachers (Elliott, 1981).
• All a teacher needs is a general idea that
something might be improved (Kemmis and
McTaggart , 1982).
• He/she experiences a problem when some of
his/her educational values are negated in
his/her practice (Whitehead, 1985).
4.5. Doing Action Research
4.5. 1.Starting points might be of the following kinds
(general areas of concern):
– I want to get better at my Biology/Geo/ English teaching
– I’m not sure why my students don’t engage in discussion
– I have to implement the speaking and listening guidelines, but
I’m not sure what is the best way…
– How can we make staff meetings more productive?….
– I’ve seen something working well in school X; I wonder if it
would work for me?…
– Is there anything we can do about our poor management of
students’ behavior?…
– How can I promote more use of computers in the lesson?…
– I wonder if I’m too focused on recording with my six year olds
4.5. 2. Focusing on a topic
Golden rules for selecting a topic
• Keep it manageable – keep the focus small scale.
• It should be interesting to you – you may need
some perseverance to see the inquiry through!
• It should be workable – you are not stumped for
ideas, but can identify ways in which you might
have a go at addressing your question.
• It is not too disruptive of normal routines.
(Important here to think not just of your own, but
others’ that your actions might affect).
4.5.3.inspection- Once you have mapped out the
general area of concern, you will need to focus
specifically on something you can do
something about.
4.5.4.Writing- writing a story about the situation
– stories are a reflexive statement, in which
you may express ambiguities and
contradictions (they will need analyzing – this
is best done in the presence of a critical
friends
4.5.5.A critical friend-It helps to talk over the
issue with a ‘critical friend’: someone who can
help you focus without giving you answers of
his her own.
• Ask for concrete experiences and examples to
help illustrate a problem.
• Don’t make critical remarks that will put
pressure on your colleague to defend
him/herself. The critical element in critical
friendship should lie in the action researcher,
not you!
4.5. 6. Planning what you will do
• Your inspection and your critical friend will
help you to focus on an issue.
• Once you have done this, you will need to plan
how you are going to carry out the inquiry.
• Can anyone provide the relevant
information/data for your inquiry?
• To whom or what do you need to access?
4.5. 7.Strategic action
• Once you have answered all these questions,
you will be in a position to decide on what
action you are going to take as a first stab at
tackling your concern.
• Don’t worry about this action – many people
feel concerned about getting their action right,
trying to solve their problem immediately.
4.5. 8.Monitoring
• This refers to anticipating how you will gather
information regarding the impact of your
action
• You should plan to use more than one means
of data gathering to ensure triangulation
• This can be difficult in a busy classroom, so be
realistic
4.5. 9.Choosing methods
• We have already identified that action researchers can
use any method of data gathering, as long as they
think it will give them useful and reliable evidence of
the impact of their action.
4.5. 10.Analysis
• Analysis in action research is the encourage to
reflection and the planning of new action.
• Analysis within action research is about possibilities,
not certainties.
• It is not about why things have to be as they are, but
rather what possibilities for change lie within a
situation.
4.6. Limitation and Criticism of Action Research
a. Lack of time-difficult to maintain rigor in
data gathering and critique.
b. Validity as research-Action research is
carried out by individuals who are interested
parties in the research.
• This fact has led to criticisms of the validity of
the research process, with accusations of
inevitable researcher bias in data gathering and
analysis.
c. Unfamiliarity with research methods
• Action researchers frequently explore what
may constitute adequate research methods at
the same time as they are researching their
practice.
d. Action research produces results are not
generalizable
• This is true, but someone else's ideas or
conclusions can always be tried out by other
persons in their own practice, to see if they
work for them
 References
Aggarwal, R.D. (1996). Principles, techniques and methods of
teaching. New Dalhi: Tata Mcgraw Hill Publishing Company
Ltd.
Borich, G(1988). Effective teaching methods. New York: Macmillan
Bloom, B. S. (1956).Taxonomy of educational objectives,
Handbook: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay
Co Inc.
Elliott, J. 2007. Reflecting Where the Action is: The Selected Works of
John Elliott. London, Routledge
Silberman, M.(1996). Active learning. New York: Asimon &
Schustter Company
Stenhouse, L. 1985. Research as a basis for teaching. In: J. Rudduck
and D. Hopkins (eds), Research as a Basis for Teaching:
Readings from the Work of Lawrence Stenhouse. Oxford,
Heinemann Educational Books, pp. 124–126