Reflection

1. Reflection To boldly go beyond the buzz word Adrian Copping University of Cumbria

2. Can reflection be…. Should X An outcome for ITE? A measured outcome for ITE?

4. (a) Reflect on and improve their practice, and take responsibility for identifying and meeting their developing professional needs. Professional Standards for teachers Q7

5. ‘unfortunately, standards are often viewed as closing the door on the need to ask questions about the curriculum… Further, the process of dialogue and questioning that is at the heart of reflection is often perceived as conflicting with the “coverage” mentality of a standardized environment (p.244) Ketter & Pool (2001) in Ward &McCotter (2004)

6. ‘The skills, the arts of looking and listening to those things that happen every day in classrooms and that subsequently tend to be overlooked are invaluable to the teacher..’ (p.1427) Poetter et al (1997) in Rich & Hannafin (2008)

7. ‘As a result of watching myself teach will it change anything about the way I teach on the rest of my teaching practices and the answer to that is yes.. It had an immediate impact on the way I taught the next lesson.. My behaviour in the next lesson, if that’s the right word …was immediately different as a result of this’ Primary PGCE student 2009

8. Measuring and crediting • Reflective assignments? • Handing in reflections on placement progress (credit PADRs)

9. Discussion • Can / should reflection be a measured outcome for ITE? • If so what barriers are in the way? • Can reflection be measured? Do you? How do you do it? Do you have a rubric of some kind? • Does a written assignment get in the way?

10. Students’ perspectives

12. I understand reflective practice to be a holistic act of teaching I understand reflective practice to be developing the habit of considering and reviewing the processes, creativity and thought that goes into one's teaching If it's crap, figure out why and use the answer to make that part better next time around. If it's good, nice one, figure out why it's good, give yourself some credit, figure out how to make it great, do it again. I believe that reflective practice is the necessary process needed in order to plan more efficiently and effectively when teaching Reflective practice is a natural occurrence in good teachers I think reflective practice is keeping note on what you have done and using it as evidence later on …the process of teaching and delivering your lessons and thinking about the strengths and weaknesses, your personal areas to improve on, and also about what the children were getting out of the lesson

13. I abhor reflection - mainly due to lacking the experience to make reasoned judgements. Why was a lesson successful/unsuccessful? What right does a trainee teacher have to make a valued judgement, which due to their callowness they lack the background to make?  I do find this lack of validity to make a judgment which is worthwhile a major hurdle to this process. PGCE Early Years student 2010

14. A critical mind Watching back Admit imperfection Experienced others Discussion Observation Know the good Colleague collaborate Time and peers Able to take advice experience A critical mind Observation stress Impatience Lack of experience Time Paperwork Too much else to do Tight schedules Too critical What helps and hinders How then can we engender the one and alleviate the other?

15. Watching me Watching you Aha! (part 1) Developing reflection and practice through the use of video

16. Context • 6 PGCE primary volunteers • Videoing themselves twice, first placement and final placement – they choose when and for what purpose. • Watch video back, edit as they feel appropriate and bring to a discussion group (of the 6 volunteers) – audio recorded. • Post project individual interviews.

17. Concerns about practice ‘When I watched it back I saw lots of idiosyncrasies that I would want to ..ease out… such as not moving from my chair..’ (Participant 6)

18. The process of inquiry ‘ ‘I have one question from the video.. You might be able to give me a bit of feedback on… do I sound like that when I’m talking to you or do I talk differently to the children?’ (Participant 6) ‘I’m picking things up from different people’s videos, that you think, Oh Yeah! I do that’ (Participant 5)

19. changing practice and perspective ‘‘ so, you’ve ended up experiencing the length of your opener as opposed to someone verbally feeding back to you’ (Participant 4)

20. So what? Incidental Learning Reinforcement of Learning I think I already knew that anyway, so that wasn’t something learnt from watching the recording. It reinforced what I thought but it wasn’t necessarily about learning something new When I watched it back I was so shocked at the speed I was going, the amount I was clicking my pen and the amount I cut across what the kids said. To what extent does incidental learning or reinforcement of learning lead to a better quality of reflection?

21. My hypothesis is…………….. • That if a student learns something incidentally then they are more likely to continue the reflection process whereas if given a ‘lens’ to focus on or use the video as a reinforcement they are more likely to stop reflecting once the problem appears to be solved. • Discuss!!!! If you think this might be true how can we utilise the use of video with more of our students to help them become more reflective teachers?

22. Watching me Watching you Aha! Developing reflection and practice through the use of video part deux!

23. Context • 5 PGCE Primary • Record a lesson, not mentor-observed, no target agendas • Watch, take note, share My agenda here was to explore the process of reflection and test out my hypothesis that incidental learning supports student teachers travel further along it!

24. 2: My class teacher said you’ve got to spend 30 minutes in front of the class beforehand feeding back to the kids and modelling what they’re supposed to be doing before you give them the 20 minute task. 4: But that’s her style. You can’t just take on somebody else’s style like that. 2: Yeah. I understand 4: I thought that that’s what she wanted you to do because that’s what they do with her! 2: That’s what I really felt went wrong with my English 1: Were your Y6 class not getting bored after half an hour? 2: Oh yeah. Totally! 1: There were times when I’d had half an hour of whole class teaching, yeah, but I’d got interactive resources on the board, they were up, they were writing things. 4: There shouldn’t be any sort of rules on approaches like that 2: She was a really big fan of this modelling approach. I’m writing on the flipchart and I don’t like writing on the flipchart. 1: If you’re modelling it to that extent every lesson, they’re not doing any independent learning

25. 3: We need to find out if you feel that it went the way you feel when you were up there teaching? 2: Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah well urm… when I saw the video back first of all I was more impressed with how I looked in front of the class. You know.. I thought I looked very in control, quite professional. 1: I was going to say that. You suit that position in front of… It’s not like you like you’re out of your comfort zone. 2: I didn’t think that I would sound that way. I listen to my own voice and it sounds very professional 4: You look very confident 3: Yeah. I thought, good presence. Like you’re meant to be there. 2: That’s weird, because it was one of the things I was picked up a lot for in the last week. Not looking like I’m in control 4: Wow 2: But I think also it’s because the class teacher is out of there and she really put me on edge to be honest.

26. 2: Yeah. If I was to do that my way there’s no way I would teach like that 3: There’s no chance for you to show how you would have done it differently.

27. 4: I thought your behaviour management skills were fantastic because the class was so quiet 1: But I think that’s a reflection on yourself. You were saying you’d like to be a bit more charismatic but you come across as one of those teachers who’s very ‘softly, softly’ and the children don’t like to speak over you so they don’t raise that noise level up……. I can imagine being one of those teachers who ‘whispers’ 3: That’s really interesting because I never would have put myself in that category.. 1: But you come across as that 4: I feel that as well. 2: Has anybody every tried that, talking under them? 1: I used to do that on yard duty ‘If you can hear what I’m saying, you may go and…. 4: It’s a great strategy but it wouldn’t have worked with my class 3: I’m going to try that

28. 1: The only thing I would say was that class were very well behaved and it was well managed before you went in. if you were to go into a class that wasn’t well managed you’d have to state that first. 4: and different age groups 3: I did have a well-behaved quiet class and it’s a credit to the class teacher. 4: but they didn’t need to respect you in the same way, especially if she wasn’t in the room. Take some of the credit for it. They wouldn’t have respected supply teachers in the same way would they? 2: Just out of interest, how long did that lesson take you to plan? 3: Um.. probably about an hour. 2: It’s just because one of the reasons why I stopped using the whiteboard was it was taking an awful long time to write everything into it.

29. 3: Where I’m coming from now is, I feel a bit like I just want to say to you all ‘No come on, be honest’ (all laugh) I feel I have this self doubt and having watched that on the big screen it’s not as good as I remember when I watched it at home. 1: But you went home and you marked the work and they’d met the objectives, so we can see and you can see from marking and assessing, it works. The strategies you’ve used with that class have worked. The children have learned. 3: I think they have, but I think the thing I feel dissatisfied with is actually me, the way I hold myself. I feel that maybe I’m a little bit hunched, a little bit…

30. 4: The children seem engaged don’t they? 1: It’s interesting you’ve said that, because that’s one of the things I felt fell apart. Looking back…. 4: When you watch it…. 1: I thought they were all doing it. 3/4: absolutely, yes. 1: They had fun though and I thought them having fun was me losing control. Probably because they weren’t quiet. 3: That’s right. I’ve noticed that there are elements where, when you’re doing transitions that it gets a little noisy but nothing that you wouldn’t expect and it looked very controlled when you’re talking and obviously right now, you expect a little bit of noise but when you’re actually up there presenting, they’re quiet.

31. 3: But when you watched this back… did you still feel the same having seen the video and viewed it from a subjective viewpoint? 1: Um.. Looking at it now because of what you’ve just said.. I thought the same thing.. they’re all doing it.. and there’s not one conversation I could hear that wasn’t number and I thought in the back of my mind they’re all talking about what they’re going to do tonight, but they weren’t, they were all talking numbers

32. 3: I wonder if you realise how much you question them. When you’re moving on to a topic, you said ‘Are we ready to start? Do we want to have another go?. Quite often when you pose that question they don’t respond . Or they might even jokingly say ‘No’. I wonder if you realised, if you knew you did that? 1: I think as a general, my style of teaching is to not be certain in anything, to sort of lead he children in a false pretence. We’re all learning together.. I don’t know how to… you help me, I’ll help you. Because I find with me being a smaller person and the way that I behave in myself like in PE we had such good fun  

33. Incidental Learning Reinforcement of Learning Realisation of Reality Can challenge mentor comments Tended to reinforce mentor comments Did support reflection as a social process Reflection process continued ‘problem now solved’ as experienced mentor must be right New learning constructed from others alongside own reflections Variety of issues Affirmation Little challenge Do any other issues arise out of this for you? Professional relationships But stifled by Lack of confidence Lack of experience How can we particularly support the confidence and relationships issues?

34. For copies of this presentation and/or a draft paper Adrian.Copping@cumbria.ac.uk