My Reflective Practice - CUTL 5001

Reflective practice is a synthesis of reflection, self-awareness and critical thinking (Eby, 2000). As an educator, essential elements in my practice have included ‘reflection for action’, ‘reflection in action’ and ‘reflection on action’ (Grushka, Hinde-McLeod and Reynolds, 2005). To this end, my style of Instruction, Student Engagement and plans for Improvement in Future teaching and Learning are essential components for reflection.

The interconnectedness of my teaching style, instructional activities, and lesson plan alignment, is critical to my teaching philosophy for student-centred learning. Although the course ‘Introduction to Probability and Statistics’ is based heavily on quantitative theory and mathematical concepts, I have successfully integrated elements of ‘story telling’ of What? Why? How? where students can see the seamless flow of ideas to understand the topic Sampling Distributions.

In this lecture, my teaching style incorporated a collaborative approach with the students. The interplay between instructor and students, and among students and their peers, especially in this course, assists in the contextualisation of the concepts to a greater degree. In essence, the students unknowingly teach themselves through critical analysis and reflection. As the educator, I act as the central guide, motivating them toward the main ideas through gentle, but effective, mentorship.

As such, instructional activities for teaching and learning were carefully chosen for this topic. Based on my experience and reflection on past cohorts, the topic ‘Sampling distributions’ is easier to demonstrate using a visual aid, such as a short video, chosen based on its engaging and digestible format. This critical reflection and awareness made the alignment of the instruction with the lesson plan and the main learning outcomes (LOs) an easier process.

The brainstorming approach to the lecture allowed for more refined connections of discussion points to connect to the key overall LOs. These included the ability to distinguish between key concepts in sampling distributions, evaluate related statistics, apply the Central Limit Theorem, and examine real-world scenarios. In the context of the overall UWI learner, I believe that the latter is of utmost importance.

One student mentioned the phrase ‘This may be a silly question but…’ and I was happy to correct her notion, emphasising that no question is ever silly within my Lecture. I believe this comfort level allowed the students to be more relaxed and open to learn without fear of judgement. This is a central point of who I am as an educator, and as a person. Assessment and participatory activities, such as the group collaboration with individual presentation components, allowed students to engage in a harmonious way with the material to improve their overall learning process.

While these activities were essential for understanding the topic, I must acknowledge that the variety of content used would need to be adjusted for the allotted time frame for the lecture. In this regard, although the students were not able to complete their post assessment activity example activity, my flexibility in my approach to foresee that limitation regarding time, allowed me to include the solution, with explanation. I also motivate my students to attempt questions prior to the post assessment tutorial sessions, which complements the lectures.

Student engagement was assessed through verbal responses, the classroom climate and the overall teaching and learning approach. For the one-hour time span allotted, my time management skills were put to the test to ensure that the LOs were adequately discussed while enhancing the learning aspects for the students. The overall classroom climate felt more relaxed and one of the insights provided by a student in the takeaway session addressed how this session allowed him to understand the concept more than he believed he did previously.

Overall, the lecture was successful, and the dimension of student learning was enhanced, as well as my self-awareness capabilities. Future teaching and learning will incorporative more reflective strategies such as weekly journaling strengths and weaknesses of the course and student competencies. I have found peer feedback from fellow educators to be useful and will continue this practice. The CUTL 5001 – Teaching and Learning: Theory-Practice course has improved my confidence greatly. I have enjoyed learning the background theories to support new means of enhancing and reformulating the classroom experience.

See my DISC 1011 - Course Outline and Assessment Plan 

References:

Eby, M.A. (2000) Understanding professional development. In A. Brechin, H. Brown and M.A. Eby(eds.) Critical practice in health and social care. London: Sage.

Grushka, K., Hinde-McLeod, J. and Reynolds, R. (2005) Reflecting upon reflection: theory and practice in one Australian university teacher education program. Reflective Practice, 6(1), 239-246.

Liu, XY., Lu, C., Zhu, H. et al. (2022). Assessment of the effectiveness of BOPPPS-based hybrid teaching model in physiology education. BMC Medical  Education, 22, 217. Retrieved from  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03269-y