Reflective Evaluation on Preparing to Teach Essay

Reflective practice is the process of thinking about and critically analysing your actions with the goal of changing and improving occupational practice.

Reflective practice is the process that enables individuals to achieve better understanding of themselves, their understanding, their skills, competencies and their workplace practices in general.

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

Ans. Reflective practice is a way of learning from own experience to improve the way we work.

Reflective practice is an essential means of developing basic skills and knowledge into expert skills and knowledge.

This is really important when working with children . Reflective practice means you need to think about and evaluate what you do and discuss any changes which could be made . This could have a considerable impact on the child and their learning .

Reflective practice is a self-analysis tool, by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness about the nature and impact of their performance, an awareness that creates opportunities for professional growth and development (Kottkamp & Osterman, 1993). Reflective practice allows professionals to assess their performance, make sense of what happened and learn from mistakes and experiences in order to develop, improve and adapt. (Cropley, et al., 2012).

Reflective practice engages practitioners in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation in order to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). Reflective practice is considered as an evolving concept which views learning as “an active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.” (Reid, B 1993 cited in Garfat, T. 2005).

Reflective practice is when you think about the work you have done and how well it went,

Within different disciplines, what is understood by reflective practice varies considerably (Fook et al, 2006). Despite this, some agreement has been achieved. In general, reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice (Boud et al 1985;

Kolb (1984) suggested that reflection plays a key role in transforming experience into knowledge. It has been suggested that reflection is a fundamental process for learning as a development; rather than merely the ability to retain information (Reynolds, 1998). Schon (1983) suggested critical reflection as a strategy for developing from practice to solve complicated or difficult situations, that require problem solving and a degree of “artistry” Schon (1983). Schon (1983) was one of the first theorists to look at reflection in terms of reflective practice. Moon (1999) defines reflective practice as "a set of abilities and skills, to indicate the taking of a critical stance, an orientation to problem solving or state of mind." Essentially, this is a readiness to continuously analysis and review practice.

In this essay, I aim to only discuss what I have been taught and to see how I have assimilated ‘professional jargon' terms and the range of teaching tools into my consciousness; to see how I can address different styles of

“Be a reflective teacher. Honestly look at what you do from time to time. Evaluate the purpose of your role as a teacher.” (Robert John Meenham, 2011)

Schon (1983), identifies two types of reflection; reflection-on-action (after-the-event thinking) and reflection-in-action (thinking while doing). This clearly distinguishes that reflection can occur whilst the action is carried out as it can still benefit the situation rather than reflecting on how things will be done differently for next time. This tool can be effective as it will allow the professional to assess

There is no one size fits all teaching strategy for all students. Therefore teachers must use a variety of teaching strategies to cater for a variety of different learners (Gill, 2013). It is important for teachers to regularly evaluate their practices and whether they are meeting the learning needs of all students (Zeichner & Liston, 1987). Self-evaluation can assist teachers to improve the educational experiences provided for students and assist in identifying the professional education you need to further develop your capacity to teach well (Schwartz, n.d.). As a future teacher developing learning programs, teaching, assessing, providing feedback on student learning and reporting to parents/carers are skills I must be proficient in.