The end of the semester is a great opportunity to reflect on teaching. In Engaged Teaching: A Handbook for College Faculty, Elizabeth Barkley and Claire Howell Major put forth a framework for critical reflection as it relates to the practice of teaching:
The 6 Rs to Enhanced Reflection
- Reacting
- How will I decide what area of my practice I need to focus on?
- Will this be decided by looking at data, each learner’s performance or an aspect of the curriculum?
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Recording (logging your reflections)
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How will I record this?
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How will I assess my performance?
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Will this take the form of an observation, discussion or shared planning?
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Will this be recorded by yourself, a peer or a student?
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How will I log this?
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What documents will you use to record your reflections? For example, a journal, notebook or form provided by your school or institution.
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When will I log this?
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Will your reflections be logged straight after the lesson, during or before the lesson?
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How often will you record these reflections?
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Reviewing (understanding your current teaching methods)
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What worked well and how do I know this?
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Consider what the students really understood and enjoyed about the lesson, and why. How do you know improvements have been made
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What did not work as planned?
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Consider what the students did not get involved with or find challenging, and why.
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What could I try next time? How could you adapt the activity? Some practical ideas include introducing a different task, clearer instructions, time-based activities and activities which appeal to different learning styles.
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Revising (adapting your teaching by trying new strategies)
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What will I change or adapt? This could be a whole task or something specific about a task. Some practical ideas include changing the task from independent work to paired work, adding a scaffold to a challenging task, providing instructions step by step, and making activities time based.
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Reworking (action plan of how you can put these ideas in place in a practical way)
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How will I put this in place? Consider what will you need to do before and during the lesson to make sure your changes happen. What will the students be doing differently to make sure they make progress?
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What materials do I need?
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What things will you need to put your revised ideas into practice? Some practical examples include colored pens, larger paper, handouts, cut-up activities, specialized equipment.
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Reassessing (understanding how these new strategies affected learning)
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How successful were the new strategies? Once you have redelivered the lesson, consider how engaged the students were. How well did they understand this time?
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What changed? Consider the following areas of potential change: delivery, planning and assessment.
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Barkley suggests that when recording these reflections, to consider engaging in 5-10 minutes of freewriting that doesn’t focus on a specific class session or module, but rather a teaching experience or moment to write about in full sentences and paragraphs. Write without self-censoring or editing. In this process, she believes, will inspire you to identify some ideas and/or beliefs for further exploration and consideration. (Chapter 13: pgs. 247-248).
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