Reflective Practice

Reflecting forward: Navigating teaching insights. 

Rachel Goodliffe and Natal­ie Ward (Fac­ul­ty Con­sul­tants – Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing Inno­va­tion). 

In the dynam­ic land­scape of post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion, the sig­nif­i­cance of reflec­tive prac­tice in fos­ter­ing pro­fes­sion­al growth and enhanc­ing teach­ing and learn­ing expe­ri­ences can­not be over­stat­ed. Crit­i­cal reflec­tive prac­tice can pro­mote a cul­ture that keeps qual­i­ty stu­dent learn­ing at the fore­front of teach­ing and learn­ing. 

What is reflective teaching practice?  

Reflec­tive prac­tice in post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion refers to an ongo­ing cycli­cal  process where edu­ca­tors crit­i­cal­ly scru­ti­nize their teach­ing prac­tice. This process involves thought, time, and a desire to enhance qual­i­ty stu­dent learn­ing. Reflec­tion is a process that helps us to make mean­ing of a sit­u­a­tion or event and sup­ports instruc­tors to grow and deep­en their under­stand­ing of them­selves and their teach­ing approach­es.  

Why reflect on your teaching?  

It is easy to become stuck in a rut when teach­ing, there­fore inte­grat­ing reflec­tion as part of your teach­ing prac­tice can help avoid this from hap­pen­ing. Being reflec­tive iden­ti­fies aspects of your teach­ing that may require devel­op­ment or improve­ment. Reflec­tion may also high­light areas of strength. When instruc­tors reflect on their work and adjust teach­ing prac­tices, it can be encour­ag­ing and moti­vat­ing not only for them­selves, but also for their stu­dents. Reflec­tive prac­tice is a con­tin­u­ous learn­ing process and func­tions as a “gyro­scope,” assist­ing instruc­tors in main­tain­ing equi­lib­ri­um in a chang­ing envi­ron­ment (Brook­field, 2017, p. 81).  

Reflection frameworks 

There are numer­ous mod­els to help apply reflec­tion to your teach­ing prac­tice. Four mod­els are high­light­ed here:  

Brookfield
  • Self-Lens: Instruc­tors may focus on their teach­ing expe­ri­ences to reveal aspects of their ped­a­gogy that may need adjust­ment or strength­en­ing. Teach­ing philoso­phies and port­fo­lios can be exam­ples of this lens.
  • Stu­dent Lens: Engag­ing with stu­dent views of the learn­ing envi­ron­ment can lead to more respon­sive teach­ing. Eval­u­a­tions, assess­ments, jour­nals, focus groups and/or inter­views can each pro­vide cues to improve teach­ing and learn­ing.
  • Peer Lens: Peers can high­light hid­den habits in teach­ing prac­tice and pro­vide inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to teach­ing prob­lems. Peer obser­va­tion is an exam­ple for this lens.
  • Lit­er­a­ture Lens (the the­o­ret­i­cal lit­er­a­ture): Teach­ing the­o­ry pro­vides the vocab­u­lary for teach­ing prac­tice and offers dif­fer­ent ways to view and under­stand your teach­ing. Here you’ll find ways to uti­lize schol­ar­ly lit­er­a­ture in your teach­ing and crit­i­cal reflec­tion. 
Borton

Although the mod­el has been around for some time, it remains a user-friend­ly option that enables edu­ca­tors to engage in reflec­tion using sim­ple and acces­si­ble lan­guage.

Ques­tions that may be con­sid­ered include:

What – What hap­pened?  

  • What does reflec­tive prac­tice mean to you?  
  • How do you engage in reflec­tive prac­tice?   

So What? – Mak­ing sense.  

  • Why is reflec­tive prac­tice encour­aged in Post Sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion?  
  • What are the ben­e­fits?   

Now What? – Future – next steps. 

  • Are there ways that you can incor­po­rate reflec­tion into your prac­tice in a mean­ing­ful way?   
  • Ideas for the future – peer obser­va­tion, jour­nal­ing.   
GIBBS

This mod­el has been adapt­ed from Wild­ing, 2008 and shares a cycli­cal approach to reflect­ing on learn­ing.

Step 1: Descrip­tion: Describe the sit­u­a­tion

  • What hap­pened?
  • Who was there?
  • What did you do?

Step 2: Feel­ings: Describe thoughts and feel­ings

  • What did you feel while the sit­u­a­tion took place?
  • What did you feel after the sit­u­a­tion?
  • What do you think about the sit­u­a­tion now?

Step 3: Eval­u­a­tion:

  • What was pos­i­tive about this sit­u­a­tion?
  • What was neg­a­tive?
  • What went well?
  • What didn’t go so well?

Step 4: Analy­sis:

  • Why did things go well? Bad­ly?
  • Could I have respond­ed in a dif­fer­ent way?
  • What might have helped or improved things?

Step 5: Con­clu­sion:

  • What did I learn?
  • What would you do dif­fer­ent­ly next time?
  • What can I now do bet­ter?

Step 6: Action Plan:

  • Sum up any­thing you need to know and do to improve for the next time – next steps!
INDigenous Reflection

In short, reflec­tion is an Indige­nous prac­tice involv­ing bal­ance, wis­dom, and well­ness. There’s no right way to prac­tice Indige­nous reflec­tion. Process­es that allow the mind and spir­it to under­stand ideas, thoughts, and deci­sions will look dif­fer­ent for every­one. Reflec­tion doesn’t take much time to prac­tice; even 5–10 min­utes every so often or as a recur­ring part of your dai­ly rou­tine will suf­fice. Mak­ing reg­u­lar time for reflec­tion is just as impor­tant as find­ing a reflec­tion prac­tice that works for you. Remov­ing your­self from a work­space to reflect is a good start. To con­tin­ue mak­ing reflec­tion a habit, con­sid­er try­ing these strate­gies:

  • Smudg­ing
  • Prayer
  • Singing or drum­ming
  • Cer­e­mo­ny
  • Call­ing an elder or knowl­edge keep­er
  • Mov­ing your body
  • Lis­ten­ing to music
  • Paint­ing, draw­ing, craft­ing
  • Writ­ing or jour­nal­ing
References
  • Bor­ton, T. (1970). Reach, touch and teach. Hutchin­son.
  • Brook­field, S. (2017). Becom­ing a Crit­i­cal­ly Reflec­tive Teacher, 2nd ed. San Fran­cis­co: Jossey Bass.
  • Gibbs, G. (1988). Learn­ing by doing: a guide to teach­ing and learn­ing meth­ods. Oxford: Fur­ther Edu­ca­tion Unit.
  • https://nativegov.org/news/reflection-a-tool-for-indigenizing-the-future/
  • Wild­ing, M.P. (2008). Reflec­tive Prac­tice: A learn­ing tool for stu­dent nurs­es. British Jour­nal of Nurs­ing, 17(11), 720 – 724.