31 May 2005

Reflective Practice: A Model for Improving Teaching
by Mary Pat Mann
www.dreampilgrims.com

Mary Pat Mann is an educator and writer who worked in faculty development and educational evaluation for many years. Her current focus is fantasy, in writing and in dreamwork.

Look into the classroom of a "reflective practitioner," a teacher who sees her work as part of an evolving process. As she is teaching, she thinks about how things are going and makes adjustments. She has a plan for this class session that fits into her goals for the course overall; at the same time, she responds to her students and is open to inspiration. She knows teaching is an art.

On a regular basis, she stops for deeper reflection on what she has accomplished as a teacher, whether she is where she wants to be, and what might need to change to help that happen. She reads research related to her field and draws on the experiences of others. She adjusts her plans and goals creatively.

She is the model of the successful professional as delineated by philosopher and organizational theorist Donald Schön. He believes successful practice rests on creativity and artistry as well as rationality. His research on how professionals in action actually solve problems (as opposed to how the books say they solve problems) led to significant changes in the training of physicians, teachers, business managers and other professionals.

Schön understood that the difference between technology and art is not rationality vs. chaos, but instead a contrast between the linear and nonlinear, between predetermined logical plans and a prepared but responsive openness—and that the best professionals, even in the most logical of fields, rely on creative insights to succeed.

His most important finding was that teachers, like all other professionals, continually solve problems in their work—and the best do this creatively by infusing what they know into the situation at hand.

How can his model help improve teaching?

Schön described two types of reflection: reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Reflection-in-action is what happens in the midst of problem solving. Deep in chapter five, your plot suddenly sags. Wait a minute, you think, what can I do to keep things moving here? This is reflection-in-action.

Reflection-on-action is the big-picture, meta-thinking that Schön found to be characteristic of the most successful professionals. This is the ability to look back over a writing session, or the development of a finished piece, and say to yourself: What worked and what didn't? Where did my motivation or focus falter? Where was I most successful, and can I figure out why?

The exact same approach can apply to teaching. In the middle of a lesson, you realize the attention of some of your students is wandering. What can you do to bring them back? Did it work? If not, what else can you try? Even if this is your first experience as a teacher, you have years of experience as a student: What can you bring to this situation to improve it?

After the lesson, or after the class or workshop is complete, you sit down and review the experience. Which sessions went well and which faltered? Which students succeeded and which failed? Why? What can you change next time? This broader reflection-on-action is the key to long-term improvement.

At one level, this might seem obvious stuff. It is what everyone does. And yet Schön found that not all practitioners were aware of their reflections-in-action, and even fewer engaged regularly and consciously in the reflections-on-action that proved most powerful in improving performance.

One key to bringing awareness to our actions is the ever-popular journal. A journal devoted to teaching is the first step to becoming a reflective practitioner of this art.

Begin your teaching journal by outlining your goals. Work on whichever goals will help you the most right now. If you are planning a class for the future, outline your overall goals for the course. What do you want your students to be able to do, to know, or to feel by the end of your class? These goals will be stated broadly and should be few in number—never more than seven.

If you will teach a class tomorrow, begin with focused goals for your next teaching session. List a small number of things you hope will happen during the session. Three goals are fine; never list more than seven. You might focus on the content you hope to cover, the type of interactions you want to happen, reactions from the students that give evidence of their understanding or motivation, or activities to be accomplished.

For example, you are teaching a technical writing class at a community college. Your next session will cover the basics of the paragraph. Your goals might include presenting key points about paragraphs, eliciting comments from students showing they understand those points, and completing an in-class exercise to edit a poorly written paragraph.

Having established goals ahead of time will help focus your reflection-in-action as you teach. What if several students don't seem to understand what a topic sentence is? How do you respond?

Once the session is over, add comments to your journal about how things went, the extent to which you met your goals, and what you want to change next time. The power of this approach is not in complexity, but in its ability to focus attention on a cycle of action and reflection that can lead to steady, incremental improvement.

Both of the articles in last issue's Teach section are examples of reflective practice. P. Andrew Miller is, as an English professor, used to the process of planning, teaching and revising. In his article, "Andre Norton's The Witch World: Does it Hold Up for the Harry Potter Crowd?" he tells us about his experience using Witch World in a class on fantasy in media.

Miller gives us his rationale for choosing Witch World, describes how his students reacted to the book, and closes the article by describing the changes he plans for next time. Simple? Maybe, but reflection need not be wrenchingly difficult. Miller reflects on his practice in a way that will improve his next class, and in sharing his reflections provides a model anyone can follow.

Sheila Finch's article "Creativity in the Classroom Fishbowl" presents reflection-in-action as well as the follow-up -on- variety. Challenged by her class to participate in and actively model the writing approach she taught, Finch needed to respond on her feet. Her participation in the writing exercises, along with and in full view of her class, is a great example of where reflective practice can lead—to seriously creative teaching.

Reflection alone will not create a wonderful teacher. A teacher needs ideas, techniques, content, an understanding of the students and their needs, tools for evaluating their progress, and a solid plan to bring these elements together. Resources are available to help with all of these. Applied within the context of reflective practice, resources mold themselves into the tools of a successful teacher.

To learn more: Schön wrote two books on reflective practice which are listed below. They are, unfortunately, a difficult read and are aimed at teacher educators rather than teachers themselves. For that reason, I'm also including a reference to Stephen Brookfield's book, which was recommended to me as an excellent introduction to reflective practice for the teacher.

Schön, D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, London: Temple Smith.

Schön, D. A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner : Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions, Jossey-Bass.

Brookfield, Stephen D. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, Jossey-Bass.