By the SoTL Blog Facilitators
The notion of reflection is well-established in the professionalism of educators. Despite this, the understanding of reflection is messy as it is used to meet different needs through different approaches. For example, educators may confine reflective practices within their classrooms, leading to a change in material development or pedagogical approach, or they may expand the scope of reflection to achieve a more critical outcome, such as instigating or making changes in the wider community. Not only is reflection ambiguous in the area of education, its meaning is also varied in the areas of social work and psychology.
To have a better sense of what reflection is, Van Beveren, Roets, Buysse, and Rutten (2018) conducted a meta-analysis on studies about reflective practices. They found that reflection may address three broad purposes, which are:
| Personal Level | Interpersonal Level | Socio-structural Level |
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From these different purposes, a main implication is the flexibility found in reflective practices. This perhaps contributes to reflection being suitable and appealing for various educational research. Finally, because it may serve different purposes, the authors propose that reflective practices should not be incidental, but a principle and practice that is persistently maintained.
In our professional sphere, reflective practices give insights into various issues concerning teaching and learning. For example, Negretti and Kuteeva’s (2011) study showed how students’ reflection helped teachers assess their pedagogical approach and students’ writing progress. In Reflective practices may also encourage higher education instructors to notice issues that affect teaching processes, and to enact responsive and appropriate pedagogy (see Jackson & Cho, 2018).
In our professional experience as an educator, in what situations are reflective practices useful?
References
Jackson, D. O., & Cho, M. (2018). Language teacher noticing: A socio-cognitive window on classroom realities. Language Teaching Research, 22(1), 29-46.
Negretti, R., & Kuteeva, M. (2011). Fostering metacognitive genre awareness in L2 academic reading and writing: A case study of pre-service English teachers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(2), 95-110.
Van Beveren, L., Roets, G., Buyssec, A. & Rutten, K. (2018). We all reflect, but why? A systematic review of the purposes of reflection in higher education in social and behavioral sciences. Educational Research Review, 24, 1-9.
When lessons go well, it is useful to try and isolate the reasons for the success. Was it because of a particular type or style of activity/ interaction pattern/ topic/ exercise etc.? Or was it the mood of the students (or teacher)/ time of day/ or some other factor? If we can identify our own set of variables, then we as educators are in a better position to replicate the circumstances associated with relative success.
The converse is also true. We would not wish to persist in anything that repeatedly causes classes to fall flat or students to respond negatively.
Such reflections can be briefly jotted down during or in the aftermath of a particular lesson, and used to improve the curriculum or address our own professional development.