Reflective Practice for PGCE Primary Trainees. What hinders and helps the process?

Reflective Practice for PGCE Primary Trainees. What hinders and helps the process? Sue Lambert Academic Co-ordinator PGCE Primary Bishop Grosseteste University College sue.lambert@bishopg.ac.uk

Effective reflective practice • This is difficult to achieve and by just including time for reflection it does not guarantee it will be used in a productive way (Boud,D. and Walker,D. (1998) Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: the challenge of context. Studies in Higher Education. 23(2). 191-205).). Aim: • Raise questions and explore some of the practice in place and being considered to support trainees in developing reflective practice.

Is a student teacher ready to reflect or do they need to gain further experience doing the teaching? • Reflection can be seen as a continuum from surface to deep learning. Trainees have many aspects of their practice still to be established. • Students need to practice and rehearse Are our expectations of trainees’ ability to reflective effectively realistic and are the expectations the same as our partnership schools?

Confusion about what reflective practice is. • Seen as both a finite process with an end goal to achieve and as developmental and cyclical in terms of it being a skill that develops through experience. Comments, perhaps suggested students reflected in order to solve a problem so they could cease to reflect and get on with teaching. • Short term solutions misunderstanding that reflection on practice needs to be ongoing and embedded and that it is the cycle of reflection • It may also be that they were not seeing the potential for it to impact practice beyond that setting/lesson

Trainees commented that time to reflect was limited during placement due to having different priorities. For some doing, coping and surviving is key. • Student perception and that of some staff may be that school gives much higher priority to immediate action to deal with situations to show they can plan, teach and ‘think on their feet’ rather than to analysis and reflection

Cyclical nature of reflection • Targets set at interview and encouraged to audit subject strengths/areas for development • Training Entry Profile-life experiences • Targets for each placement • Taught sessions • Informed Reflective Practitioner Module (IRP)

Learning from experienced others • Mentor and link tutor role • Mentoring meeting

Importance of collaboration • The students suggest collaboration is a positive aspect of reflection but not the who with, how, where and when to ensure it is effective. • Issues-may see it as a chance to share experiences which may or may not be constructive for effective reflection. Consideration needs to be given to boundaries, appropriate contributions and facilitator role so there is purposeful dialogue students to students and mentor to student/student to mentor • How this is done effectively, with mentors sensitive to the stage of student development?

Addressing the Issues • IRP M level and Professional graduate assessment • Emphasis on discussion linked to wider professional development • SP seminars • VLE wiki for discussion of reflective practice and a colleague is piloting open discussion board for trainees during placement Ideas • Peer support • Role play

Reflection focusing on negative aspects of practice • Learning from problematic experiences and situations rather than positive experiences • A concern may be that as practice is seen in terms of problems they may not be able to stand outside this to reflect but look for quick solutions

Consider the value of daily reflections that address broader teaching and learning issues rather than/as well as lesson evaluations. For example themes rather than incidents • This is done with weekly reflections where on early placements trainees are given specific areas to focus on such as building relationships, managing the learning environment but they can make the reflection wider if they feel that is appropriate

Addressing the issues • Mentor and tutor role in modelling and prompting positive reflection. • Weekly mentor meeting record • Weekly Reflection • Reflection from a distance encouraged through the post placement seminars and IRP

Impact of emotion and personality on ability to reflect • Emotion and individual personality can also influence willingness and ability to reflect. Emotion may facilitate or block the reflective process. • Responses also indicate ability to reflect is dependent on the openness and willingness to change and develop, and personality and confidence

Addressing the issues • Key is to ensure expression of feelings is seen as acceptable and legitimate in a professional context and not seen as an inability to cope • Joint observations • Timing of feedback Ideas • Role play opportunities in College

The assessed nature of the reflections will continue to be an issue, perhaps the emphasis needs to ensure that what is produced is judged in terms of criteria for reflective practice not criteria for academic writing Boud,D. and Walker,D. (1998) Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: the challenge of context. Studies in Higher Education. 23(2). 191-205). • The current written assignment addresses this by focusing criteria on school experience and relating theory to practice but, as writing is at professional and Postgraduate level, the academic writing expectations are embedded in the criteria

Reflection seen as contrived so may be inhibited • Students were aware of the public nature of their reflections and that they may censor reflections and not engage fully in the experience • It may suggest trainee teachers see aspects of reflection as complying with external requirements to meet the needs of the programme, which may be seen as a means to an end rather than a process and again addressing this needs careful consideration. • Try and ensure the value of wider reflection is recognised and undertaken, but this is difficult, if they feel that they have to reflect on demand and show evidence of this to achieve their qualifications.

‘It’s not just words it’s pictures and all sorts of different things’ • Some find writing a valuable learning technique others are more interactive and prefer less solitary activity. It is important to recognise that the reflection is a verbalised version of the experience not the experience itself, perceived from their viewpoint. (Atkinson,T and Claxton, G. (2001) The Intuitive Practitioner on the value of not always knowing what one is doing. Buckingham: OUP. Bolton,G. (2005) 2nd edition. Reflective Practice. Writing and Professional Development. London: Sage Publications Ltd).

Addressing the issues • Evaluating the range of approaches provided to help students articulate their reflective practice both within SP and the Informed Reflective Practitioner Module. • Guidance on reflection from more structured at the beginning of the course with trainees trying a different method each week-flow chart, tables, pupil’s viewpoint, diary, written description with reflective elements highlighted, themed reflections and a journal. For final assessed SP they can record in a way that is most meaningful to them in terms of supporting reflection and target setting • They are encouraged to keep more personal accounts for themselves from which they extract reflections that contribute to QTS and mentor meeting in school.

Addressing the issues School mentors and tutors need to consider: • how we are supporting trainees to move beyond dealing with the day to day issues to wider reflection on more general themes within their practice; • how we support them in developing skills for effective reflection; • how we help them see the value of reflection beyond using it to evidence QTS Standards; • how we support trainees with effective time management and prioritising so they feel they have time to reflect.

Reflective Practice for PGCE Primary Trainees. What hinders and helps the process?