Reflecting on teaching encompasses the teacher’s thinking that follows any instructional event, an analysis of the many decisions made in both the planning and the implementation of a lesson. By considering these elements in light of the impact they had on student learning, teachers can determine where to focus their efforts in making revisions and choose which aspects of the instruction they will continue in future lessons. Teachers may reflect on their practice through collegial conversations, journal writing, examining student work, conversations with students, or simply thinking about their teaching. Reflecting with accuracy and specificity, as well as being able to use in future teaching what has been learned, is an acquired skill; mentors, coaches, and supervisors can help teachers acquire and develop the skill of reflecting on teaching through supportive and deep questioning. Over time, this way of thinking both reflectively and selfcritically and of analyzing instruction through the lens of student learning—whether excellent, adequate, or inadequate—becomes a habit of mind, leading to improvement in teaching and learning.
Danielson, C. 2013
Attached is an analysis of a video recording of my teaching in the classroom. The analysis was broken up into 6 different steps to explicitly structure and reflect on individual components of the lesson. Step 2 and 3 provided an opportunity to filter out information or practices that were insufficient to improve my students learning. Steps 4 - 5 consist of reasoning behind student behavior and creating purposeful connections to the Danielson framework. The last step is the most crucial and important step in this analysis, in its focus to make a change. Each meaningful observation in the video is outlined and highlighted through each of these steps. This analysis provided myself as a future educator to engage in meaningful reflection on how my actions affect my students.
This reflection is an example where my mentor teacher and instructor provided feedback to review and self reflect. My instructor provided a self-reflection template to outline questions to ask myself about the lesson and how I can plan for the future. Each outlined question provides an opportunity to reflect on the positives, plan for change, consider my mentors advice and help students engage in deeper thinking. In the third question, I specifically shared that my instructor noticed a need to implement better classroom management. Through this step of self reflection, I shared the need for change as well as a course of action on how I would teach that principle better in the future.