Reflective Practice

About Reflective Practice

In terms of teaching, reflective practice requires teachers to think about the lessons, activities, and assessments they give and their effectiveness. Teachers can then use their reflections to improve upon their teaching as a whole, whether it be the types of activities they give, how they deliver lessons, or the length of the assessments. These reflections can be done individually or with the assistance of other colleagues (i.e. having a co-worker observe your class and deliberate afterwards). Reflective practice is critical to teaching because it is a main strategy for teacher improvement and developing individual instructional skill-set.

How I Reflected on Teaching

Throughout my practicum at WRHS, I consistently asked my supervising practitioner for feedback on lessons and aspects of my teaching that I needed to work on. Especially in the beginning, I wanted feedback about the pacing of the lessons and the tones of my voice. I have the tendency to talk in a monotone voice and very quickly. As I suspected, when I first started, I spoke a little quickly and without a lot of emotion. I also discussed with my mentor different ways to give the material to the students after the first time I give a lesson (i.e. acronyms, graphic organizers, etc.). Each week, I would write reflections about a highlight and challenge of my week, a goal I have for the following week, and a self-evaluation about my goal from the previous week (Appendix H: Week 7 Self Reflection).

Another aspect of reflective teaching I completed during my practicum was giving my students a survey about various aspects of the class. I had the students give feedback on the pace of note taking, the types of notes, activities in class, and their own level of participation (see Adjustments to Practice).

CAP Student Survey

My CPA students also took the CAP Student Feedback Survey (Grades 6-12: Short Form) (Appendix I: CAP Student Survey). This had my students answer 20 questions on a four-point Likert scale (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree, and Strongly Agree). I analyzed each of the responses by class section as my different classes had different relationships with me at the time of the survey (some I had only taught for a week or two at the time). Since all the questions were based on a Likert Scale, I converted each answer option to a number (Strongly Disagree=0, Disagree=1, Agree=2, Strongly Agree=3). After converting each question response to a number, I was able to take averages for each question to easily see what aspects of my teaching I had the most room for improvement as well as where I was performing well.

There were two questions among all my classes where it was noticeable that I need improvement. These were Question 3, “Students push each other to do better in this class” and Question 7, “In this class, students review each other's work and provide each other with helpful advice on how to improve.” The responses can be seen in the graphs below. Looking back at my teaching before the students took the survey, I can understand why many of the students did not agree with these statements. Prior to giving this survey, I had not given the students a lot of group work. Due to these responses, I adjusted my lesson plans to incorporate more group work when possible. For example, during review for Unit 3, I added in the Unit 3 Project, where students worked in teams of 2-3 to present a review material to the class.

Similar to how there were questions which showed I needed improvement, there were two questions that showed that the classes thought I was performing well. The majority of the students answered “Strongly Agree” or “Agree” to Question 6, "In discussing my work, my teacher uses a positive tone even if my work needs improvement," and Question 11, "The material in this class is clearly taught." Both of these questions target aspects of my instruction that I made sure to focus on as soon as I started teaching. For students to be able to learn, I needed to ensure that I was clear in how I explained topics as well as how I outlined notes. I also knew that if I were positive, the students would be more likely to open up to me as a teacher. The responses to the two questions can be seen below.