A Teacher Professional Development Course Fo-Cusing On Reflective Practice

Abstract

Teaching always involves challenges; and reflective practice can be an indispensable tool for adapting one’s teaching to meet these challenges. The professional development and recertification online course for K-12 classroom (thus in-service) teachers described herein sought to identify the importance and benefits of reflective practice and to become familiar with various reflective strategies in teaching. The professor of education developing and conducting this course employed an online learning community approach. While writing, reading, and learning cooperatively, participants reflected on their own teaching practices. The approach used in the course is likely essential for any use of student-centered instruction with diverse learners. This case study highlights several kinds of information that in-service teachers can readily use to improve their teaching. Of four tasks in teaching (preparation of material; instructional delivery in the classroom; grading student work; and evaluating one’s teaching effectiveness), the fourth most directly enables continuous improvement. And even more important, for most in-service teachers, is that evaluating one’s performance is essential for maintaining professional vitality and continuous improvement in teaching.

Keywords: In-service teacherprofessional developmentlearner-centered instructionreflective teaching practicelearning communityonline course

Introduction

The shift from teacher-centered (also known as lecture-focused) methods to learner-centered (also known as resource-based) methods is a tremendous change in higher education today, shifting from an emphasis on teaching to learning. The important educational challenges of the information age include restructuring the teaching and learning process to reflect the use of information in the real world.

Bandjur and Maksimovic (2013) state as follows: “the teacher—reflective practitioner is an alternative to the traditional practitioner since he exhibits a changed conceptual and methodological approach to the practice…. The teacher—reflective practitioner is one of the possible paradigms of that person’s lifelong learning and advancement” (p. 100). In other words, reflective practice is the key to the professional development of teachers, mainly because “teachers face an ever-changing population of students that represent a wide range of socio-economic, academic, and linguistic diversity” (Sparks, 2003, p. 5). Reflective practice has “become a focus of interest and a powerful movement in teacher education. The complexity of teaching requires teachers to question their practices for their own professional development in order to improve and to increase learner performance” (Mathew, Mathew, & Peechattu, 2017, p. 126).

“Reflective teaching practice” is a commonly used term among educators: for some it refers to a teacher’s awareness of teaching practice; and for others it is an approach to dialogic teaching (Zimmerman, 2015). Reflective teaching practice “has the effects of making teachers more initiative and responsible in pursuing the practical rationality through exploring teaching and learning activities, taking more informed actions and establishing a deeper understanding of teaching, while ultimately contributes to their professional knowledge and competence” (Ma & Ren, 2011, p. 154). “Central to the approach to teaching reflective is the concept of ‘personal context,’ which we define as the interwoven fabric of one’s unique and diverse life experiences and from which stems one’s perspective and affective reactions” (Saperstein, Lilje, & Seibert, 2015, p. 143). Teachers who use critical reflections to improve instruction are called “reflective practitioners.” Reflection is an ability for continual self-improvement and is a “combination of critical inquiry, consideration of the ethical implications and consequences of teaching practices and deep examination of personal beliefs and assumptions about human potential and learning” (Larrivee, as cited in Impeovo & Malik, 2016, p. 100). Accordingly, in Çimer, Çimer, and Vekli’s (2013) words:

It has been seen that reflection is an essential part of teachers’ professional development because it calls teachers for ongoing exercise of their intellect, responsibility and professionalism. It promotes deliberative action in planning and implementing instruction and ongoing engagement with theory and supports growth in professional knowledge and learning as reflective teachers become more aware of their own actions, more skilled in the use of evidence, more knowledgeable both in teaching and about teaching, and more able to identify and analyze the consequences of their actions (p. 142–143).

“The merits of reflective exercises in teacher training are well known. Reflection through journals, surveys/questionnaires, action research, or supervised teaching and classroom discussion creates opportunities for teachers in training to think critically of what they do in their classes, why they do it, and how they could improve” (Ene & Riddlebarger, 2015, p. 157). “Reflection diaries may be effective in their usage of reflective thinking skills… can use their reflective skills in presenting effective learning environments for their own students” (Töman & Bayburt, 2017, p. 238). “Since the end of the 1990s reflective diaries have been used and studied in teacher education courses” (Bergmann & Da Silva, 2013, p. 999).

Teaching is a better way to learn; and the process of teacher professional development is therefore a process of learning for teachers: “Teacher professional development becomes possible only when teachers critically reflect upon teaching, for reflective teaching is the process of self-study or self-learning. Teachers are learning while teaching” (Ma & Ren, 2011, p. 153).

Problem Statement

Students in U.S. colleges and universities are getting more and more diverse in terms of culture, ethnicity, linguistic, age, socioeconomic status, and expectation. The site of the current study, an American Pacific island university, has a diverse student population. The school of education at the university has a mission to advance both pre-service and in-service teacher education. To grow professionally continuously, classroom teachers must be active participants in their own growth and learning (Arizona K-12 Center, 2012): the InTASC model core teaching standards capture the complexities of teaching (a tree) in the three components of essential knowledge ( seeds : when teachers can articulate this essential knowledge, seeds are planted. If unfertilized, seeds cannot grow), critical dispositions ( roots : when teachers can articulate their values, beliefs, and commitments to students, they establish roots that ground them in service to the teaching profession), and performance ( leaves : when paired with regular reflective and analytical practice, teacher performance evolves and becomes highly sophisticated; reflective thinking becomes evident, observable, and measurable in their teaching practice). K-12 teachers must continuously improve their professional abilities by attending workshops/seminars for teachers and taking continuing education courses.

Research Questions

In the InTASC ( Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium) standards, the reflective prompts are defined as questions designed to guide reflective thinking around standards that define a teacher’s practice. Such questions are: performance (what do I need to create an environment that support learning?); essential knowledge (how do I group leaners to engage them in content?); and critical dispositions (how do I promote learner-to-learner discourse?). In the preparation of this teacher professional development/recertification course—a continuing education course for K-12 classroom teachers—focusing on reflective practice, the above InTASC’s questions were applied to research questions for this study:

Q1: As a university teacher, how do I create an environment that supports in-service teachers’ lifelong learning?

Q2: As a university teacher, how can I best in-service teachers to engage them in the content of professional development course?

Q3: As a university teacher, how can I best promote learner-to-learner discourse in a professional development courses for in-service teachers?

Purpose of the Study

The course reported herein was designed to guide (practice-based) reflective thinking among its enrollees: in-service teachers. The discussion forum emphasized taking time before posting their ideas; and reflecting on their experiences and observations as much as they could. The author of this paper is a professor of education, who developed and conducted this course using discussion forums in an online learning community approach. There are two types of discussion forums. In instructor-guided discussions, the instructor participates as a facilitator. In peer-led discussions, students are the primary sources of information, feedback and inspiration. Teaching always involves challenges; and reflective practice can be indispensable when adapting to meet these challenges. The professional development/recertification course described herein sought to identify the benefits of reflective practice, and of various reflective strategies.

Research Methods

Findings

Teaching is an ongoing endeavour; and reflective practice is an indispensable tool for improving teaching performance. In incorporating reflective practice (a tree) into teaching, three guiding elements of the learning community approach used in this study are: essential knowledge (seeds); critical dispositions (roots); and performance (leaves). The three elements can be summarized as follows:

Essential knowledge (“When teachers can articulate this essential knowledge, seeds are planted. If unfertilized, seeds cannot grow,” Arizona K-12 Center, 2012, p. 10). Results from this study confirmed the necessity of providing appropriate questions to stimulate class discussions. In response, all participants (in-service teachers) in this course posted their submissions relatively in a timely manner. It should be emphasized that the participants gained substantial knowledge of reflective teaching practices, and a renewed appreciation of their importance in effective teaching.

Critical dispositions (“It is through meaningful professional interactions and classroom experience that seeds of knowledge are fertilized and take root in the hearts and minds of growing educators,” Arizona K-12 Center, 2012, p. 10). All participants in this course, overall, contributed to the online learning community by being creative in approaches to topics, being relevant in the presented viewpoints, and attempting to motivate the critical discussion. One significant concern in online classes is described by Harrison and West (2014) in the following way: “a lack of in-person experience could diminish the students’ overall sense of community and social presence in class” (p. 290). In this asynchronous learning environment, the Moodle course shell has provided an “open door” to the virtual classroom, building a sense of community among participants, and mostly promoting critical disposition of the participants.

Performance (“High effective classroom performance is dependent upon a strong foundational knowledge of content and pedagogy,” Arizona K-12 Center, 2012, p. 12). In professional education, reflection leads to good practices in the teaching and learning process (Leitch & Day, as cited in Yanuarti & Treagust, 2015). This course was designed to guide (practice-based) reflective thinking; and assignments during the second, third, and fourth weeks addressed the three core discussion topics. The discussion forum emphasized taking time before posting their original responses and providing feedback to others; reading substantial materials; and reflecting on their experiences as much as they can, on a weekly basis.

Of four tasks in teaching (making a lesson plan; teaching in class; grading student work; and evaluating one’s teaching effectiveness), the fourth most directly enables continuous improvement. Evaluating one’s performance is also essential for maintaining professional vitality and continuous improvement in teaching. This course concentrated on in-service teachers’ evaluations of their own teaching effectiveness through reflection. As the author teaches for the School of Education, this course was also aligned with the School’s conceptual framework, which emphasizes the foundation of excellence in preparing teachers to become a knowledgeable scholar, an effective communicator, and a reflective decision maker.

Conclusion

In recognition of students’ competence and experience, teachers should encourage their active participation. This approach is likely essential for any use of student-centered instruction with diverse learners. Through conducting this course, possible answers to the three research questions are as follows:

Q1: As a university teacher, how do I create an environment that supports in-service teachers’ lifelong learning?

A1: In today’s learning environment, encouraging students to learn through reflection—capturing their own thoughts systematically—is even more important than before. As Kennison and Misselwitz put it, “Reflection is the purposeful and recursive contemplation of thoughts, feelings, and happenings that pertain to significant practice experiences” (cited in Kennison, 2012, p. 306).

Q2: As a university teacher, how can I best in-service teachers to engage them in the content of professional development course?

A2: In striving to be a facilitator as well as a teacher, the instructor should provide questions that stimulate the discussion, and eventually allow the students to achieve competency in the content area. As the following suggests, having students submit their answers in writing might be effective: “Writing is considered more effective than speech. Reflective writing is a unique mode of learning that requires a higher level of abstraction and more intellectualization than speech” (Vygotsky, cited in Kennison, 2012, p. 306).

Q3: As a university teacher, how can I best promote learner-to-learner discourse in a professional development courses for in-service teachers?

A3: Online learning communities provide a solution. In an online course, cohort members greatly depend on each other to achieve the learning outcomes. This approach helps students to engage problems in general, and to develop the habit of making decisions using critical thinking skills in particular. Online learning communities therefore offer opportunities for learning from discourse with other students, that more traditional classroom instruction cannot. By the same token, the instructor must ensure that each student participates actively in the community. Without such participation, these advantages of an online course vanish.

Hallman and Adam (2013) observed as follows: “As reflective practice is often framed by ‘how to’ and technical visions of reflection, meta-knowledge of genre in writing enlivens the discussion of reflective practice by reconnecting reflection to action. Teacher reflection is always connected to action, and the rhetorical choices one makes in the act of reflecting manner” (p.13).

Therefore, the following two professional development/recertification courses should be offered in the same manner. One is a course (titled “Reflective Practice: Teachers as Critical Creative Thinkers”). It is commonly understood that “critical” thinking is correlated with “creative” thinking. Both are valuable skills for teachers who wish to reflect on and improve their instruction by creating a productive learning environment. The other is a course (titled “Reflective Practice: Teachers as Action Researchers”). Classroom action research—a method of finding out what works best in the classroom—is an attractive option for teacher s who wish to reflect on and improve their classroom performance.

In conclusion, this series of professional development courses ultimately presents techniques for gaining and applying deep and helpful insights into one’s own teaching practice. In due course, participants (mostly K-12 teachers) will learn to become reflective practitioners, critical and creative thinkers, and action researchers.

References

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