Descriptive
What is happening?
Over the past few years I have become a reflective practitioner. The two main reason why I have developed this skill, is because I was involved in two important initiatives at my previous school which would lead to school wide change. The first initiative was running a collaborative classroom (team teaching) and the other initiative was creating a digital classroom with 1:1 devices. Because I was leading these initiatives it was important to reflect on what was working, what wasn’t working and what we need to do to make it successful. I found that putting some of these reflections on a blog was very useful.
The majority of my reflection was introspective thinking, but due to the nature of the initiatives there was also Intersubjective reflection, especially when team teaching. I find that real time reflection when team teaching was very effective, whether that be teacher to teacher or teacher to student. I find collecting student voice as powerful tool and use this in my reflection.
I feel that currently I mainly use reflection-on-action rather reflection–in-action, but I am much more comfortable not at reflection in action.
Is this working and for whom?
In my previous role this was working well for me, but also for the others involved in the initiatives. I have found that in my new role I am less reflective and my blog has been dormant for a while now.
If I am wanting to implement change in my current position then it is important that I get back to being a reflective practitioner.
How am I feeling?
I was happy about my reflective practise, but after this task it has made me realise that I may have lost my way in this area. I need to get back to being more proactive in this area. By recording my ideas it makes me think about what it is I am trying to achieve, what worked, what didn’t and what are my next steps.
What do I not understand?
When do I have the time? How can I manage this to make it sustainable? What comes off the pile for this to go on the pile and stay there?
Comparative
How do other people involved or indirectly involved describe what is happening?
Zeichner and Liston’s Five Levels of Reflection survey tells me that I use the following levels of reflection;
- Rapid reflection
- Repair
- Review
- Retheorizing and reformulating
Brookfield (1995) tells me that I use both the ‘Dance and Stance’ characteristics in critical reflection.
Quinn (1988, 2000) tells me that I use
- retrospection
- self-evaluation
How does research contribute to an understanding of this matter?
I have never done any research about reflective practices before, so what it does do is paints a picture of how I reflect. I also think that there are so many different theories that one could get consumed by all of the different theories and become confused or overwhelmed. At the end of the day if you are reflecting it is better that not.
How can I improve what is not working?
I need to find one model that I am comfortable at using and that makes sense to my context. I need to get back to blogging more and make sure that the right people are seeing my reflections so they are able to contribute to them.
Critical Reflection
What are the implications of the matter when viewed from these alternative perspectives?
The implications from this reflection is that now I am no longer team teaching and in a non contact management role, I have lost the person who I spent a lot of time reflecting with on a day to day bases. It is important that I connect or reconnect with a professional partner to get back to being a reflective practitioner.
How does this reflective process inform and renew my perspective?
This has been a good wake up call for me and renewed the importance of being a reflective practitioner. For me in my new role this is really important if I want to be an effective leader of change. By sharing my reflections it gives others the opportunity to give their perspective about any of the issues or problems that I have come across, which could help solve these. By sharing my reflections it may also help others who are faced with similar challenges.
Kia Ora Simon,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your blog. How exciting albeit a bit daunting to have been a leader of two huge initiatives what a challenging and rewarding time it must have been!
Thank you also for your honest approach in explaining your reflective style and having ,the courage to share what we all know, which is that blogging can be very dependent on our situation and the time available. I grapple with the sustainability of blogging which is a new forum for me.
I thought you made a worthwhile point about their being so many different theories and once could become overwhelmed by it so perhaps look for the one that best fits.
Your comment about making sure the right people see your blog is an interesting area for many of us who perhaps feel a bit frightened of how others might react to our reflective comments. Perhaps this is just an initial feeling of someone new to the blogger community? I hope there is a “reflection partner” for you to find in your work environment or perhaps within a wider COL.
Nga mihi
Carol