Teachers as Reflective Practitioners

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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1. Module Rationale

To increase the quality of education as a whole and the teaching and learning process as a part, the
components of teacher education training program in Ethiopia has been changed time to time to address
the current needs of the country. To this effect, the newly teacher education training program has
started to play a great role in equipping and producing teacher with necessary and timely skills. Teacher
as reflective practitioner is one of the courses delivered in this program. The main purpose of this
course is to create awareness and understanding in trainees about the basic concepts of reflection and
the effect of its practice in teaching and learning process. As a result, teachers are believed to be
responsible of their professional growth as well as their students’ learning progress. In short, the
program prepares the trainee to become a better reflective teacher.

Therefore, this module particularly gives the candidates the opportunity to examine the educational
theories behind the application of reflective thinking and action to teaching and to exercise it during the
block of time allotted to the course. Among the core contents of the course are the meaning and nature
of reflection (reflective thinking, reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action); reflective
thinking/action versus technical rationality; traditional of reflective practices; levels of reflective
practice; reflective teaching; the reflective teacher and strategies of reflective teaching in secondary
schools. Action research, as one of the tools of reflection, will be one major part of the course.

In this module, the main role of the teacher is to facilitate the class discussion .He/she will design
activities, cases and etc to provoke students’ hot participation. On another hand, students are expected
to come to class regularly and participate actively. The facilitator use different active learning methods
that are appropriate for each of his/her lesson. Besides, various types of assessment will take place,
with more emphasis on the formative one. That is, self/peer assessment of students and continues
assessment prepared by the teacher will take the 70% of the total. These kinds of assessment help a
teacher to see the progress of students learning over a period of time. The rest will be covered by
summative assessment.

2. Learning Outcomes of the Module


At the accomplishment of this module the trainees:

 Have developed the knowledge, values and skills require for reflection, reflective thinking and
practice

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 Have started to aware the issues of teaching

 Be familiar with the basic idea of teachers’ thinking , learning and roles

 Develop the capacity and competence for evidence-informed teaching

 Be disposed towards inquiry in teaching

 Develop the skills required for lifelong learning as professional

 Have characterized the best qualities of teacher as a reflective practitioner

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Contents
UNIT 1 ......................................................................................................................................................... 1

REFLECTIVE THINKING AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICE ............................................................ 1

Section 1- Definitions and Nature of reflection ........................................................................................ 1

1.1 Nature of reflection ............................................................................................................................. 3

Section 2. Process of reflection ................................................................................................................. 5

Section 3. Reflection as thinking process ................................................................................................. 7

Section 4. Reflective thinking and reflective practice .............................................................................. 9

4.1. Reflective thinking ............................................................................................................................. 9

4.2. Reflective practice ........................................................................................................................... 12

Section 5. Levels and traditions of reflection practice ............................................................................ 13

5.1. Levels of reflection practice ............................................................................................................. 14

5.2. Tradition of reflection practice ........................................................................................................ 18

Section 6. Benefits and issues of reflection ............................................................................................ 19

6.1 The rationale for reflection ............................................................................................................... 20

6.2. Benefits of Reflection ...................................................................................................................... 20

6.3. Issues of reflection ........................................................................................................................... 22

Section 7. Reflection vs. Technical rationality ....................................................................................... 23

UNIT 2 ....................................................................................................................................................... 28

TEACHING AND REFLECTION .......................................................................................................... 28

Section [Link] nature of teaching, complexity, dilemma ......................................................................... 29

1.1 Nature of teaching complexity .......................................................................................................... 29

1.2 Nature of teaching dilemma .............................................................................................................. 33

Section Two: The Professionalism Of Teaching: Teacher Thinking, Creativity And Teacher Learning35

Section Three: The role of teachers in the society .................................................................................. 39

Section Four: Relationships in teaching: How are we getting on together? ........................................... 40

Section Five. Teaching, change in society and reflection ....................................................................... 44

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 Section Six .Professional identity: knowing oneself as a teacher ........................................................... 45

[Link] of teacher disposition ............................................................................................................. 45

Section Seven. Teachers as lifelong learners .......................................................................................... 47

UNIT THREE: THE NOTION OF REFLECTIVE TEACHING ....................................................... 51

Section One: Meaning of Reflective Teaching ....................................................................................... 51

Section Two: Routine Action Vs Reflection Action ............................................................................... 53

Section Three: Becoming a Reflective Teacher ..................................................................................... 54

Section Four: Strategies/ Opportunities for Reflection ........................................................................... 58

Section Five: Evidence and Teacher Judgment ..................................................................................... 61

Section Six: The evidence –informed Class Room ................................................................................. 64

UNIT FOUR: ACTION RESEARCH AS A STRATEGY FOR REFLECTION ............................... 75

4.1 What is Action Research? ................................................................................................................. 75

4.2 Action Research Project .................................................................................................................... 81

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Icons Used

Dear Learner: the following icons are used throughout this module. Critically study what each icon represents
before using the module

This tells you there is an introduction to the module, unit and section.

 This tells you there is a question to answer or think about in the text.

This tells you there is an activity to do.

This tells you to note and remember an important point.

This tells you there is a self-test for you to do

This tells you there is a checklist of the main points

This tells you there is written assignment

This tells you that these are the answers to the activities and self-test
questions.

 This tells you that there are learning outcomes to the Module or Unit

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 UNIT 1

REFLECTIVE THINKING AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

INTRODUCTION

The unit gives the basic introduction about the concept and related terms of reflection. It covers varies
subtopics that are used as a spring board for the next chapters. It discusses reflection and its nature;
reflective thinking and practice; the different types of reflection; the benefits and issues of reflection. In
the every subtopic, activities are designed in order to develop students ‘ability of reflection. Besides,
teacher roles are explicitly written to assist students towards the intended lesson outcomes.

UNIT LEARNING OUTCOMES

 Upon completion of this unit the candidates will be able to:

 Define reflective thinking and reflective practice
 Learn by reflecting in/on their action,
 Identify the various types of reflection,
 Describe the rationale for and the benefits of reflection
 Identify essential qualities of a reflective practitioner
 Compare and contrast reflection and technical rationality.

Section 1- Definitions and Nature of reflection

Lesson learning outcome:

At the end of this session, students will able to: 

 Define reflection
 Identify the different nature of reflection

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 Considering the definitions given above, what common things you can draw out?

1.1. What is ‘reflection’ mean to you?

Facilitator role: use pyramiding method? (make them define ‘reflection’ first individually, then in pair,
then make two pairs together, last joining the 2 pairs to another two pairs, and the last formed group
will present their agreed upon definition).Give 20 minute for the activity and write what they define on
the black/white board. There is no right and wrong answer of students. Then provide them the scholarly
definitions below.

Its derivation is the Latin refectere, meaning “to bend back.” It has applications in grammar, physics,
and psychology.

Grammatically, a pronoun is reflexive if it used as an object to refer to the subject of a verb, as in “I

prepared myself for the journey.”

In physics, reflection is the return of light, heat, or sound after striking a surface.

In psychological terms, reflection refers to a mental image or representation.

The original Latin meaning of “bending back” is apparent in each of these cases.

Consider a metaphor of “reflection.” Think about looking at your reflection in a mirror and you’ll get
your image shown back to you.

The various definitions of reflection by scholars:

 Reflection involves “a state of doubt, hesitation, perplexity, or mental difficulty, in which

thinking originates.” It is “an active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or
supposed form of knowledge” (Dewey, 1933).

 Reflection means thinking about what one is doing. It entails a process of contemplation with
openness to being changed, a willingness to learn, and a sense of responsibility for doing one’s
best. ( Jay, 2003)

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  Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think
about it, mull over & evaluate it. It is working with experience that is important in learning’
(Boud & Walker, 1985).

 ‘We learn through critical reflection by putting ourselves into the experience & exploring
personal & theoretical knowledge to understand it & view it in different ways (Tate and Sills,
2004).

Reflection means in short

• Looking back on experience and making decisions about how to improve the practice for the
future

• is the bridge between thinking and acting

1.2 Nature of reflection



Aby is a new teacher who is assigned in rural high school. She is an English teacher .she is always thinks
back about every class lesson she had. She simply writes on her journal about every activity of her students
as well as herself. She thinks about her experience as high school students learning an English lesson. She
liked her 9th grade English teacher because all the session was fun. There is less control of the teacher,
discussion, debates, essay writing were the popular methods he used. That was the year she thought she
learned the language as her own best. Wherever she thinks about that she is happy. Therefore she uses these
methods frequently in her session. When she sees her students’ gradual progress, she feels successful.

 Identify the tree more important actions Aby did

 Do you think the three actions help her to be successful? If yes /no how?

Case 2.

Ayele is a teacher in primary school. After each of his class, he evaluates his and his students’ actual
activities against his lesson plan to know whether he achieved them or not.

1. Which of level of reflection Ayele has practice? Why?

Facilitator: Use group discussion (let them do the activity in group).Then they reflect back to the whole
class. Give them 10 minutes.

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In this module, three types of nature of reflection are addressed.

Returning to experience

It refers to recollection / recalling of memory situations, events and activities that happened in the past.
 Description of what you did or plan to do (and why)
 Description of how you approached something or how it worked and how it did not.
Connections

Reflective connections are the most frequent source of influence on teachers’ practical decision
making. In these moments of reflection, teachers connect a particular aspect of their teaching
experience with plans for instruction, moving from experience to reflection to action. The teacher may
back to his/her experience as student and ask questions to connect his past experience to his/her
presence .For instance:

 How do I want to be learned in high school the same subject I am teaching?

 What was the feeling back there as a student? Did you feel good or bad when you think of your
experience as a student? Why?
 Which teacher was my favorite? Why?
 Am I teaching my students the same way that I loved to be learned as student?

Evaluation

It refers to evaluation of experiences and development of a teacher. The subcategories of evaluation

are:
 giving an opinion
 examining what you have learned.
 drawing conclusions about your own development
 evaluating your knowledge or functioning
 investigating whether you have achieved your learning objective
 examining what you found difficult and progressing

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 Section 2. Process of reflection

 Lesson learning outcome:

At the end of this session, students will able to

 Identify the different process of reflection

 Discuss cases of different teachers who are at different phase of reflection

Reflection engages in the process of carrying back and forth between thinking and action. However, the
process may appear differently in different situations. One useful way to understand this complexity is
to consider when it takes place. There are two categories that simplify the concept:

 Reflection-in-action (thinking on your feet)

 Reflection-on-action (retrospective thinking//thinking back).

Reflection-in-action (thinking on your feet)

• Reflection takes place in the midst of action , not after the fact

• Involves a surprise (an unexpected outcome/behavior that challenges one’s knowing in action),
a response to surprise …conducting an action experiment on the spot by which we seek to solve
the new problems … we test our new way of seeing the situation, and also try to change that
situation for the better.

• This is not method but art and a talent.

Reflection-on-action is:

 Perhaps the most familiar image of reflection involves a sequence of action then thought
 Pausing after an activity to see: How it went – what went well, what did not, what could be
changed for the next time;
 Looking back on the practice after completing a task.

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 Figure, [Link] of reflection


Read the following scenarios and respond to the following questions:
a. What are issues of individuals?
b. What are the solutions to make individual a better reflector?

Facilitator: distribute the cases to different groups and let them discuss .Then, they present it to the
whole class.

Case one

Almaz is knowledgeable and smart English teacher .she planned her lesson carefully before she entered
to her class. Some of times she accomplished what she planned and sometimes she fails to do that.
However, when she came out of the class, she cares less even to think about if she did as she planned.

Case two:

Alem is a civic teacher in high school. He is very committed teacher in the school. He has mostly used
student centered method like brainstorming, pair or group discussion and presentation. Sometimes, he
uses lecture methods when need .But one day, during his lecture, he realized that only few are seemed
following, the rest looked bored; some of them are sleeping. Suddenly, he stopped lecturing and started
to tell them jokes. All students were burst to laugh .Then he came back to his lecture.

Case three :

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 Helen is freshmen student in college. She was very competitive students in high school. She has a good
study habit. However, when she went to the library to study, some boys frequently had interrupted her and
took her out the library and talked to her. When she came back to her study she barely focused on. As a
result, she re admitted for a semester. When she comes back after a semester, she continually goes out
from library to talk and hear what boys have to say .she doesn’t even know that this is the reason for her
failure.

Case four:

Seifu is a mathematics teacher in high school. He is young, handsome and energetic. At the first year of
his employment, he used to go out with many girls, including his female students. In the fall of the year,
he found himself HIV positive after free HIV check up arranged in the school. Though it was a shocking
experience for him, he managed to calm himself and look back what he did in the whole year. He
remembers all the girls he went out with and the unsafe sexes he had.

E.g. of Possible answers for the case-3

Issues
Helen was competitive student in High school. She has a good schedule for her study. However, she is
frequently destructed from her study to talk to boys.

Solutions
Helen should have critically seen her experience before she came for readmission program .She should
have questioned why she was failed, how her destructed study program contributed to her failure.
Through reflection, if she found out it was boys who destructed her focus and became a cause for her
academic readmission; she would have decided to tell them that if they liked her they should respect
her study time. At least, she could reduce destruction and increase her focus to her study.

Section 3. Reflection as thinking process


Lesson learning outcome
At the end of this session, students will able to:

 Identify the different domain of thinking process

 Discuss reflection as one of the thinking process

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The domain of thinking Processes encompasses a range of cognitive, affective and metacognitive
knowledge, skills and behaviors. It is organized in three dimensions:
• Reasoning, processing and inquiry
• Creativity
• Reflection, evaluation and metacognition.
Reasoning, processing and inquiry
The Reasoning, processing and inquiry dimension encompasses the knowledge, skills and behaviours
required to enable teacher students to find out the world around them, and to use critical thinking to
analyze and evaluate information they encounter. Students learn to assemble and question information
and develop opinions based on informed judgments. They also develop the capacity to transform
information into coherent knowledge structures.
Creativity
The capacity to think creatively is a central component of being able to solve problems and be
innovative. In the Creativity dimension, teacher students learn to seek innovative alternatives and use
their imagination to generate possibilities. They learn to take risks with their thinking and make new
connections.
Reflection, evaluation and metacognition
Learning is enhanced when individuals develop the capacity to reflect on, and improve their existing
ideas and beliefs. In the Reflection, evaluation and metacognition dimension, teacher students learn to
reflect on what they know and develop awareness that there is more to know. They learn to question
their perspectives and those of others. They evaluate the validity of their own and others’ ideas. They
also develop their metacognitive skills in planning, monitoring and evaluating their own thinking
processes and strategies.


Cases
1. The teacher gives a student a starting story and let everyone finish it by their own.
2. Given a politician speech, students draw out the weak and the strong side of the speech
with justification.
3. After HIV/AIDs awareness program, students look back their sexual experience they
had because of the lack of this awareness. And, they decided to change and control
their unsafe sexual behavior for the future.

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 Identify the dimension of the thinking processes of each case and justify.

Facilitator: make students in group and read the cases. Give them 10 min and reflect their response and
justification, and challenge their reasons if it is not clearly articulated.

Section 4. Reflective thinking and reflective practice

Lesson learning outcome:


At the end of this session, you are able to:

 Define reflective thinking

 Define reflective practice
 Differentiate the general features of reflective thinking
 Identify the quality of reflective thinker


4.1. Reflective thinking

What is reflective thinking?

Facilitator: use think-pair share method (make them define ‘reflective thinking’ by their own and share
in pairs).Write some definitions of students on the black/white board. Give them 5 min.

Reflective thinking is:

 a part of the critical thinking process referring specifically to the processes of analyzing and
making judgments about what has happened.
 an active, persistent, and careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge, of the
grounds that support that knowledge, and the further conclusions to which that knowledge
leads. Learners are aware of and control their learning by actively participating in reflective
thinking – assessing what they know, what they need to know, and how they bridge that gap –
during learning situations
 the process of creating and clarifying the meaning of experience (past and present) in terms of
self (self in relation to self, and self in relation to the world).
 the part of critical thinking process referring specifically to the process of analyzing,
evaluating, and making judgment about what has happened


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 How can we prompt and support reflective thinking in the class room?

Facilitator: use brainstorming and crossover discussion method (make a group of students to draw out
the possible methods to prompt reflective thinking in the classroom; then choose two members from
each group and move them to another group and let them share experience .After 3 minutes, move them
again till they finish visiting all the group and finally they will join their group and discuss what they
get from touring.

When students are faced with a perplexing/difficult problem, reflective thinking helps them to become
more aware of their learning progress, choose appropriate ways to explore a problem, and to build the
knowledge they need to solve the problem. Thus, in the classroom, the teacher has to aware of the
following features of reflective thinking that able students engage in reflective thinking:

General features of reflective thinking

 Perplexity/puzzle, confusion, doubt.

The teacher has to provide a problem or scenario
 Conjectural anticipation/guessing the reasons behind.
The teacher provides many opportunities to engage students in gathering information to look for
possible causes and solutions.
 Careful survey (examination ,inspection, exploration, analysis)
The teacher will give activity sheets to help students evaluate the evidence they gather and
questions that prompt them to consider alternatives and implications of their ideas
 Consequent elaboration of the tentative hypothesis/suggest solutions.

The teacher will prepare questions and activities that prompt students to draw conclusions from
the evidence they gathered and pose solutions

 Taking one stand upon the projected hypothesis as a plan of action, doing something
overtly to bring about the anticipated result and thereby testing the hypothesis/evaluate
and monitor the implementation of the solution.

The teacher will provide opportunities for students to choose and implement the best alternative
and encourage them to monitor and reevaluate their results and findings throughout the entire
unit.

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 Figure-2- reflective thinking

Figure-2- reflective thinking

 From what you read about reflective thinking .What do you think the reflective thinker
Facilit
should have?
ator:
use
buzz group method (let them discuss in two or three groups for 2/3 minutes and let some students
reflect to the class)

He/she

 Is aware of her/his own knowledge and lack of knowledge

 Recognizes that there may not be only a single correct solution to a problem

 Relies on all available resources to find relevant needed information

 Opinions in order to come to a personal understanding of a situation,

 Knowing that this understanding may change, as she/he gains more information and insight into
the matter.

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 4.2. Reflective practice

What is reflective practice?

Facilitator: let group define and write ‘reflective practice’; ‘reflective practitioner’ and the qualities of
reflective practitioner on the flip charts and stick them on the wall and make students gallery walk to
see what other group write. Give them 20 minutes.

Reflective teaching, reflective thinking, reflective inquiry, reflection and reflective practice are
often used interchangeably in literatures, although there are slight distinctions among them.

Reflective practice is:

 A dialogue of thinking and doing through which one becomes more skilled (Schön, 1987).
 A process that helps teachers think about what happened, why it happened, and what else could
have been done to reach their goals (Cruickshank & Applegate, 1981).
 An inquiry approach that involves a personal commitment to continuous learning and
improvement (York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere, & Montie, 2001).
 The practice of analyzing one’s actions, decisions, or products by focusing on one’s process for
achieving them (Killion & Todnem, 1991).
 A critical, questioning orientation and a deep commitment to the discovery and analysis of
information concerning the quality of a professional’s designed action (Bright, 1996).
 A willingness to accept responsibility for one’s professional practice (Ross, 1990).
 A systematic and comprehensive data-gathering process enriched by dialogue and collaborative
effort (Osterman & Kottkamp, 2004).
 The capacity to think creatively, imaginatively and, eventually, self-critically about classroom
practice (Lasley, 1992).
 An ongoing process of examining and refining practice, variously focused on the personal,
pedagogical, curricular, intellectual, societal, and/or ethical contexts associated with
professional work (Cole & Knowles, 2000).

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 What is reflective practitioner?

Reflective: Characterized by deep careful thought

Practitioner: somebody who practice his/her repertoire of knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and skills
in specific areas of performance. For teachers, these areas include managing the classroom, designing
instruction, establishing assessment strategies, and interacting with students, colleagues, and parents.

 Reflective Practitioner: person who uses deep, careful thought in his/her practice of knowledge,
attitudes, behaviors, and skills on specific profession.
 A “reflective practitioner” is person who could both reflect-in-action (to reshape what you are
working on while working on it) and reflect-on-action (to consider what has been done in order
to evaluate one’s own process).
 Reflective practitioners are those who perpetually consider alternatives, taking action to
continually improve practice throughout their professional career.

Reflective Practitioners ask questions like:

 What am I observing?

 What would I like to see?

 How might things be different?

 What am I learning?

 What possibilities are there for the future?

Section 5. Levels and traditions of reflection practice

Lesson learning outcome:


At the end of this session, you are able to

 Identify the levels of reflective practice

 Differentiate types of traditional reflection practice
 Plan to apply the different levels and tradition of reflection practice in to their teaching

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The term reflection is used to describe a vast array of practices. Just as with other popular terms,
reflection can have a multitude of meanings as it is translated into professional teacher development.
Since reflection is so complex and its varieties so numerous and unique, researchers have identified
categories of reflection to describe how it looks in real life. From all the categories, levels and
traditions of reflection are one of them.

5.1. Levels of reflection practice

There are three major levels of reflective practice .They are:

 An initial level focused on teaching functions, actions or skills, generally considering teaching
episodes as isolated events.

 A more advanced level considering the theory and rationale for current practice.

 A higher order where teachers examine the ethical, social and political consequences of their
teaching, grappling with the ultimate purposes of schooling.

The conceptual framework presented here represents a continuum of multiple levels adopting the
terminology of technical reflection, contextual reflection, and critical reflection.

Technical Reflection
At the first level, teachers’ reflections focus on strategies and methods used to reach predetermined
goals. They are concerned with what works in the classroom to keep students quiet and to maintain
order, rather than with any consideration of the value of such goals as ends in themselves. It is the
lowest level of reflection.

Typical questions the teacher asks at the level of technical reflection are:

 Did I spend too much time on group work today?

 How can I keep students on-task?

 Did I have enough (too many) activities?

 How can I get students to pay better attention?

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Contextual Reflection

Teachers engaging in Contextual reflection attempt to understand the theoretical basis for classroom
practice and to foster consistency between supported theory (what they say they do and believe) and
theory-in-use (what they actually do in the classroom). Teachers reflecting at this level can determine
when there is conflict between what they practice and what they preach (e.g., seeing themselves as
humanistic yet belittling students when they persist in disobeying rules).

Typical questions the teacher asks at the level of pedagogical reflection are:

 How can I improve learning for all my students?

 How can I build in better accountability for cooperative learning tasks?

 Am I giving my students the opportunity to develop decision-making skills?

 What else can I do to help students make connections to prior knowledge?

 Is there a better way to accomplish this goal?

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Critical Reflection
Critical reflectivity is interchangeably used as the dialectical level. At this stage, teachers reflect on the
moral and ethical implications and consequences of classroom practices on students. They extend their
considerations to issues beyond the classroom to include democratic ideals. Acknowledging that
classroom and school practices cannot be separated from the larger social and political realities, critical
reflective teachers strive to become fully conscious of the range of consequences of their actions.
Critical reflection is mostly considered as a higher-order level of reflection. It adds the following
dimensions:

 Questioning of underlying assumptions, biases, and values one brings to bear on their teaching.
 Conscious consideration of the ethical implications and consequences of practices on students
and their learning.
 Examination of how instructional and other classroom practices contribute to social equity and
to the establishment of a just society.
 Extended awareness beyond immediate instructional circumstances to include caring about
democratic foundations and encouraging socially responsible actions.

Typical questions the teacher asks at the level of critical reflection are:

 Do all students in my class have daily opportunities to be successful?

 Who is being included and who is being excluded in this classroom practice?

 How might the ways I group students affect individual student’s opportunity for success?

 Does this classroom practice promote equity?

 Do I have practices that differentially favor particular groups of students (e.g., males, females)?

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Figure 3- levels of reflection


Case 1.

Zemen is very intellectual High school biology teacher. She believed that education has to
equip students not only with theoretical knowledge but also the life skills that help them to
survive outside of the school, as result, in most of her lesson, she manages to prepare examples
and cases accordingly in order to aware students the current challenges like gender stereotypes
and HIV/AID and their impacts.

1. Which level of reflection Zemen has practiced? Why?

Case 2.

Ayele is a teacher in primary school. After each of his class, he evaluates his and his students’
actual activities against his lesson plan to know whether he achieved them or not.

2. Which of level of reflection Ayele has practice? Why?

Facilitator: make students in group and let them discuss the cases and reflect to the class.

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 5.2. Tradition of reflection practice

There are
What is the basic difference you get from these three traditions? Write what you
five
understand by your own words.

different traditions of reflective practice as described by Zeichner and Liston (1996). This framework ties
different types of reflection to traditions in educational reform, emphasizing that each of the types
derives from different underlying assumptions about the aims of education.
1. Generic tradition; It emphasizes reflective practice in general as central to teaching and
teacher education, without a particular focus on the content, quality, or context of reflection
when a teacher merely describes the situation in the classroom. In short, generic reflection is
thinking about work and students.
2. Academic tradition: teacher education mainly emphasizes the teacher’s role as a scholar and
subject matter specialist. That is, academic reflection is thinking about content and instruction.
3. Social Efficiency tradition: The social-efficiency tradition focuses on the scientific study of
teaching to provide the basis for building a teacher education curriculum, whose major
manifestation in recent years is the Competency/Performance-Based Teacher Education
(C/PBTE) programs. C/PBTE was stimulated partly by applications of behaviorist psychology
to the training of personnel in industry and the military during and after World War II. Social
efficiency reflection, in short, is about thinking about improving methods of instruction.

Facilitator: pause them reading for 3/4 minute to think about what they read and reflect. Do the
same when they finish reading the two traditions.
4. Developmentalist tradition: has its roots in the child study movement and assumes that the
natural order of development of the learner provides the basis for determining what should be
taught, both to pupils and to their teachers. This tradition has three aspects: (1) the teacher-as
naturalist, a movement that stressed the importance of skills in the observation of children’s
behavior and in building a curriculum and classroom environment consistent with patterns of
child development and children’s interests; (2) the teacher-as-artist movement, in which the
teacher/artist has a deep understanding of the psychology of child development, and prospective
teachers are provided with a variety of experiences in dance, creative dramatics, writing,
painting, and storytelling so that they are be able to exemplify for their students an inquiring,

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 creative, and open-minded attitude; and (3) the teacher-as researcher movement, which focuses
on fostering the teacher’s experiential attitude toward practice. In short, the focus of
Developmentalist reflection is thinking about student readiness.

5. The social Reconstructionist tradition defines both schooling and teacher education as crucial
elements in a movement toward a more just society. the social reconstructionist tradition in
teacher education, recommend that teacher educators should be: (1) directly involved in teacher
education programs in some capacity (e.g., as a teacher or administrator); (2) engaged in
political work within colleges and universities; (3) actively supportive of efforts within the
public schools to create more democratic work and learning environments; (4) engaged in
political work within professional associations and in relation to state educational agencies; and
(5) working for democratic changes aimed at achieving greater social justice in other societal
and political areas. Generally, the social Reconstructionist reflection gives emphasis on thinking
about equity and social justice.
Reflective activity:

What important points you get from this lesson?

Demonstrate your plan to apply the three levels of reflection in your future classroom situation?

Facilitator role: make students finish the reflective activity either in classroom or outside. Collect and
give feedback as well as consider some points for the activity.

Section 6. Benefits and issues of reflection

Lesson learning outcome:


19
 A t the end of this session, students will able to:

 Describe the rationale and the purpose of reflection

 Discuss the importance of reflection for learners as well as for teachers
 Discuss the issues for reflection

6.1 The rationale for reflection

Why reflection?
Facilitator: Let students be in group and write the rationale of reflection and draw out the advantages of
reflection for students as well as for teachers on flip chart/or paper. After they finish, make all stand up
from their seat and make them select the shortest and the tallest of the group members. These students
take a tour to different groups to share what they discussed. Make them stay for 3 minutes to each
group. Lastly, they comeback from their tour and join their group members and they discuss what they
get from touring.
The rationale for reflection: It

• aims to improve practice by learning directly from experience

• is engaged in a process of examining the fundamental assumptions implicit in practice and

experience and;

• is planning to change thinking and practices from this new awareness

6.2. Benefits of Reflection

 What are the benefits of reflection for teachers as well as learners?

Benefits of reflection for teachers Benefits of reflection for learners

20
Reflection is tied directly to experience. Individuals must have the cognitive ability to practice
reflection. They must have self-awareness as well as awareness of their environment. They must
psychologically, cognitively, and/or emotionally benefit from reflective activity. These benefits are
categorized in to two: Benefits of reflection for learners and teachers

The benefits of reflection for learners

Reflection helps learners to:

 Understand what they already know (individual). Students improve their basic academic skills.

 Identify what they need to know in order to advance understanding of the subject (contextual).
Students develop a deeper understanding of subject matter

 Make sense of new information and feedback in the context of their own experience (relational).
Students start to relate the subject matter to the non-academic world and to their own
experience.

 Guide choices for further learning (developmental). Students develop personally by enhancing
their self-awareness, their sense of community, and their sense of their own capacities. They
also develop higher level thinking and problem solving skills.

The benefits of reflection for teacher

Reflection enables a teacher to:

 Be conscious of our potential for bias & discrimination.

 Make the best use of the knowledge available.
 Avoid past mistakes.
 Solve a problem or address an issue in the classroom
 Reduce confusion or frustration. Reflectivity is often a problem- or situation-based activity.
 Maximise our own opportunities for learning.
 Result feelings of pleasure and self-satisfaction

Unless we make conscious & systematic efforts to critique our own practice:

21
  We will be unaware of how & when we are being discriminatory
 We will not make use of the knowledge base developed by our own profession
 We will continue to repeat the same mistakes
 Our skills will decline rather than develop.

6.3. Issues of reflection

What are the barriers that hinder us to reflect on our experience? What could be the
 solutions?

Facilitator: use brainstorming method and (make students in group and draw out the possible barriers
and give suggestions to solve it)

Possible Barriers of reflection

 Lack of time
 Lack of awareness about the purpose of reflection
 Fear of judgement and criticism
 being closed to feedback and defensiveness
 fear of professional arrogance

Solutions for the Barriers

Mentors or teachers should:

 Be a role model, e.g. a mentor or teachers who reflects on their own practice
 Give time for reflection. To reflect effectively on your experience, you should actively set a
time from your each working day to reflect & analyse
 Provide Non-judgemental support to your colleague or your mentee.
 Create as many opportunities as possible for engaging in reflection, e.g. pairs, groups reviews
and discussion

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 Section 7. Reflection vs. Technical rationality

 Lesson learning outcome:

At the end of this session, students will able to:

 Define technical rationality

 Compare and contrast reflection vs. technical rationality

What is technical rationality? Where is the concept derived from?

Technical rationality is when professionals make decisions and solve problems through `the application
of scientific theory and techniques. Technical rationality holds that professionals possess specific,
scientific and standardized knowledge. A first component of this professional knowledge is basic
science, which for a `major' profession such as medicine might include such knowledge as anatomy and
physiology. From this basic science is derived applied science, which is the knowledge guiding the
everyday work of professionals. Finally, in the technical rational model of practice, professionals are
held to possess specific skills and attitudes, which are related to the process of providing services to
individuals and the community.
The dominance of technical rationality in the Western world related to the rise to reputation, over some
300 years, of scientific and technological explanations for the workings of the world. The decline of
religion, superstition, and `fake knowledge', and their replacement with ideas founded on positivistic
science, were essential in creating the conditions for the rise of technical rationality

Technical rationality was not able to account for much of what professionals do. The problems
professionals attempt to solve, for example, are rarely abstract or clear cut. Problems occur in particular
settings, and solutions therefore are found only in the specific contexts in which problems are framed.
Therefore, rather than base their decision-making and problem-solving on the application of empirical
science, professionals who enter into the `muddy low land’ always use trial-and-error and `gut feeling'.
In dealing with situations characterized by uncertainty and uniqueness, positivistic knowledge may not
have practical value that professionals reflect.

Take a minute and think about the issues of technical rationality and reflect what you understand

23
 Facilitator: Pause students from reading and ask them what they understand .Before they respond to
you, let them discuss with their peers for 2/3 minute.

Reflection begins in working practice, particularly those areas of practice where professionals are
confronted with unique and confusing situation. Teachers may have acquired the theoretical knowledge
(technical rationality) of their subject or of the practice of teaching and learning. This may explain
their classroom practice as it should be, but it might not explain it as it actually is. For example, trainee
or new teacher might express the opinion that ‘this theory stuff is very well, but it doesn’t work in the
real world’ .Teacher trainer may be offended by the rejection of theory, but their trainees may have a
point. The real teaching environment is where theory is applied, tested and evaluated. Theory is never
used rigidly, nor does it provide all the answer to problems teachers encounter. It is however, the
starting point for developing teaching and learning in practice. Reflection, in and on action, allows as
teachers continually improve their practice and even to the development of practice based theory.

What do you think the basic difference between technical rationality and reflection? Which one
 you prefer? Why?

Facilitator: give them 2/3 minute to think about the question, make them reflect individually and
challenge their reason if it is not clearly articulated.

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Reflective Activity

What did you learn today?

How do you get the lesson useful for you future classroom?

Facilitator: Give 10 min for students to fill the reflective activity. And, collect the activity and
give feedback.

Exercise
1. Explain the nature of reflection
2. What are the differences between reflection on action and reflection in action?
3. What is reflective practitioner?

25
 4. How can we encourage reflective thinking in the classroom?
5. When do we say a teacher is contextual reflector? What qualities he/she should have?
6. What are types of traditional reflection? Explain each of them with example?
7. What are the advantages of reflection?

Unit summary
The definitions of reflection vary from one context to another; as a result there are many kinds of
definitions of reflection. However, for the context of this module it is defined as ‘when an individual
Look back on experience and making decisions about how to improve the practice for the future’.
Reflection has two types of processes: reflection on action and reflection in action. The former is
when an individual deal with his /her experience after the event is over, while the latter one is when
an individual reflect in the middle of the event. In addition, the module deals with the two major
categories of reflection practice: levels and traditions of reflection practice. The former category of
reflection practice has three levels. The initial level is focused on teaching functions, actions or skills,
generally considering teaching episodes as isolated events. The more advanced level considers the
theory and rationale for current practice. Reaching at the higher order is when teachers examine the
ethical, social and political consequences of their teaching, grappling with the ultimate purposes of
schooling. The other is traditions of reflection practice; it is divided in to five. Generic tradition is
when a teacher merely describes the situation in the classroom. Academic tradition stresses teacher
knowledge of the academic content including the structures of the discipline and its methods of
inquiry. Social Efficiency tradition emphasizes “generic” knowledge and skills in teaching.
Developmentalist tradition emphasizes reflection upon what and how pupils should be taught based
on their backgrounds, interests, understandings, and developmental levels. The social
Reconstructionist tradition emphasizes social, political, and ideological realities that influence
classroom procedures as well as the overall learning community. Practicing reflection has its own
benefits: it avoids past mistakes and makes us to be conscious of our potential for bias &
discrimination. It also maximise our own opportunities for learning.

26
References
Chesswas, R. (2011). Classroom Observations with, for, and by Teachers:
The Role of Reflection in Improving Teaching and Learning in Pacific Resources for Education and
Learning.
Larrivee, B. (2006). An Educator’s Guide to Teacher Reflection. Cooper, M.J. (Ed) U.S.A: Cengage
Learning.
Jay, K.J. (2003). Quality Teaching Reflection as the Heart of Practice. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford:
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Osterman, F. K & Kottkamp, B. R. (1993) Reflective Practice for Educators Improving Schooling
Through Professional Development California: Corwin Press, Inc.
Pultorak, G. E. (ed.) (2010). The Purposes, Practices, and Professionalism of Teacher Reflectivity:
Insights for Twenty-First- Century Teachers and Students. Lanham, Maryland • New York •
Toronto • Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Additional material if available

Bright, B. (1996). Reflecting on “reflective practice.” Studies in the Education of Adults, 28(2), 162-
184
Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (1985) Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. London:
Kogan Page.
Cole, A. L., & Knowles, J. G. (2000). Researching teaching: Exploring teacher development through
reflective inquiry. Boston: Allyn and Bacon
Cruickshank, D., & Applegate, J. (1981). Reflective teaching as a strategy for teacher growth:
Educational Leadership, 38(7), 553-554)
Lasley, T. J. (1992). Inquiry and reflection: Promoting teacher reflection. Journal of Staff
Development, 13(1), 24-29.
Killion, J., & Todnem, G. (1991). A process of personal theory building. Educational Leadership,
48(6), 14-17
Ross, D. D. (1990). Programmatic structures for the preparation of reflective teachers. In R. T. Clift, W.
R. Houston, & M. C. Pugach (Eds.), Encouraging reflective practice in education: An analysis
of issues and programs (pp. 97-118). New York: Teachers College Press.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Tate, S. & Sills, M. (eds) (2004). The Development of Critical Reflection in the Health Professions.
London; Higher Education Authority.
York-Barr, J., Sommers, W. A., Ghere, G. S., & Montie, J. (2001). Reflective practice to improve
schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

27
 UNIT 2

Teaching and Reflection

Unit Two: Teaching and reflection

Unit learning outcomes


Upon completion of this unit the candidates will be able to:

 Define teaching based on the idea of reflective practice discussed in unit one.

 Describe the identifying features of the professionalism of teaching

 Discuss the reciprocal relations between teaching and change going on around and the
effects of such changes on teachers’ work.

 Describe the professional identity of a teacher

 Identify the different approaches for continuous professional development

Unit Contents and sub-contents

 The nature of teaching, complexity, dilemma

 The professionalism of teaching: Teacher thinking, creativity, learning and reflection
 Teaching, change in society and reflection
 Teachers role in the society
 Relationships in teaching: How are we getting on together?
 Professional identity: knowing oneself as a teacher
 Teachers as lifelong learners:
→ The idea of Continuous Professional development (CPD)
→ Aapproaches to CPD
→ Rational and purposes of CPD
→ Policy implication of CPD needs

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 General Approach/Methods/Strategies

This unit sets the stage for the discussions to take place through the subsequent two units. It is a
stage at which the candidates are helped to question the conception of teaching they developed as
students during their schooling years. Therefore, discussion and dialogue need to inform the
general approach the instructor adopts.

Detailed Activities

Students’ activities

 Brainstorming whereby the candidates talk about what they think teaching is and how they
describe the roles of the teacher.

 There will read the different cases of complexity and dilemma issues and design strategy
how it should be solved in teacher education training program, present it to the class

 Students will present papers and engage in debates.

Section [Link] nature of teaching, complexity, dilemma

1.1 Nature of teaching complexity

Have you ever afraid of becoming a teacher? Why? 

What kind of difficulties you think you will face by being a teacher?

There are some of the major factors that make teaching more difficult or complex than other
professional practices. These complexities are resulted from problem of:
 Student’s cooperation,
 Compulsory students,
 Emotional management,
 Structural isolation and chronic uncertainty about the effectiveness of teaching

29
The Problem of students’ Cooperation
Teaching is a practice of human improvement. Any practitioners depend on their clients to achieve any
results. For example surgeon can fix the sickness of a patient who sleeps through the operation, and a
lawyer can successfully defend a client who remains silent during the trial. But, success for a teacher
depends heavily on the active cooperation of the student. The student must be willing to learn what the
teacher is teaching. Otherwise, a teacher is understood as having failed. That is why you can’t be a
good salesperson unless someone is buying, and you can’t be a good teacher unless someone is
learning.
As a result teachers must devote huge amounts of skill and effort in order to make students cooperate.
However, the result is far from to certain. The students still may choose to reject or ignore the teachers’
effort and offer of improvement because of lack of interest, concentration, and etc. Therefore, the
effectiveness of the teacher becomes more difficult to establish.
The Problem of Compulsory students
The teacher- student relationship is a form of institutionalized domination and subordination. . . . The
teacher represents the formal curriculum, and his interest is in imposing that curriculum upon the
children in the form of tasks; however pupils are much more interested in life in their own world than
in the dried out adult life which teachers have to offer (Waller, 1965).
In other words, students are likely to feel the pressure for school attendance as result of:
 Their parents (who want school to take care of children during the day, to help them get ahead,
and even to educate them),
 The market (which makes school credentials mandatory for access to a good job),
 Their own social desires (school is where their friends are).
What the teacher can do to make students interested in him and his subject matter?

Summarize and reflect your understanding of the above complexities of teaching

Facilitator: pause them reading and let them reflect what they understand. Give them 5 min. Do the
same when they finish reading the complexity of teaching.
The Problem of Emotion Management

One of the difficulty of teaching is teachers are required to establish and actively manage an emotional
relationship with students. Other professional practitioners in general are expected to maintain a distinct
emotional distance between themselves and the client. They focus on the particular problem for which

30
the client is seeking professional help, they are judged on their performance in resolving this problem,
they and the client are seen as independent agents pursuing their own ends through the relationship.

Unlike most professional relationship, Teachers need to develop a broad relationship with students for
the purpose of understanding their learning problems. They also need to establish an emotional bond to
motivate the student to participate actively in the learning process. Managing emotion become even
more complex for the teacher to easily practice is because there is no prepared guidebook for how to
accomplish it for any particular teacher in a particular classroom. Thus, teachers have to work things
out on their own.
The Problem of Structural Isolation
Ever since the invention of age graded education early in the 19th century, teachers have found
themselves practicing their job within the four walls of the self-contained classroom. They normally
teach under conditions where they are the only professional in the room. They are left alone to figure
out a way to manage a group of 45-60 students and move them through the required curriculum.

In this process, teachers have to work on control issue. Unless the teacher establishes control, there
will be no learning, and if the teacher does not control the students, the students will control the
teacher. To rise to this challenge, the teachers should establish classroom rules and customs.
The Problem of Chronic Uncertainty about the Effectiveness of Teaching
The technology of teaching is anything but certain, and teachers must learn to live with chronic
uncertainty as an essential component of their professional practice. This uncertainty in the teaching
practice can arise from different reasons:
 Teachers have to operate under the kinds of scary conditions that introduce unpredictable
elements of will and emotion into the heart of the teaching and learning processes.(as it is
discussed in the problems of emotion management)
 What we know about teaching is always dependent on different overruling variables that
mediate between a teacher’s action and a student’s response. As a result, there is always a
dilemma in any instructional preparation: this works better than that, if other variables are
constant.
 We cannot measure the effect of teachers have on students. For example, a teacher can measure
how many of the spelling words introduced this week a student can spell or how well a student
can solve word problems which is covered in class. But, how these kinds of lesson contribute

31
 to the most important outcomes of education, that is, the preparing of competent, productive,
and socially responsible adults. These outcomes are removed from particular classroom
interaction between teacher and student for many years by different reasons.
 The contradictory purposes that societies impose on the whole educational enterprise, that is, in
some ways, we want education to promote democratic equality (preparing competent
citizens);on the other way, we also want education to promote social efficiency (preparing
productive workers); in addition, we want education to promote social mobility (preparing
individuals who can compete successfully for social goods). Yet, the kind of teaching and
learning that will be effective differs depending on whether the primary aim is to prepare
competent citizens or productive workers or social climbers.
 A teacher does not know exactly his/her client because they are many and different. At one
level, the client is the student. At another level, the clients are the parents of the student. At a
third level, the teacher’s client is the community at large, which not only pays for public
education but also feels the effects of the teacher’s ability to produce competent citizens and
productive workers. Keeping all these clients happy is not an easy matter.
Activity

What is the issue?

What is the teacher should do?

1. Ashenafi observes some of students are side talking, giggling and engage in some other
activities during his class.

2. Genet thinks that she does her best to teach her students yet most fail on her subject.

3. Almtsehay is a student in Meron’s class .She is obliged to marry a rich old man .Her
family decided that it is time for her to stop her education and start to establish family

32
 before she gets older. As a result she frequently cut classes. When Meron who is her
home teacher has found out that Alemtsehay is going to marry against her will, she
decides to fight for her student right and keep her in the school.

4. Kidane is serious and very strict teacher whom every student fears of.

1.2 Nature of teaching dilemma

What is dilemma? Have you ever been in dilemma? What have they? How do you come out of it?

Facilitator: brainstorm individually and in group. Give them 5 min and let them reflect. 

A dilemma implies a situation where there is no clear easy choice or answer. Example, when you only
have two extra tickets to an event and three friends that want to go.

Dilemma can rise from different reasons:

 A genuine clash of values

 Uncertainty about the facts of the case
 A failure to be unaccepted, a deficiency in courage, a misdirected desire to be popular, and so
on
 Uncertainty about our position, our perceptions
 The merits of our decisions, and concerns about how they will be received and what their results
will be

What is teaching dilemmas? Construct your own definition

33
Facilitator: First the students individually define teaching dilemma and share it with group.

Teaching dilemma is when the teacher put in to the situations of two evils.

Some dilemmas of teaching:

 How to balance the needs and interests of some students over the needs and interests of others.
E.g., Students with special needs and girls and other normal students in my classroom?
 What happens if there is a clash between the needs of individual teachers and those of
institutions?
 Staying within your comfort zone or being prepared to take risks/become vulnerable. (E.g.,
changing teacher –centred method that one familiar with to student-centred method)
 For a teacher, balance between pursuing one’s own specific tasks (teaching, conducting
research, participating in the department meeting) and the moral duty, as an ‘academic citizen’,
and as belonging to a community (providing community service).
 How far should a teacher press students to participate in class (the shy, those for whom there are
linguistic & cultural barriers, the reluctant, other special needs and female students) and
whether to leave them alone after minimum non-pushy invitation to engage.
 How far to help students – can such help, at some point, go so far as to undermine or impede the
development of autonomy, self-reliance, independent and self-directed learning?
 The relative time and energy devoted to teaching as compared with research & writing
activities. E.g., teaching load and Conducting Action research
 To what extent a teacher should disclose his /her problems faced to others. Does sharing make
one look like failure even though it is important for professional growth?
 How teachers use his/her power over students? To avoid using power in fear of undermining
and belittling students or to use more power to gain respect and listened by students.

Activity

Identify the two conflicting ideas that create dilemma and propose how you are going to deal
with each case if it were you.

1. Samual is an excellent freshmen student. Unlike his best friends, he is disciplined boy. They

34
 always request him to smoke cigarette and sit for ‘chat’. He does not want to be isolated from
them neither does change himself.

2. Belay is second year campus student. She is focused and average student. She has a boyfriend
whom they stayed for almost a year. He pushes her to start sex with him and he threatens to
leave her if she refused. She doesn’t want to start sex at this time neither want him to leave her.

If you face one of the difficulties and dilemmas of teaching mentioned above in your future class,
what are you going to do?

Facilitator: give one and take one method. Give them 2/3 minute to think about and dot down what
they are going to do .Let all students stand up and ask any student and share (give and take new ideas)
and give them 1 min to stay with one students and clap you hand as sign for them to find another
partner .Let them communicate with at least with five students.

Section Two: The Professionalism Of Teaching: Teacher Thinking,

Creativity And Teacher Learning

What knowledge and belief you think the teacher possibly can have? 

Facilitator: use silent sharing method. Group students and let them Share their ideas silently by
writing—one person at a time—one of their ideas on the flip chart in the middle of their table. After
they have finished doting down, let them quickly look at the ideas expressed at other tables. What are
the commonalities that you notice?

What is teacher thinking?

Teacher thinking is defined as “the set of cognitions, of mental representations that operates as a lens
through which teachers look at their job, give meaning to it and act in it” .Even though it is difficult to
observe and evaluate teachers’ thinking, their knowledge, beliefs and attitude that directly and
indirectly influence their thinking are widely discussed in literatures and in this module as well.

35
There are different kinds of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs the teacher have:

 Content knowledge refers to the depth of knowledge that a teacher has about the subject itself –
for example, their procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding of mathematics topics,
as well as of the connections between topics.
 Pedagogical content knowledge is the knowledge teachers have about the ways student learn
particular topics – for example, a particular teaching methods to help students understand the
subject matter better.
 In addition to, general pedagogical knowledge is the knowledge a teacher have about classroom
management and the characteristics of his/her students.
 Teachers have knowledge about the context of schooling, from knowledge of the school in which
he/she works, to the district, to the larger school system – for example, teachers may have
varying degrees of understanding of school financing at various levels, or of how and where
decisions are made about curriculum and resources.
 At even larger level, teachers hold personal value orientations and will have particular beliefs
about the purposes of education and even the nature of knowledge.
 They have also beliefs about what it means to be a teacher – about the roles that teachers should
and do play, what the act of teaching requires, what makes for quality teaching.
 Teachers also have different attitudes and expectations for different students, say, for female and
male students, minorities and students with special needs.

How teachers learn? And where can they learn?

Teacher Learning and Change

Teachers’ learning and change is one of the concerns in education. One of the purposes of education is
to produce citizen who are capable of solving societal problems and bring change to the betterment.
Teachers play the greatest role in achieving this educational goal. They take day to day responsibility of
teaching and guiding students to their level and preparing them step by step to the larger outcomes of
the education. The question is how these teachers should learn and train or change first to full fill their
societal responsibilities. Teachers learn during their stay in pre service teacher education; during their
teaching practice; and through reflective practice.

36
Which learning situations that you think you as a teacher educator can learn more and better?
Why?

Pre-service Teacher Education

Pre service education is the place where student teachers are trained for the future career. These pre
service programs have chosen different areas of knowledge on which to focus. Some may have a
content-heavy academic focus, while others focus more on the teacher’s personal development or
general pedagogical knowledge. However, in most of the pre service program, there is no enough place
given for reflective practice, interpersonal and communication skills, interdisciplinary approaches,
dialogue, teamwork.

As research showed that the efficacy of pre-service teacher education on changing teachers’ thinking
before they begin teaching is limited. They recognize that teachers’ knowledge grows and their beliefs
change through their actual practice.

What do you think teacher education programs should add in terms of skills, knowledge, and
values?

Pre-service teacher education program should be designed to provide student teachers with a strong
foundation in a range of knowledge areas and prepare them for continued learning and development
throughout their career. Some of the attributes that have been proposed include: a strong, clear and
shared vision of education; a solid basis in multiple areas of knowledge; opportunities to link learning
and practice; and multiple opportunities for inquiry and reflection, so that the process of reflection on
practice can begin during pre-service education.

The Practicing Teacher

Learning and change continues throughout a teacher’s career. Teacher learning and change comes from
studies of particular in-service or professional development programs, which are designed to provide
teachers with additional skills that they may need for teaching practice.

Why teachers need in service program?

Teachers need to be reorganized to accommodate the changing roles and functions within the teaching
system through in-service or professional development programs. These learning areas can be: Health

37
promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention, sex education, and life skills training, different approaches to
teaching, learning based on strong human relations and interpersonal skills and computer skills. In
general, the demands of the “new teaching profession” require the acquisition of skills that are much
larger in scope than those necessary to simply transmit knowledge.

Reflective Practice

What is the contribution of reflective practice on teacher’s learning?

Reflective practice is the practice of analyzing one’s actions, decisions, or products by focusing on
one’s process for achieving them

Why teachers need to be reflective practitioners?

There are many reasons for teachers to develop as reflective practitioners. The most important is that
teachers need to be reflective in order to deal with the inevitable uncertainties and dilemma involved in
everyday decisions that affect the lives of students.

Since teaching is a complex and dilemma-ridden endeavor, the need of ongoing learning as well as the
capacity to be reflective is become mandatory. Because today’s classroom represents increasing
diversity among students, a teacher has to accommodate and adjust to this greater range of differences
in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, developmental levels, motivation to learn, and achievement. Being
responsive to this vast array of students’ needs requires teachers who are reflective. Engaging in
reflection helps teachers recognize behaviors and practices which impede their potential for tolerance
and acceptance-the vital elements for meeting the needs of all students in a diverse society moving
toward a global community

Another reason for developing as reflective practitioners is that it frees teachers from routine and
impulsive acts, enabling them to act in a more deliberative and intentional manner. While following
routine helps teachers manage the task of teaching, if teachers become slaves to routine they eventually
come to feel powerless to influence their future careers. Routine action is guided by circumstance,
tradition and external authority while reflective practice entails voluntary and willingly taking
responsibility for considering personal action.

38
A final reason is that emerging beliefs about quality teaching support teachers developing as reflective
practitioners. What constitutes quality teaching is evolving. Major curricular changes that provide
greater emphasis on socialization, and collaboration require fundamental changes in the way teachers
view their role. These changing classroom demands redefine the teacher's role as social mediator,
learning facilitator, and reflective practitioner. Being able to function in these roles begins with teacher
self-awareness, self-inquiry and self-reflection. In fulfilling these roles, teachers in turn help students to
learn to exercise self-direction, self-regulation and self-reflection – those qualities that are fundamental
for democratic citizens.

Section Three: The role of teachers in the society


What do you think the role of teachers in the society?

A teacher’s work can never end. From the role of everyday

t e a c h i n g p r o c e s s t o managerial to the role as a member of the society, teachers
play various roles to ensure t h a t t h e e d u c a t i o n s y s t e m a n d t h e s o c i e t y a s a
whole move along side by side. The roles of teacher in the society are
classified into three main areas: knowledge and skill, social inclusion and
professional development of the teacher’s role.

Knowledge and Skills – a local issue

One of the defining characteristics of teachers across the centuries is that the teacher has a distinctive
fund of knowledge and skills that are ‘transmitted’ to learners.

‘If you can read this, thank a teacher’. This is one of the roles which society has expected from its
teachers for centuries. Literacy ability of children is strongly associated with the educational
provision of teachers and schools in which they can work. And, of course, the favorable home
circumstances of parents sharing books with their children and engaging them in word games are
likely to reflect the work of teachers a generation earlier.

Social inclusion – a societal issue

39
The diversification of the teacher’s role has given greater attention to the social inclusion of all the
students for whom the teacher has responsibility. Developing an understanding of children, so as to
make teaching and learning developmentally appropriate, has long been part of the teacher’s role. A
growing awareness of the range of students’ special needs, and recognition of the implications of
population migration, has led to national policy initiatives driven by social justice and harmonization
agenda. Teaching has become more diversified not only to address different learning needs but also
different first languages among the teacher’s students.

The professional development of the teacher’s role – a continuing issue

Teachers are increasingly called upon to help young people become fully autonomous learners by
acquiring key skills, rather than memorizing information: teachers are asked to develop more
collaborative and constructive approaches to learning and are expected to be facilitators and
classroom managers rather than ex-cathedra trainers. These new roles require education in a range of
teaching approaches and styles. In addition, classrooms now contain a more heterogeneous mix of
young people from different backgrounds and with different levels of ability.

To equip the teaching body with skills and competences for its new roles, it is necessary to have both
high-quality initial teacher education and a coherent process of continuous professional development,
keeping teachers up-to-date with the skills required in the knowledge-based society throughout their
careers. Evidence has consistently shown that investing in teachers is the most productive investment
for increasing school effectiveness and improvement.

Section Four: Relationships in teaching: How are we getting on together?

A teacher's relationship can be divided into three main areas: the relationship with students, which
mean the “ordinary teaching”, and the relationship with other staff members, the relationship with
societies at large. Teachers link together to students, other teachers, school administrators, families,
and community members to foster the learning success and healthy development of their students.
The nature of these interactions among different stakeholders varies depending on the teachers' intent
and the needs of their students

40
Teachers and Students

What kind of relation you except teacher should have with his/her students?

The relationship between teacher and student has been a focus of inquiry for over 2000 years,
since Plato, Socrates, and Confucius established much of the philosophical guidelines for
teaching. By emphasizing the acquisition of knowledge through dialogue, each philosopher
stressed a commitment to the teacher-student relationship.

The 20th century has witnessed the proliferation of ideas fostering teacher-student
relationships. In the early 1900s, John Dewey and other progressive educators theorized that
children flourish if allowed to grow freely in their own way at their own rate without being
forced or limited by too much teaching. Maria Montessori similarly argued that children
should discover knowledge for themselves and learn by doing with a clear emphasis on
sensory perceptions.

At the other end of the continuum, B. F. Skinner and other proponents of stimulus-response learning
theory defined teachers as transmitters of knowledge and students as passive recipients. According to
their respective theories of associationism and behaviorism, the classroom teacher presented content
to children and conducted drill-and-review as children memorized the material.

How is the relationship between teachers and students now a day?

The relationship between teacher and student was redefined with the advent of cognitive psychology.
Following the principles of constructivism, teachers and students were said to construct knowledge
jointly. Teachers and students were believed to constitute a community of learners which engages in
social discourse and produces common understandings. Teachers were seen as facilitators who guide
and enrich children's learning activities, with students serving as co-contributors to the learning
process.
Psychologists have recently addressed the psychosocial dimensions of teachers' relationships with
students. Research on resilience indicates that caring teachers who express concern for students and
act as confidants, role models, and mentors can contribute to children's capacity to overcome personal
vulnerabilities and environmental adversities

Teachers and School Staff

What do you think the relationship teachers and school staffs should be?

41
Teachers' relationships with their peers, other school staff, and school administrators have been
researched for decades. These studies reveal that teachers are often isolated from their peers and other
school professionals.

What do you expect the experience teachers should do for you when you are newly employed?

Professional relationships among teachers adhere to norms that govern the ways teachers ask for and
provide help. Research on professional development reveals that interactions among mentors and
mentee are often reserved, non-problematic, uncritical and not focused on the classroom practice.
However, relationships between mentor teachers and new teachers should be about maintaining
harmony and support, rather than developing competence.

What should be done to increase the positive relationship between teachers and school staff?

To increase the quality of teachers' work- relationships requires professional and organizational
change through, for example, the establishing a positive relationship between participative decision-
making and classroom instruction, noting an increase in innovations adopted by schools, professional
development activities, teacher exchange of ideas and knowledge, and improved understanding of
learning and classroom instruction.

Teachers and Parents

To what extent teacher and parents should communicate? Why?

Teacher-parent relationships impact students' learning and well-being and many teachers attempt to
involve parents in school management or classroom activities. These parent-involvement efforts help
establish and foster parent-teacher relationships, and include parents in educational interventions,
which are significantly more effective than those without parent involvement.

What are the advantages of parents’ involvement in the school?

Parent involvement programs promote a number of desirable student outcomes, including: decreased
teen pregnancy and drop-out rates, increased graduation rates, and improved achievement and school
attendance. Teachers can encourage and support parental involvement through home visits and parent
teacher conferences. Parents who participate in these programs are more likely to further their own
education by attending classes and are more able to provide increased support to their children and

42
 their children's learning needs. Caring parents and teachers who act in concert can strengthen the
effects of educational and social interventions. When there are positive relationships among parents
and teachers, the resources of the home and school contexts are amplified, providing a greater
likelihood of positive outcomes for children.

Teachers and the Community

What the teachers and the community relationship involves?

To create rich, nurturing educational environments in the classroom, schools need to maximize the
use of resources available in their communities. Teachers can incorporate parents' skills and
knowledge and local organizations and programs into their curriculum to offer students
supplementary information to complement their basic course work. Many teachers collaborate with
local universities, museums, and community service organizations to expand the cultural resources
available to students and enhance their educational experience. Teachers can forge relationships with
outside agencies and community members to provide children with the best possible learning
environment.

To meet the diverse needs of students in our public schools, community services and service
providers are often connected to the children's school experience. As organizations, schools have the
advantage of having the most frequent contact with students an d therefore the potential to truly
benefit children through the integration of school-linked services in meeting the children's needs .
Teachers may work with social workers, family counselors, local health care providers, and others to
address and fulfill the needs of their students.

Activity

Identify the roles of Girma

How is his relationship with others? Why?

Girma is an English teacher in grade [Link] focuses on students’ communication skills. He uses
different teaching strategies that each and every student can learn easy. For instance he uses role
play, audio visual material-movies, presentation. He encourage active participation of students in

43
classroom especially girls and students with special needs. As a result, everybody feels recognized
and participate freely. He also can see the progress of their English communication skills However,
he concerned about some students who continually cut his class to go’ chat and shisa’ houses which
is found around the schools. When he knew that, he made these students to call upon their parents.
After the long discussion with the parents, the students came back to his class but cut others.
Recognizing this problem again, Girma decided to work with the principal to dig out the root reasons
to lead for the permanent solutions. They prepare a two days workshop and call for the parents, and
other governmental and nongovernmental organization to discuss on the issues and solutions. As the
result of the workshop, the school and the stakeholders decided to displace ’ chat and shisa’ houses
from the surrounding of the schools and build recreational places instead.

Section Five. Teaching, change in society and reflection

As the century goes, education has emerged at the forefront of the world’s concern over its own
future. The challenges of the coming century to eliminate poverty and ensure
sustainable development and lasting peace will fall to today’s young people. Educating
the young to meet these challenges has become a priority objective for every society. The young
generation is entering a world which is changing in all spheres – scientific and
technological, political, economic, social and cultural.

What will be the teacher roles in the changing world?

It is often viewed that a societal change that has great impact on the teacher’s work centered mainly
on its technological side. The development of ICT has bigger effect o n a t e a c h e r ’ s w o r k
compare to that of the changes in political, economical, and
environmental side.

As t h e s t u d y i n d i c a t e d , t e a c h e r s w h o i n t e n s i v e l y u s e d i n f o r m a t i o n
t e c h n o l o g y e m p h a s i z e d , m o r e t h a n o t h e r t e a c h e r s , t h e importance of using
information technology for facil itating students’ participati on in progressive inquiry,
collaborative learning, the learners’ active engagement in knowledge formation process, and
learnability of intelligence.

44
 The impact of economical and political change however does little to the work of a teacher
w h e n c o m p a r e d t o t h e technology which brings greater impact on a teacher’s work in a
changing society.

What are the challenges of the teachers in the changing world?

Teachers will be facing a lot of challenges especially in the age of globalization
that promises a degree of social change from time to time. When a social change takes place,
challenges for teachers will increase and var y. The change in economics,
p o l i t i c s , technology, cultures and others in a community will deter the type of
challenges that a teacher may be facing. A change in culture, say, the culture in the rural areas
differs from the culture in the urban areas, would give a challenge to teachers in their
teaching. Students may be a lot passive than students from urban areas and there will
be only little teacher-student interaction. A change in technology may result to poor effectiveness
of learning, where the unfamiliarity of students’ surroundings lowers the pace of
teaching.
In the economical term, meanwhile, the students may find it hard to get books, stationeries, and
even to buy uniforms. Another challenge a teacher faces is that a lot of children are
not as prepared for school as they need to be. They come without a lot of literacy experience. They
come into the classroom holding books upside down, or not knowing where the books
start. Teachers will also face the environment of gangsterism and the attitude problems
which do not come from the students only, but the parents as well.

Section Six .Professional identity: knowing oneself as a teacher

Any teacher will gain professional identity throughout the process of experiencing teaching.
What kind of teacher you want to be?


[Link] of teacher disposition

A teacher's disposition can be divided into four main areas as follow:

45
Able/Unable
The able teacher sees students as having the capacities to deal with their problems. The teacher believes
students or other people in the school community are able to find adequate solutions to events in their
own lives.

The unable teacher sees students as lacking the necessary capacities to deal effectively with their
problems. The teacher doubts students’ abilities to make their own decisions and run their own lives. If
the teacher believes a student is able, the student will try to do his/her job to the best of his/her ability.
If the teacher believes a student is unable, the student will often avoid responsibility.

Identified/Unidentified
The identified teacher relates easily with people, especially with people from diverse backgrounds. The
unidentified teacher feels oneness only with those of similar belief and feels apart from all others. If the
teacher feels a student can learn, then he/she will employ the most effective methods, as opposed to the
teacher who makes materials for a general few and ignores the necessary adaptations that guarantee all
students have access to the general education curriculum.
Larger/Smaller
The teacher identified as being larger has a global or broad perspective beyond immediate context. The
smaller teacher has a very narrow focus on specific goals. The effective teacher understands the
purpose of education is to have a long term, positive impact on a child’s growth and development.
People/Things
The people teacher is concerned with the human aspects of day-to-day life. The attitudes, feelings,
beliefs, and welfare of students and fellow community members are prime considerations in his/her
thinking. The things teacher is preoccupied with all the impersonal, detail-oriented management aspects
of education. The effective teacher is not a concrete thinker concerned with what is right in the school
setting but instead focuses on what is appropriate for the individual or situation. The teacher focused on
things as a first priority will put schedules and rules ahead of looking for the cause of the problem.

46
The following cases show the different dispositions of teachers. Identify the types of
dispositions of each teacher

1. Abebe always compares the quality of his students with his own back ground. Thus
he always upset when the students ask simple questions.
2. Zufan consistently supports her students academically and emotionally.
3. Selam is a new teacher assigned in rural school. She grew up in the city. She cannot
socialize with other teachers because she thinks that they are not her type. Thus she
always feels lonely and depressed.
4. Alemu, most of the time, prepare different teaching aids like diagrams, pictures or
real objects before he enters in to the class.
5. Almaz always saves 15 minutes of her class time for open discussion .For instance,
the contribution of women in to the world; the damage of HIV in our country’s
economy; the advantage of time management.

Section Seven. Teachers as lifelong learners

What is lifelong learning?

 Lifelong learning is not rooted in any particular moral or professional commitment.

 Lifelong learning for teacher becomes an individualistic enterprise, its purpose to consume
skills while turning teaching into an endless human resource development project.

What is Continuous Professional Development?

The idea of continuous professional development clearly denotes that learning for the sake of
improving professional practice.

What are the methods of CPD??


47
 → Approaches to CPD
Continuous professional development has different way if practices for teachers as follow:
Teacher career development in schools including:
 Whole-school training days the induction,
 Mentoring and assessment of individual teachers
 Peer observation
 Collaborative planning and evaluation, and self-evaluation.

Looking beyond a particular school, teachers might build networks by:

 Visiting other schools
 Attending conferences
 Undertaking joint training exercises with other schools
 Joining teacher networks, and
 Engaging with specialist subject associations.

Outside the school environment, teachers might:

 Attend short courses by commercial and not-for-profit providers (such as charities and LEAs)
 Study for higher degrees validated by universities take part in examining processes (for example
by becoming examiners)
 Study using online courses, or

Finally, looking towards the wider community, teachers might:

 Take part in outreach activities, particularly in the case of ASTs (Advanced Skills Teachers)
 Sometimes provide opportunities for community learning.
Activity

Which methods of CPD you think it can develop your profession easily? Why?

Rational and purposes of CPD

What do you think the purpose of CPD?

The rationale and the purpose of CPD can be summarized in four categories as follows:

48
Greater authenticity and commitment to learning
Continuous professional development programs for teacher increases their involvement in learning
activities such as professional reading, attending workshops, and joining in-school groups to explore
particular teaching-related topics. It also increases the ownership of teachers for professional growth
and levels of what they described as teacher confidence and enthusiasm.

Increased focus and personal accountability in learning

Continuous professional development is believed to help teachers focus, developing a clearer sense of
purpose and meaning in their teaching and learning activities. And, it increases insight into one’s own
teaching, and helping define a personal vision for one’s practice.

It also increases a personal accountability of teachers that goal-setting creates: When it’s written down,
he/she begin to relate everything that happens to that goal. They take more responsibility for their own
professional development and they do much more “conscious planning” for their growth, and more
thinking around questions such as, “How will I know when I get there? What will it look like?”

Teachers’ self-affirmation through learning

Continuous professional development program in the schools increases competence and growth rather
than deficits and judgment. For examples, End-of-year discussions with teachers about their growth
plans tend to highlight their accomplishments, positive changes and affirming incidents throughout the
year that otherwise might be forgotten.

49
References

Beijaard, Douwe & et al (1999) Teachers' perceptions of professional identity: an exploratory study
from a personal knowledge perspective. ICLON Graduate School of Education, Leiden
University: Netherlands.
Beard, Roger (2008) What Is the Role of the Teacher Today? Paper Presented At The Epp-Ed Hearing
On Teacher Quality: Does It Really Matter? Institute of Education, University of London
Hinde, Elizabeth () Reflections on Reform: A Former Teacher Looks at School Change and the Factors
that Shape It. Arizona State University East
Jean Lightfoot,J. Brenda (2005) Nature of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors’ Reflective Practices.
Unpublished PhD Dissertation. University of Texas: U.S.A.
Lyons, Nona () Dilemmas of Knowing: Ethical and Epistemological Dimensions of Teachers' Work and
Development .Harvard University
Richardson, Robin (2004) Teacher Educators as Agents of Change– reflections and priorities Multiverse
conference. Woburn House: London
Pultorak, G. Edward(ed)(2010) The Purposes, Practices, and Professionalism of Teacher Reflectivity
Insights for Twenty-First- Century Teachers and Students. Rowman & Littlefield Education:
Lanham, Maryland • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Journals

Beswick, Kim and Muir, Tracey (2007) Stimulating Reflection on Practice: Using the Supportive
Classroom Reflection Process: Mathematics Teacher Education and Development Special Issue
2007, Vol. 8, 74–[Link] of Tasmania
Estevem ,M. Jose. (2000) The Transformation of the Teachers’ Role at the End of the Twentieth
Century: new challenges for the future. Educational Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, 2000: University of
Ma´laga

Webb, Rosemary and Vulliamy, Graham (2002). The social work dimension of the primary teacher’s
role. Taylor & Francis Ltd: Research Papers in Education ISSN 0267-1522 print/ISSN 1470-
1146 .Also available online [Link]
Fullan.G Michael (1993) The Professional Teacher: Why Teachers Must Become Change Agents.
Educational Leadership Volume 50 Number 6 March 1993

50
 Unit Three: The notion of reflective teaching

Unit Learning Outcomes


Upon completion of this unit the candidates will be able to:

 Define reflective teaching

 Differentiate between routine action and reflective action,

 Learn by reflecting in/on their action,

 Organize and conduct evidence informed classroom.

Section One: Meaning of Reflective Teaching

What is Reflective Teaching?

We should ridicule a merchant who said that he had sold a great many goods although no one had
bought any. But perhaps there are teachers who think that they have done a good day’s teaching
irrespective of what [students] have learned

-John Dewey, How We Think

What counts as a “good day’s teaching”? How do we know it when we see it? Despite efforts to
quantify, grade, test, and otherwise assess teaching and learning, it remains difficult to tell on a daily
basis whether students are actually buying the goods teachers offer. Unlike the merchant, who can
count his wares to see how many have sold, teachers must approach self-evaluation more creatively.
For many accomplished teachers acclaimed for the quality of their practice, to do so involves ongoing
reflection.

Reflection means thinking about what one is doing. It entails a process of contemplation with an
openness to being changed, a willingness to learn, and a sense of responsibility for doing one’s best.
Perhaps this process seems natural, and indeed it may be; but it also poses a challenge.

51
Consider a metaphor of “reflection.” Think about looking at your reflection in a mirror and you’ll get a
sense of how easy it can be to “reflect,” or to see an image shown back to you. Yet it is much more
difficult to truly look at yourself. It can be painful to face your flaws, uncomfortable to acknowledge
your strengths, and both odd and inspiring to glimpse yourself from another point of view. Such are the
dualities of seeing your own reflection.

So it is with reflection in teaching. Reflective teachers face the challenge of truly seeing themselves and
their teaching. They approach their practice with openness, wholeheartedness, and responsibility,
looking for the better path to take, the edges that need to be smoothed, and the changes they need to
make in their practice to improve learning for students.

This is the heart of quality teaching. Dewey (1933) says as much regarding the role of reflection in
education: “The only way to increase the learning of students is to augment the quantity and quality of
real teaching”. In this simple idea, Dewey states the very essence of teaching and learning, exposing the
essentials that really matter in education. Students learn when teachers teach well. But how do teachers
know when they’re teaching well? How can they be supported and encouraged to think about the
quality of their teaching and its impact on student learning? These questions capture many present day
dilemmas about education and the professional learning of teachers.

Reflection is thinking about something in a purposeful way. Dewey (1933) defines reflection as
“…active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or practice…” As teachers, we can reflect
on classroom decisions and events, but reflection also involves the emotional, passionate, and intuitive
side of teaching.

So reflective practice in teaching necessarily encompasses critical self-evaluation, which can be

difficult emotionally Dewey (1933) defines reflection as “…active, persistent, and careful consideration
of any belief or practice…”As teachers, we can reflect on classroom decisions and events, but reflection
also involves the emotional, passionate, and intuitive side of teaching

So reflective practice in teaching necessarily encompasses critical self-evaluation, which can be

difficult emotionally.

52
Section Two: Routine Action Vs Reflection Action

What kind of Actions considered routine and reflective for the teacher’ Job?
Routine action is guided primarily by tradition, external authority and circumstance. In reflective
teaching, teachers engage in active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form
of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and its consequences. Thus reflective teachers
consistently assess the origins, purposes and consequences of their work.

Professional knowledge requires that teachers employ the reflective approach to knowledge-‘plan, act,
reflect, evaluate’-rather than the traditional application approach ’plan, implement, evaluate’

Case 1:Reflective Teachers Vs. Non-Reflective Teachers

Teachers who operate at a non-reflective level react without conscious consideration of
alternative responses. Settling too quickly on only one explanation of a behavior or situation
leads to a narrow range of potential solutions.

Non-reflective teachers react to individual classroom situations without connecting them to other
events. Their orientation is reactive, attributing ownership of problems to students or others.
They view student and classroom circumstances as beyond their control, seeing themselves as
victims of circumstances. They are willing to take things for granted without questioning,
justifying teaching methods without exploring alternatives. They enforce predetermined
standards of operation without adapting or restructuring based on students’ responses.

Reflective teachers spend a lot of time thinking about classroom interactions and consider both
the intended as well as the unintended consequences of their actions. They engage in the
thoughtful reconsideration of everything that happens in their classroom with an eye toward
improvement. Non-reflective teachers often fail to recognize dilemmas, have little impetus for
improvement, and are consequently unlikely to achieve their professional potential.

While all teachers make mistakes, what differentiates non-reflective from reflective teachers is
that reflective teachers recognize, learn from, and strive to correct their mistakes.

List activities of

a. What reflective teachers do?

53
 b. What non- reflective teachers do?

Section Three: Becoming a Reflective Teacher

How can we become reflective teacher?

There are attitudes and skills you should develop to be a better reflective teacher. According to Dewey
(1933) as cited in ___book, there are three essentials attitudes and practices that one should have to be a
reflective teacher.

Three Essential Attitudes of Reflective Practitioners

The three essential attitudes or habits of mind first described by Dewey are still considered the
foundation of reflective practice. They are: open-mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness.

54
Open-mindedness
Open-mindedness is a willingness to consider new evidence as it occurs and to admit the possibility of
error. Open-mindedness means being open to other points of view, appreciating that there are many
ways to view a particular situation or event, and staying open to changing your own viewpoint. Part of
open-mindedness is also letting go of needing to be right or wanting to win.

It requires hearing different views as valid ways of thinking, not as threats. Open-mindedness is
described as “an active desire to listen to more sides than one, to give full attention to alternative
possibilities, and to recognize the possibility of error even in our most dear beliefs.”

Being open-minded requires the capacity to criticize oneself. Teachers who are unable to acknowledge
their errors tend to blame their students for any problems that arise. For example, if 90% of the class
fails a test, teachers who are open-minded consider the possibility that the material, method or approach
was lacking, rather than accuse students of not studying.

Open-minded teachers continually seek new information that might challenge their taken-for-granted
assumptions about teaching, thus enabling them to envision a broad range of potential solutions and
making it more likely that dilemmas will be resolved.

Responsibility
Responsibility is the careful consideration of the consequences of one’s actions, especially as they
affect students. Reflective thinking leads to responsible action. Responsibility refers to a teacher’s
willingness to examine all decision making (e.g., decisions about curriculum, instruction, evaluation,
organization, management) from a coherent philosophical framework of teaching and learning.

Responsibility is the willingness to acknowledge that whatever one chooses to do will impact the lives
of students in both foreseen and unforeseen ways. Demonstrating responsibility means owning the
many positive and negative ways your actions might influence others, regardless of how things turn
out.

Wholeheartedness
Dewey believed that when people are thoroughly interested in a cause, they throw themselves into it
with a whole heart. Teachers who are wholehearted approach all situations with the attitude that they
can learn something new. The “need-to-know” is the driving force for their learning.
Wholeheartedness is characterized as “a commitment to seek every opportunity to learn.”
55
From the above reading, which qualities do you think you have?

Three Essential Practices for Becoming a Reflective Practitioner

While it’s not possible to prescribe a step-by-step procedure, there are actions and practices that are
fundamental to developing as a reflective practitioner. The following three practices are essential: 1)
Solitary reflection, 2) Ongoing inquiry, and 3) Perpetual problem-solving. The first creates an opening
for the possibility of reflection while the others allow for a way of developing teaching practice that
accepts uncertainty, recognizes contextual bounds and considers multiple plausible explanations for
events and circumstances.

Solitary Reflection
Making time for thoughtful consideration of your actions and critical inquiry into the impact of your
own behavior keeps you alert to the consequences of your actions on students. It’s important to engage
in systematic reflection by making it an integral part of your daily practice. Keeping a reflective journal
is one vehicle for ensuring time is set aside for daily reflection.

Teachers also need reflective time to consider the inevitable tradeoffs involved in everyday decisions
that affect students. Any effort to become a reflective practitioner involves negotiating feelings of
frustration and insecurity. Taking solitary time helps teachers come to accept that such feelings are a
natural part of teaching.

Ongoing Inquiry
This practice involves unending questioning of the status quo and conventional wisdom by seeking
your own truth. Being a fearless truth-seeker means examining the assumptions that underlie both
classroom and school practices.

Perpetual Problem-solving
Perpetual problem-solvers are never satisfied that they have all the answers and constantly seek new
information. Problems present opportunities to find better solutions, build relationships, and to teach
students new coping strategies. Your modus operandus is solving problems, not enforcing preset
standards of operation. The classroom serves as a laboratory for purposeful experimentation. A practice
or procedure is never permanent. New insights, understandings and perspectives can bring previous
decisions up for reevaluation at any time.

56
WANTED
Case 2: A Reflective Practitioner
A person who is inherently curious; someone who doesn't have all the answers and isn't afraid to
admit it; someone who is confident enough in his or her ability to accept challenges in a non-
defensive manner; someone who is secure enough to make his or her thinking public and
therefore subject to discussion; someone who is a good listener; someone who likes other people
and trusts them to make the right decisions if given the opportunity; someone who is able to see
things from another's perspective and is sensitive to the needs and feelings of others; someone
who is able to relax and lean back and let others assume the responsibility of their own learning.
Some experience desirable but not as important as the ability to learn from mistakes (Osterman
& Kottkamp, 1993).
Activity Directions:
1. List all the qualities that are sought in this want ad.
2. Categorize the above mentioned qualities in the three majors area of attitudes
3. Which ones do you possess as a person?
4. Which one is your greatest strength?
5. Which one is your biggest challenge?

Adapting Reflection in to One’s Teaching Repertoire: Some Tips

Mention some methods that you think facilitate reflection in classroom.

Some Tips you may want to use for facilitating reflection teaching in the classroom:

 Prepare a framework for guiding the discussion.

 Lead the group by actively engaging each student.
 Set the tone by establishing norms of behavior such as: Anyone in the group may speak at any
time — no hand-raising is required, but the rules of polite conversation are followed.
 No profanity or sexual innuendoes are necessary to make a point.
 Speakers should be respectful, open-minded, and not aim to put anyone down.
 Insist that responses are clear, coherent sentences, not just a few words.
 Clarify students' responsibilities and expectations (write them down and copy for all).
 Arouse interest and commitment to the service learning.
 Assess the values, knowledge, and skills that each student brings to the project.

57
  Develop background information about the people and problems the students will encounter in
the service situations to sensitize them and help to revise any misconceptions.
 Develop and practice any skills that will be required, including being active observers and
questioners of experience.
 Get closure on emotional/affective issues by the end of each reflective session.
 Leave some cognitive/topical issues open until the next session to give group members an
opportunity to think more about them.

Section Four: Strategies/ Opportunities for Reflection

In what way do you reflect your experiences?
To develop the habits of mind necessary to become reflective practitioners, preservice and novice
teachers often need to be explicitly prompted to think, respond, and act in new ways. Reflection is
enhanced when mentoring or coaching is provided that allows teachers as learners to tap into their own
realm of experiences, reflect on those experiences, and construct personal meaning to inform their
developing practice. Reflection, especially critical reflection and self-reflection, are complex constructs
requiring strategically constructed mediation or facilitation.
In addition, establishing self-monitoring and self-reflective activities early on can promote the kind of
self-awareness that allows preservice teachers to hear and listen to their own voices. Focusing on what
they already know and believe about teaching has proven to be a useful starting point

Strategies of reflection help both teachers and students to address problems and learning challenges,
deepen their understanding, and generate new insights. In addition to their reflection about their own
practice, teachers may provide reflection exercises or assignments, examples, and challenges to
enhance other teachers’ and students’ learning. So the question presents itself, how can teachers reflect,
what tools can be used to facilitate the reflective process?

Strategies/ Opportunities for Reflection that have been found to be useful in promoting reflection
include journal writing, teacher narratives, autobiography, metaphor, critical incidents, support groups,
critical friends, and action research. Merging these task structures in creative ways and utilizing them
individually, collaboratively, and with facilitated coaching is likely to have the greatest potential for
promoting higher-order reflection.

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  Teacher Narratives (autobiography and metaphor)
 Critical Incident
 Portfolios
 Case Study Analysis
 Student Input
 Action research

Teacher Narratives (autobiography and metaphor)

Narratives other than journal writing can render a rich understanding of what takes place in the minds
of developing teachers as they construct their reality of teaching. Teacher narratives are stories written
by and about teachers and can be used as the source of narrative inquiry (Cole, 2000). It is a more
disciplined from of writing than journaling in that it has a structure and a focus, the intent to
communicate a story. Either keen observers or teachers themselves write real stories about teaching that
illuminate the realities, dilemmas and rewards of teaching.

Reflecting on teacher narratives can yield insights about motivations for teacher actions, the
complexities of teaching, and about teachers. Teacher narratives can also be specifically designed to be
used as case studies with the explicit purpose of reflecting on a specific problem. Using a vehicle of
case story writing based on student teaching experiences helped pre service teachers’ move toward
critical reflection.

Autobiographical sketches, also called personal histories, are a specialized form of teacher narratives
.These stories of a more personal and in-depth nature offer insight into the past to uncover preconceived
theories of practice. When teachers write about their own biographies and how they think these have
shaped the construction of their values, then they are able to see more clearly how social and
institutional forces beyond the classroom and school have had an influence.

Some scholars advocated the use of metaphors to help teachers become aware of their teaching
identities and develop alternative ways to think about an issue. The reflection that occurs in the
examination of personal teaching metaphors involves reframing the lens through which a teacher
perceives a problem. It attributes a critical reflection of a practitioner.

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Metaphors bear the images teachers have of themselves as teachers, their professional identity. The
practical theories of teachers are often expressed as metaphors as opposed to the more logical forms of
expression.

Through metaphors teachers can elaborate and turn abstractions into real images, helping to give them
firmer handles on slippery concepts such as teaching.

The following metaphors written by beginning teachers offer a glimpse of the images teachers have of
themselves as teachers:

A teacher is like a song creating memories and bringing comfort when you hear it.

A teacher is like a caterpillar because you are continually stretching out then pulling back. It’s pretty
stressful if you try to be stretched out all the time, so you have to remember to pull back. But if you
always pull back you go nowhere.

A teacher is like a candle melts itself and gives light for another

Critical Incident

Though generally conceived as a self-generated incident, a critical incident could also be a carefully
chosen real-world example or case study of a teaching dilemma intended to serve as a springboard for
reflection. Examining a critical incident can be a tool for deepening the level of reflection. Writing
about critical incidents or dilemmas rather than typical daily events promoted critical reflection in
novice teachers.

Descriptions of high and low moments in their practice, or details of significant incidents that stand out
in their lives as teachers, provide the impetus to grapple with problems and dilemmas becoming the
basis for critical investigation. By sharing critical incident responses, teachers come to realize that their
individual stories have generic qualities and themes embedded within them. They discover that their
personal struggles are not so different from those experienced by their colleagues.

Portfolios
Professional portfolios vary from online documents to 3-ring binder folios. Portfolios are designed to
encourage novice teachers to reflect about important areas such as state and/or national teaching
standards and to document evidence of their knowledge and experience of each. Portfolios can be

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developed over the course of an entire teacher education program to demonstrate growth in knowledge
and skill and can provide evidence of achievements.

Portfolios can promote reflective thinking at various levels of deliberation on practical teaching
matters as well as at higher levels of questioning institutional goals. The routine of reflecting on
practice through portfolios can provide the novice teacher with a cognitive link between past
experiences and newly encountered challenges. Discovering ways to understand present circumstances
through previously acquired knowledge can help to generate new problem-solving abilities.
Case Study Analysis
Case study analysis can be a valuable method for stimulating teacher reflection. Teachin through case
study requires preservice teachers to review unique and challenging situations and to reflect on
potential solutions

Case studies can present complex situations that require difficult analysis and depend on both instructor
expertise and high levels of student comprehension. Case study written reflections could be shared and
discussed with peers in an effort to learn about alternative ways of approaching problems.

Student Input
Some studies indicated that college teacher use student input, in its varied forms, as a reflective tool.
Faculty believes that student comments are very important; they learn a great deal from student
evaluations as well as direct comments from the students. Additional forms include but are not limited
to students’ products, course evaluations, and informal student feedback.

Section Five: Evidence and Teacher Judgment

What is Evidence?? 
What counts as evidence?

‘Evidence’ comprised a mix of ‘external’ standardized measures and ‘internal’ professional judgments.
The external measures were clearly quantitative in nature and concerned auditable commodities such as
skills, National Test results. Most schools appeared to conduct a highly sophisticated level of analysis
of their position in the ‘League Tables’ based upon these ‘hard’ data. Quantitative data such as National

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Test results, context-specific benchmarking data were analyzed at school, key stage, class and
individual pupil levels. Teachers also made ‘internal’ professional judgments based on practitioner-
orientated ‘soft’ data that were often, but not always, qualitative in nature. These analyses were based
on personal judgment, understandings of local context, educational values/beliefs and intuitive
experience. They included professional assessment of standards, knowledge, skills, understanding,
progress and motivation of both individual children and whole cohorts.

Schools, and individual teachers with them, appeared to ‘juggle’ with a combination of these two ways
of ‘warranting’ their professional judgments. For example, one school attempted to characterize a
‘Level 4 pupil’ in terms of not only ‘hard’ data (reading, spelling, non-verbal reasoning, etc.) but also
‘soft’ data (motivation, learning style, personality, etc.)

What is Teacher judgment?

Sadler (1988) describes three elements that comprise teacher judgment of student work. The elements
include teachers attending to the learning students produce, appraising this work against a reference
framework, and making an explicit response such as feedback or judgment on the learner’s work.
Overall teacher judgment has an added complexity in the judgment process being applied to a range of
data.

Teacher judgments of student achievement play a central role in many important classroom and school
decisions, including instructional planning, screening, placement, referrals, and communication with
parents. Teacher judgments can also influence the study patterns, self perceptions, attitudes, effort, and
motivation of students. In general, timely, thoughtful, and accurate appraisal of student achievement
can inform and help improve instruction and, by extension, student achievement, especially in the case
of students performing significantly below desired levels
Do you believe that teacher judgment about student performance fair and accurate?

Educational researchers and practitioners traditionally have held one of two contrasting views about the
confidence that can be placed in teacher judgments of student achievement.
The first sees teachers as the best source of information about student performance. Teachers are not
only able to assess student achievement with a high degree of accuracy and validity, but because of
their sustained interactions with students in the classroom during the school year, they gain an
understanding of student achievement that is far richer and multidimensional than would be attainable

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through standardized tests . Some studies have found that teachers are generally confident about their
ability to accurately assess and judge the performance of their students.

In contrast, other researchers are skeptical of the ability of teachers to judge student achievement
objectively or accurately. This view is supported by empirical evidence showing that teachers are not
always able to distinguish accurately between academic achievement and related traits affecting student
achievement, such as motivation, engagement, and measured or perceived ability. Research also raises
concerns that teacher ratings may incorporate certain biases, or that rating accuracy may vary for
groups of students with different backgrounds or characteristics such as ethnicity, or classroom
conduct.
What do you think that affect teacher judgment?

The extent to which different teachers are able to accurately assess student achievement is related in
part with their educational, professional, and personal backgrounds. For example, variation may be
associated with differences in teaching experience or with differences in content area or pedagogical
professional development. Various features of the classroom environment can also influence teacher
judgments. For example, teachers might judge students differently in classrooms with significant
conduct problems. Similarly, teachers in classrooms with a substantial proportion of students with
special needs (e.g., limited English proficiency or learning disabilities) may find it particularly
challenging to judge the achievement of some or all of their students accurately or may tend to assign
differential weight to different factors in their judgments.

A particularly interesting area for investigation involves the kinds of practices teachers use in the
classroom to assess and monitor student achievement and progress. Teachers spend a considerable
amount of time conducting a range of activities related to the assessment and evaluation of student
achievement. Moreover, teachers generally believe that the information they gather through these
assessment activities is important for improving student performance.

When thinking about the role of assessment in teachers’ judgments, it is important to distinguish
between externally mandated tests and various kinds of classroom assessment practices under the direct
control of the teacher. External assessments are usually standardized, on demand tests that rely on
multiple-choice or short constructed response questions. All students are assessed on the same few

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subjects and topics sampled for inclusion in each assessment, and all scores are reported and
summarized in the same manner, typically in a norm- or criterion referenced metric. Judgments of
student performance based solely or mainly on performance on standardized tests would likely be
similar across teachers. In contrast, classroom assessment encompasses a wide range of approaches for
the ongoing evaluation of student achievement and progress, including structured tests and quizzes;
worksheets; homework assignments; and informal assessment of student participation, effort, and
behavior. Judgments of student achievement based only or mostly on classroom assessment could differ
considerably across teachers (e.g., one may value information from quizzes less than information from
homework whereas another may assign the opposite weights to the same sources of information).

Moreover, teacher conceptions about assessment and the nature of learning in general can
fundamentally influence their judgments of student achievement. For example, subscribing to a view
that every student should be held to the same academic standards and expectations is likely to influence
the way in which a teacher judges the level of achievement of her students.

Furthermore, teachers’ perceptions about the relative value of standardized tests compared with
classroom assessments will naturally influence their assessment of students. A teacher who relies
mostly on standardized tests could reach widely different judgments about student achievement than
one who places greater value on teacher made quizzes, effort, and participation in the classroom.

Section Six: The evidence –informed Class Room


What is evidence based education?
Davies (1999) defines ‘Evidence Based Education’ as ‘a set of principles and practices for enhancing
educational policy and practice … [that] operates on two levels. The first is to utilise existing evidence
from worldwide research and literature … The second is to establish sound evidence’.

 For whom is the evidence intended, e.g. policy makers, practitioners, parents, educational
researchers, etc.?
 In what context is the evidence to be employed, e.g. schools, individual teachers, etc.?
 For what purpose is the evidence to be used, e.g. to inform policy, to develop theory, to open
new pedagogic possibilities, etc.?

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What are the obstacles for not making evidence based classroom?

There was a considerable amount of agreement that teaching should, largely at least, be based on
evidence. Aspirations to make teaching an evidence-based profession were clearly not to be realized
without difficulty. Obstacles were seen to centre primarily around four issues:

 Time constraints – time to ‘absorb’, ‘evaluate’ and ‘utilize’ research findings –which was
thought to be a particular problem in the primary phase;
 Financial constraints and resource implications;
 The ‘accessibility’, ‘reliability’, ‘credibility’, ‘transferability’ and ‘applicability’ of research
findings;
 The political nature of research findings – not only what the findings were ‘about’ but also
what they were ‘for’. ‘Why was the research done?’, ‘who is going to benefit and how?’, ‘How
are the findings going to be used?’ In this respect teachers were very clear about whom they did
trust – ‘only other teachers’, ‘my union’ –and whom they didn’t… . Findings were political
statements that could be, and were it was felt, ‘manipulated’. Yet it was not always overt
manipulation that teachers feared, some felt the findings could be ‘slanted’ as a result of
researchers’ attitudes, beliefs and preconceptions.

Classroom inquiry

"Inquiry" is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge -- seeking information by
questioning." Individuals carry on the process of inquiry from the time they are born until they die. This
is true even though they might not reflect upon the process. Infants begin to make sense of the world by
inquiring. From birth, babies observe faces that come near, they grasp objects, they put things in their
mouths, and they turn toward voices. The process of inquiring begins with gathering information and
data through applying the human senses -- seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling

A Context for Inquiry

Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural
process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels.
In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the
expected answers.

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Some of the discouragement of our natural inquiry process may come from a lack of understanding
about the deeper nature of inquiry-based learning. There is even a tendency to view it as "fluff"
learning. Effective inquiry is more than just asking questions. A complex process is involved when
individuals attempt to convert information and data into useful knowledge. Useful application of
inquiry learning involves several factors: a context for questions, a framework for questions, a focus for
questions, and different levels of questions. Well-designed inquiry learning produces knowledge
formation that can be widely applied.

Importance of Inquiry

Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. Facts change, and
information is readily available -- what's needed is an understanding of how to get and make sense of
the mass of data.

Educators must understand that schools need to go beyond data and information accumulation and
move toward the generation of useful and applicable knowledge . . . a process supported by inquiry
learning. In the past, our country's success depended on our supply of natural resources. Today, it
depends upon a workforce that "works smarter."

Through the process of inquiry, individuals construct much of their understanding of the natural and
human-designed worlds. Inquiry implies a "need or want to know" premise. Inquiry is not so much
seeking the right answer -- because often there is none -- but rather seeking appropriate resolutions to
questions and issues. For educators, inquiry implies emphasis on the development of inquiry skills and
the nurturing of inquiring attitudes or habits of mind that will enable individuals to continue the quest
for knowledge throughout life.

Content of disciplines is very important, but as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. The
knowledge base for disciplines is constantly expanding and changing. No one can ever learn
everything, but everyone can better develop their skills and nurture the inquiring attitudes necessary to
continue the generation and examination of knowledge throughout their lives. For modern education,
the skills and the ability to continue learning should be the most important outcomes. The rationale for
why this is necessary is explained in the following diagrams.

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What does it have to do with my classroom?

Most of our schools focus on teaching a set of basic skills that does not serve the needs of modern
society. Traditionally, schools stressed the accumulation of information, and did not emphasize skill
development or nurturing inquiry-based habits of mind. This approach to education was adequate when
the United States was a largely rural society, depending on unskilled labor. Our modern society is faster
paced, globally networked, technologically oriented, and requires workers who can problem solve and
think critically. Today, much learning, if not most, occurs after formal schooling. Our schools must
change their approach to education to produce students who can thrive in the modern world.

The traditional focus of education is no longer appropriate. The world has changed: local
apprenticeships are rare, and young people must master new ways of acting and
thinking. Our society is becoming increasingly larger and more complexly diverse.
Young people must develop an understanding for the complexities of modern life and
be able to grapple with new ethical and practical issues. We must educate our young so
they can participate as responsible members in contemporary society. They also need to be given the
chance to grow and develop fulfilling personal identities in settings that are relatively free of risk.

Inquiry learning can turn information into useful knowledge. It stresses skill development and nurtures
the development of good habits of mind. Information, lacking a useful context, often has limited
applications beyond passing a test. Learning plans and teaching materials need to include a relevant
context for new information to lead to broader understandings. It is often hard for students to
understand the connections between activities within a particular subject. This confusion is heightened
when students struggle to understand the connections between different subjects within traditional
schools.

Many traditional schools lack a coherent and simplified process for interrelating subject material
between grades. There is little emphasis on planning across subjects. And not enough effort is spent
defining the ultimate goals of education -- the skills and abilities students should have when they
complete high school. While many subjects share information-processing skills, much more can be
done to enhance the connections among them.

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"Habits of mind" should be an important goal, or outcome, in education. These habits can produce a
world view that incorporates different disciplines or subjects. They can be thought of as the "ground
rules" for a particular discipline, and include, but are not limited to, verification and respect for data in
science, the importance of beauty and desirability in art, and the role of belief and faith in religion.

What are the benefits of inquiry-based learning?

One of the important missing pieces in many modern schools is a coherent and simplified process for
increasing knowledge of a subject from lower grades to upper grades. Students often have difficulty
understanding how various activities within a particular subject relate to each other. Much more
confusion results when the learner tries to interrelate the various subjects taught at school.

Too little effort is devoted to defining important outcomes at the end of high school and planning
backwards and across subjects. Inquiry-based learning can help make these connections.

Specific content such as photosynthesis has much more relevance for the learner if set in a larger
context of understanding the interrelationship of the sun, green plants, and the role of carbon dioxide
and water. Social studies content, such as industrial development, set in the context of interrelating
changes in the human-designed world can add new perspectives to this important natural process.
Students can still learn content of both science and social studies, but through a series of well-planned
experiences, they will grasp the larger conceptual context and gain greater understanding.

Within a conceptual framework, inquiry learning and active learner involvement can lead to important
outcomes in the classroom. Students who actively make observations, collect, analyze, and synthesize
information, and draw conclusions are developing useful problem-solving skills. These skills can be
applied to future "need to know" situations that students will encounter both at school and at work.

Another benefit that inquiry-based learning offers is the development of habits of mind that can last a
lifetime and guide learning and creative thinking.

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What does inquiry based classroom look like?

What does inquiry-based learning look like? Much of what is said about science and inquiry learning
can be applied to all subjects. The following list describes some of what inquiry learning looks like in
practice.

Students view themselves as learners in the process of learning.

 They look forward to learning.

 They demonstrate a desire to learn more.
 They seek to collaborate and work cooperatively with teacher and
peers.
 They are more confident in learning, demonstrate a willingness to
modify ideas and take calculated risks, and display appropriate
skepticism.

Students accept an "invitation to learn" and willingly engage in an exploration process.

 They exhibit curiosity and ponder observations.

 They move around, selecting and using the materials they need.
 They confer with classmates and teacher about observations and questions.
 They try out some of their own ideas.

Students raise questions, propose explanations, and use observations.

 They ask questions (verbally and through actions).

 They use questions that lead them to activities generating further questions or ideas.
 They observe critically, as opposed to casually looking or listening.
 They value and apply questions as an important part of learning.
 They make connections to previous ideas.

Students plan and carry out learning activities.

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  They design ways to try out their ideas, not always expecting to be told what to do.
 They plan ways to verify, extend, confirm, or discard ideas.
 They carry out activities by: using materials, observing, evaluating, and recording
information.
 They sort out information and decide what is important.
 They see detail, detect sequences and events, notice change, and detect differences and
similarities.

Students communicate using a variety of methods.

 They express ideas in a variety of ways, including journals, drawing, reports, graphing,
and so forth.
 They listen, speak, and write about learning activities with parents, teacher, and peers.
 They use the language of learning, apply the skills of processing information, and
develop their own "ground rules" appropriate for the discipline.

Students critique their learning practices.

 They use indicators to assess their own work.

 They recognize and report their strengths and weaknesses.
 They reflect on their learning with their teacher and their peers.

Reviewing evidences of classroom performance

Planning classroom enquiry
Techniques of enquiry

Many strategies and techniques have been used successfully by teachers and discussed in the literature,
such as the following:
 Asking questions,
 Science process skills,
 Discrepant events,
 Inductive activities,
 Deductive activities,

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  Gathering information, and
 Problem solving.

These methods can all be used during the study of a topic to help students understand fundamental
concepts within many relevant contexts that relate to students’ lives.

Questions
Questions can stimulate thought and action. They are at the heart of the inquiry process. There is
nothing like a good question to get students thinking critically about the world in which they live.
Skilled teachers are good at asking questions that cause students to generate their own questions. When
students formulate questions of personal interest, they are more likely to engage in activities they find
meaningful. Consider the following questions that a physical science teacher helped her students
formulate to guide their investigations and realize the importance of chemistry in the production of
athletic equipment and apparel:

 Do some basketball shoes help you to jump higher than other shoes do?
 Can you hit a baseball farther with an aluminum bat or a wood bat?
 Why do some swimsuits dry faster than others?
 Why do acrylic athletic socks cost more than all-cotton socks?
 Which is a better type of athletic T-shirt and why: all cotton or cotton/polyester blend?
 Do certain brands of golf balls have more bounce than others?

Science Process Skills

Science processes are also used to guide student learning. These skills focus on thinking patterns that
scientists use to construct knowledge, represent ideas, and communicate information. Science process
skills help students pose questions, state problems, make observations, classify data, construct
inferences, form hypotheses, communicate findings, and conduct experiments. The acquisition and
frequent use of these skills can better equip students to solve problems, learn by their own, and
appreciate the subject.

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Inductive Activities

The inductive approach provides students with learning situations in which they can discover a concept
or principle. With this approach, the learner first encounters the attributes and instances of an idea, then
names and discusses the idea. This empirical-inductive approach gives students a concrete experience
whereby they obtain sensory impressions and data from real objects and events. As a result, the learner
can perceive certain stimuli and may be in a better position to make sense of a situation than if he or
she had received abstract information about the particular phenomenon solely from a classroom lecture.

Empirically obtained information can be acted upon cognitively by the student and organized in the
mind, where patterns may be discovered that are meaningful to the learner. This is how a concept is
induced or discovered and how ideas are put forth to describe and explain a phenomenon. The teacher
helps bring into the discussion the appropriate terminology for naming the concept or principle and
defining it.

Deductive Activities

The deductive approach is the opposite of the inductive approach and is frequently used in courses.
With the deductive strategy, a concept or principle is defined and discussed using appropriate labels
and terms, followed by experiences to illustrate the idea under study. The deductive approach is a
vocabulary-before-experience model of teaching in which lecture and discussion precede laboratory or
field work.

The deductive approach can be used to promote inquiry sessions and to construct knowledge. The first
phase presents the generalizations and rules about the concept or principle at hand, and the second
phase requires students to find examples of the concept or principle. Some teachers claim that the
deductive approach is useful when introducing complex ideas that do not have perceptible attributes.

Gathering Information
Scientific inquiry goes beyond constructing knowledge through hands-on activities. Much of the
inquiry that scientists and engineers engage in involves reading and communicating with other people.
Many of these professionals probably spend more time gathering ideas and information from literature
sources and other individuals than they spend conducting laboratory or field work.

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Science teachers must help students obtain information from a variety of sources at many points during
the inquiry process. Information gathering can occur during the application phase of the learning cycle,
when students are assigned to read about a topic, for example.
Reading articles and reading the textbook may be appropriate at this point because students have had
related firsthand experiences.

In other instances, the teacher may ask students to bring in newspaper clippings on a topic just as the
class begins to study it. Another useful resource is the Internet. Students can search the World Wide
Web for information that is available from many locations throughout the world.

Problem Solving
The problem-solving approach to science instruction should not be forgotten because it has the
potential to engage students in authentic investigations and develop their inquiry skills. This strategy
can also make learning more meaningful and relevant for teenagers. Problem solving is often used
synonymously with inquiry and science process skill reasoning (Helgeson, 1989, 1994).

As such, this concept is associated with the nature of scientific inquiry as well as instructional
methodology.

One type of problem-solving approach centers on problems that are relevant to students’ lives (Dewey,
1938). In this approach, students raise questions, plan procedures, collect information, and form
conclusions. These learning experiences can be short or long in duration, taking up to several months to
complete.

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Reference

Martínez, F. José and et al (2009) Classroom Assessment Practices, Teacher Judgments, and Student
Achievement in Mathematics: Evidence from the ECLS. Routledge /Taylor and Francis Group:
Stanford University. ISSN: 1062-7197 print/1532-6977 online DOI:
10.1080/10627190903039429
Mitchell, Kerry and Poskitt, Jenny (2010) How do teachers make overall teacher judgments (OTJs) and
how are they supported to make sound and accurate OTJs? NZARE Conference, Auckland.
Chiappetta, Eugenel(1997) Inquiry-Based Science Strategies And Techniques For Encouraging Inquiry
In The Classroom

Pultorak, G. Edward(ed)(2010) The Purposes, Practices, and Professionalism of Teacher Reflectivity

Insights for Twenty-First- Century Teachers and Students. Rowman & Littlefield
Education:Lanham, Maryland • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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 Unit Four: Action Research as a strategy for Reflection
4.1 What is Action Research?

Unit learning outcomes:


 Explain action research in their own words
 Share the experience of conducting action research
 Start to prepare for a Group Action Research Proposal

Consider individually:

What is Action Research?

What is the purpose of Action Research?

Group work:

Previous experience of Action Research

Group definition of Action Research

Share some initial ideas for action research projects

Background reading:

Definition:

Robson (2002, p545) defines action research:

Action Research is research which is orientated towards bringing about change often involving
respondents in the process of investigation. Researchers are actively involved with the
situation or phenomenon being studied.

Purpose:

The purpose of action research is to improve the understanding of teaching practice and to influence or
change some aspect of whatever is the focus of the research. It is participatory research and usually
involves collaboration between researchers. The evidence collected is qualitative and meaningful to
those involved.

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History:

Action research has been a popular methodology in education for those who maintain that practitioners
are more likely to make better decisions and engage in more effective practices if they are active
participants in educational research

Models of Action Research

Lewin
The birth of action research is usually attributed to the work of Kurt Lewin in the 1940’s. Lewin
developed action research as a method for investigating social problems, believing that this would lead
not only to the development of theory but also to social change – improving the life chances of
disadvantaged groups. He wanted to investigate how participation in decision making in industrial
contexts could lead to increased productivity. His work was quickly applied more widely in social
sciences and in education.

Lewin developed a theory of action research as a spiral of steps involving planning, fact-finding
(or reconnaissance) and execution (Lewin, 1946), and which later came generally to be
understood as an action-reflection cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting” During
the 1950’s there were some developments in action research in education, particularly in the
USA. The 1960’s were a quiet time for action research but by the late 60’s it gained
momentum again, driven by social unease (civil rights movements, protests against wars in
Korea and Vietnam etc).
Stenhouse

In Britain, the work of Lawrence Stenhouse and the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP) was gaining
influence. The HCP (1967-72) emphasised an experimental curriculum and had quite an influence on
British schools in the 1970’s.

Stenhouse held a view of the teacher as researcher and called for all teachers to reflect critically and
systematically on their practice. His key concept was emancipation: liberation for the student to
discover and own knowledge for them; for the teacher to adopt a critical approach and get involved in
research and for the school to become more autonomous and creative.

Kemmis

Stephen Kemmis describes action research as “...a form of research carried out by practitioners into
their own practices….a form of self-reflective enquiry…” (Kemmis, 1993) His model of action
research shows a self reflective spiral of planning, acting and observing, reflecting and re-planning. The
purpose is to improve practice.

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Elliott
Following the HCP the idea of teacher research was further developed by John Elliott and Clem
Adelman in the Ford Teaching Project (1972-75), a project which involved 40 primary and secondary
school teachers in examining their classroom practice through action research.
Elliott uses Lewin’s model as a basis for thinking about action research but criticises it in that it seems
to imply that reconnaissance is merely fact finding and that implementation is a fairly straightforward
process. He argues that:

 The general idea should be allowed to shift.

 Reconnaissance should involve analysis as well as fact-finding and should constantly recur in
the spiral of activities, rather than occur only at the beginning.
 Implementation of an action step is not always easy, and one should not proceed to evaluate the
effects of an action until one has monitored the extent to which it has been implemented.
(Elliott, 1991, p70)

McNiff

Jean McNiff an educational researcher who has written widely about action research, likes the idea of
ordered steps for action research but does not want to be confined by it. Her model is

…a spontaneous, self-recreating system of enquiry. I like the notion of a systematic

process of observe, describe, plan, act, reflect, evaluate, modify, but I do not see the
process as sequential or necessarily rational. It is possible to begin at one place and end
up somewhere entirely unexpected (McNiff, 2002, p 56)
Further models have been developed by Ebbutt and McKernan. Ebbutt refers to the ‘messiness’ of the
action research cycle. Although there are a number of different models it is clear that they have many
similarities.

Turnbull

Turnbull (2009, p160) uses action research when coaching young people to learn. She asked students
to review how they spent their time. Various activities were coded as such:

Sch – time at school

R – for reading/research

W – for work that has to be completed in the home and outside

Soc – for socialising

TV – for watching TV

A week was taken as the sample time students were required to produce a chart breaking down the days
into one hour slots. From the results students were asked to analyse how much time they give to

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learning. This generated an interesting discussion as to how their time is spent. She then worked with
them to devise strategies to help them plan their homework and their learning.

Reflective activity:

What have you learnt from this session? 

Deciding on the focus for your action research

In deciding your topic for the action research project you will need to consider the following issues:

 Is the topic in an area where we can really make an influence and bring about change?
 Is the topic manageable in the time allowed within the HDP?
 Do we have access to the data that we will need to conduct this research?
 Have we chosen a topic that fits within our day to day activities and is small enough to be
achievable but still meaningful?
 Is your research proposal SMART?
 What will you do after the research?
 How will we assess the impact of our research?
 Have we considered all the ethical issues involved in any data collection?
 How will you work together as a ALS?

Reflective activity:

What are the key skills we will use when working with others? What issues may we face?


What ethical issues should be considered?

Some examples of primary data collection methods

This is a small selection of primary data collection methods. The key to action research is to select data
collection methods that that are appropriate for small scale qualitative research.

Questionnaires:

 Have we explained clearly the purpose of the research?

 Is it clear that the information given is confidential and anonymous?
 Have we considered the design of questions (open or closed)?
 Have we conducted a pilot of the questionnaire to be sure of the language, reliability and
validity?
 How many questionnaires should we issue and to whom?
 Is the sample size representative?
 What is our acceptable return rate?

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Interviews:

 Have we prepared our questions?

 Will this be a structured or semi-structured interview?
 Who will conduct the interviews?
 Who will be interviewed and is this representative sample?
 How long will the interviews last?
 Where will the interview take place and are the arrangements suitable?
 What do we expect to find out?
 Have we thought about the design of open and closed questions?
 Have we explained the purpose of the interview, thanked the participants and at the end
explained what happens next?
 Have we asked their permission?

Observations:

 Are we observing students or teachers or both?

 Have we explained the purpose of the research and asked permission to observe?
 How many persons will be observed and is this a representative sample?
 Have we agreed a suitable observation checklist to be used?
 Are we giving feedback to the student/teacher after the observation?
 Have we explained what will happen after the observation?

Field notes:

 Have we systematically kept notes of the group?

 Do the notes document significant aspects of the action?

Audio recording:

 Have we decided the points to be covered?

 Have we organized transcription of the tapes?
 Have we explained the reason for the recordings?

Digital recording:

 Have we booked the equipment?

 Do we know how to use the digital camera?
 Have we considered how to limit the effects of being filmed?
 Have we considered involving the students in the?
 Have we asked permission to film?

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Clearly state how you will ensure that the evidence gathered is comprehensive and valid.

Activity:

Using the table below, outline advantages and disadvantages of the following data collection methods:

Method Advantages Disadvantages

Interview

Observation

Digital
recording

Field notes

Questionnaire

Audio
recording

Decide on the data collection methods you will use for your action research.

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4.2 Action Research Project
The proposal

In your group, complete the action research project proposal below.

What is your research issue?

Why have you chosen this topic?

What do you already know about the current situation?

How do you intend to conduct your action research?

How will the ALS be organized and tasks allocated?

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Suggested structure for the report

Each ALS will be expected to hand in a word-processed report of their project. The report should
include the following:

1. Title

2. Contents

3. Introduction - identify the challenge Write a few sentences on how you decided upon the area of
research. Include how you became aware of the challenge. Why it was a challenge and what needed
changing. What relevance the research has for you.

4, Literature Review - In starting and selecting your topic for the action research project you need to
explore secondary sources that will help define and shape your research.

This may consist of:

 Relevant reports and documents already existing in your CTE/University

 Reports from REB, MoE, NGOs etc
 Research articles from published Ethiopian and international journals
 Relevant books
 Internet sources
5. Research methods – data collection, analysis and findings

6. Proposed action

7. Implementation of action/intervention

8. Evaluation of the action/intervention what changed as a result of the action taken? How has your
practice changed as a result of and how have the students benefited from the interventions made?

9. Next step (Action research cycle) - Identify further changes, if necessary and identify the challenge
in order to repeat the cycle again.

10. References

11. Appendices Include relevant material e.g. questionnaires, interview notes, worksheets etc. You
should also include your completed Action research proposal, your action plans and group forms.

Reference

Ministry of Education (2011) Higher Diploma Programme For Teacher Educators Handbook. Addis
Ababa: Ethiopia

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