Reflection
Striving for best practice in your classroom isn’t easy, but it can be made possible through self-observation and evaluation. Reflective teaching is at the heart of quality teaching and therefore student learning. Reflection enables teachers to revise their expectations and adapt to their students’ needs which, improves their overall effectiveness in the classroom. Regardless of where we begin as teachers. Reflection enables us to make continual improvements to our practice. If we ever feel that we have arrived as an educator, we never left the station. In fact, we missed the train altogether. You are only as good as your last lesson and reflection is key to keeping us at the top of our game.
Through reflection you can assimilate, make sense of and better understand your practice by verbalising, contemplating or writing down your thoughts about how the lesson / unit went. Then then helps you move on and learn from my previous experiences.
Repeating Happy Accidents
There is an abundance of good practice happing in classrooms and sports halls all over the country but they go relatively un-missed because we have little opportunity to reflect, share our ideas and observe them in practice. Without reflection these moments of best, good and next practice pass by as happy accidents without us really analysing why they were successful and therefore how we can replicate them in the future.
Some Questions to Prompt Reflection
To promote reflection I think about these questions / statements:
- What – what happened?
- So What – why did this happen?
- Now What – where do I go from here?
Related Resource
The following resource could be used help you embed reflection into your practice, by planning and then reflecting on how your lesson went. This can then be used to inform future practice.
Reflective practice is key to becoming a better, more informed and contemporary educator that is able to respond to learners needs and the ever-changing environment whilst utilising previous experience.
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