Week 17/ My Reflective Practice

Week 17: My Reflective practice

I’m using Jay and Johnson’s 2002 reflective model to structure my reflective entry.

Descriptive:

“Reflection is the deliberate, purposeful, metacognitive thinking and/or action in which educators engage in order to improve their professional practice. (https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/59229_Sellars.pd)

Reflection is a vital part of my journey as a practitioner mainly because it assists me with thinking critically about my actions and the process I go through when working with students and teachers as well as whanau/parents of my team. The process of self-reflection that I use isn’t a pre-design or prescribe model but mainly self-reflecting in my head or sometimes recording in my log-book what my thoughts and feelings are with suggestions and ideas for future growth. Reflection helps me think back to my practice and trying to understand the process I have used, the success or disappointments and maybe consequences for my actions. As (Boud et al 1985; Boyd and Fales, 1983; Mezirow, 1981, Jarvis, 1992) stated that reflective practice is the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice.

I self-reflect a lot more especially when something really has an impact on my mind…I think of what I did, how it was received (whether by students or teachers/colleagues) and what I should have done differently. Self-Reflection is part of our appraisal process as well as theTeaching as Inquiry process, I frequently think of reasons why I do things the way I do and the changes that need to be done if I need to improve my practice. At the end of the day, I don’t just self-reflect for my growth but for the sake of children I am responsible for at school. They are our main stakeholders, their success depends on our performance. I have to say that if self-regulation is regular, there would be growth in the mindset and eagerness to receive new changes.

Comparative:

In the past I usually reflected on how I felt things have turned out in our team overlooking others’ perspectives, but Mindlab has helped build a strong relationship with teachers and leaders within our team hence why we are comfortable to share and critique the way we do things in our team. When reflecting about the day, I also take into consideration suggestions and ideas from the teachers in my team especially my buddy leaders to modify and improve the way we run our team meetings and the day to day management of the whole unit. I also take into considerations others’ recommendations and weighing up the effectiveness if changes have to be made. According to Dr. Netolicky (2017) “leadership is valuing relationships, believe in the capacities of those I lead, and willingness to listen equally to enthusiastic perspectives and dissenting voices”.

Looking at Gibbs model of reflection I realised that I am better at “describing what happened”, “my feelings and my reactions to an experience” and “evaluation of what happened”; but I do require to improve on the other parts of the cycle in order to self-reflect effectively.

Sometimes in the past when I received feedback about my practice I tend to react well to positive comments and not so much on the negatives….but in order to grow, it is necessary to accept others’ views on an issue with an open mind. Dr. Dweck explains that a growth mindset leads to a focus on learning, increased effort and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

Moving forward in my reflective practive, it is necessary to record my self-reflections consistently in my log-book and be part of an online community to ensure support and critical feedback is provided to improve my self-reflection. Not only that but I must be informed by reading more researches online and share findings with teachers in my team especially my team leaders. Dweck stated that “Done well and effectively, reflective practice can be an enormously powerful tool to examine and transform practice”.

Critical reflection:

Reflecting critically on my practice and having open dialogues with other colleagues will definitely improve the day to day running of our team and establish a positive relationships within other teachers, as (Larrivee, 2000, p.293 in Finlay 2008) stated, “Unless teachers develop the practice of critical reflection, they stay trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions and expectations. Approaching teaching as a reflective practitioner involves fusing personal beliefs and values into a professional identity” . On the other hand, my own self-reflection skills will be vastly improved and greatly advanced for the benefit of the people I work with especially our students.

Reflection is a healthy aspect of our career, which can assist the positive growth of the mind as well as our practice. It is not just filling in surveys and questionnaires but it’s also about conveying feelings and thinking for improved practice and healthy relationship. As Dr. Netolicky said “Sometimes leading means holding the line or being calm in the eye of a storm. It often means giving others what they need based simultaneously on a balcony view of the macro picture, and an intimate understanding of the individual.”

As I mentioned above, I will read a lot more and relate the information from researches into my practice to enhance and develop my understanding of critical reflection to make me a better practitioner and improve engagment with teachers, students and our parents/whanau.

Reference:

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., What is Growth mindset? from https://www.mindsetworks.com/

Dockterman D, Blackwell L. (2014) Growth Mindset in Context: Content and Culture Matter Too.

Dr. Netolicky, M. Deborah (2017) “What does it mean to be a leader?”

Findlay, L. (2008) Reflecting on Reflective practice. Practice-Based Professional Learning Centre.

A discussion paper prepared for PBPL CETL (www.open.ac.uk/pbpl. January 2008