Reflection
To boldly go beyond the buzz word
Adrian Copping
University of Cumbria
Should
Can
X reflection be….
An outcome for ITE?
A measured outcome for ITE?
(a) Reflect on and improve their practice,
and take responsibility for identifying
and meeting their developing
professional needs.
Professional Standards for teachers Q7
‘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)
‘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)
‘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
Measuring and crediting
 Reflective
assignments?
 Handing in reflections on placement
progress (credit PADRs)
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?
Students’ perspectives
I understand reflective
practice to be a holistic act
of 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 think reflective practice
is keeping note on
what you have done
and using it as
evidence later on
I understand reflective practice to be
developing the habit of considering
and reviewing the processes,
creativity and thought that goes into
one's teaching
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
…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
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
What helps and hinders
 A critical mind
 A critical mind
 Watching back
 Observation stress
 Admit imperfection
 Impatience
 Experienced others
 Lack of experience
 Discussion
 Time
 Observation
 Paperwork
 Know the good
 Too much else to do
 Colleague collaborate  Tight schedules
 Time and peers
 Too critical
 Able to take advice
How then can we engender
 experience
the one and alleviate the
other?
Watching me Watching you Aha!
(part 1)
Developing reflection and practice
through the use of video
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.
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)
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)
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)
So what?
Incidental
Learning
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.
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
To what extent does incidental learning or reinforcement of
learning lead to a better quality of reflection?
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.
If you think this might be true how
Discuss!!!!
can we utilise the use of video with
more of our students to help them
become more reflective teachers?
Watching me Watching you Aha!
Developing reflection and practice
through the use of video
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!
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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.
But that’s her style. You can’t just take on somebody else’s
style like that.
Yeah. I understand
I thought that that’s what she wanted you to do because that’s
what they do with her!
That’s what I really felt went wrong with my English
Were your Y6 class not getting bored after half an hour?
Oh yeah. Totally!
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.
There shouldn’t be any sort of rules on approaches like that
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.
If you’re modelling it to that extent every lesson, they’re not
doing any independent learning
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We need to find out if you feel that it went the way you feel
when you were up there teaching?
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.
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.
I didn’t think that I would sound that way. I listen to my own
voice and it sounds very professional
You look very confident
Yeah. I thought, good presence. Like you’re meant to be
there.
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
Wow
But I think also it’s because the class teacher is out of there
and she really put me on edge to be honest.
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Yeah. If I was to do that my way there’s no
way I would teach like that
There’s no chance for you to show how
you would have done it differently.
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I thought your behaviour management skills were
fantastic because the class was so quiet
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’
That’s really interesting because I never would have
put myself in that category..
But you come across as that
I feel that as well.
Has anybody every tried that, talking under them?
I used to do that on yard duty ‘If you can hear what I’m
saying, you may go and….
It’s a great strategy but it wouldn’t have worked with my
class
I’m going to try that
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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.
and different age groups
I did have a well-behaved quiet class and it’s a credit
to the class teacher.
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?
Just out of interest, how long did that lesson take you
to plan?
Um.. probably about an hour.
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.
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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.
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.
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…
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The children seem engaged don’t they?
It’s interesting you’ve said that, because that’s one
of the things I felt fell apart. Looking back….
When you watch it….
I thought they were all doing it.
absolutely, yes.
They had fun though and I thought them having
fun was me losing control. Probably because they
weren’t quiet.
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.
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But when you watched this back… did you still
feel the same having seen the video and viewed
it from a subjective viewpoint?
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
3:
1:
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?
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
Incidental Learning
Can challenge mentor
comments
Reflection process
continued
New learning
constructed from
others alongside
own reflections
Reinforcement of Learning
Realisation of Reality
Tended to reinforce
mentor comments
Did support reflection
as a social process
Variety of issues
Affirmation
Little challenge
But stifled by
Lack of
experience
Lack of
confidence
‘problem now solved’ as
experienced mentor must
be right
Do any other issues arise out of
this for you?
Professional
relationships
How can we particularly
support the confidence and
relationships issues?
For copies of this presentation and/or a draft
paper
Adrian.Copping@cumbria.ac.uk