Critical Incident
Reflection:
Engaging the Souls of Pre-Service
Teachers
Reflective Teachers
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Are open-minded
Are Responsible
Approach teaching with wholehearted enthusiasm
Are active learners who are able to make good
choices and decisions about and within their
practice.
• Are able to learn from what they do as they do it.
• Are open to growth and introspection
• Are life long learners
Pre-Service Teachers
• Are newly evolving professionals without a large base of
practical experience.
• Rely on their own assumptions, conceptions, beliefs,
dispositions and capabilities which they bring to the
teaching experience (Zeichner and Gore (1990)
• Are focused on responding to supervisors’ emphasis on
acquisition of new technical skills
• Are learning to survive in the classroom
• Are confronted by the reality of challenging student
behaviors that test self concept and confidence
• Come to teaching with narrow perspectives bounded by
their own educational experience and cultural ecology.
Gould (2000)
Why Use Critical
Incident Reflection?
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Provides an opportunity for teachers to clarify or reframe some misguided
or preconceived ideas about students, learning and the teaching process.
Provides an opportunity to use examples from their own practice to become
aware of their values and beliefs
Provides a deeper and more profound level of reflection because it goes
beyond a detailed description on an event to analysis and reflection on
meaning
Allows teachers to identify underlying assumptions that directed their
actions
Helps teachers connect theory to practice through use of authentic
settings
Small group and online dialogue helps students share their points of view in
a manner that enriches and expands internal conversations
Helps students better understand and participate in the social rubric of
the school.
What is a Critical
Incident?
• An interpretation of the significance of an
event. To explore a teaching event as a
critical incident is a value judgment, and
the basis of that judgment is the
significance attached to the meaning of
the incident. Critical incidents are created
or produced by the way we look at a
situation. Tripp (1993)
• Critical incidents are often not dramatic or
obvious: “they are mostly straight forward
accounts of very commonplace events that occur
in routine professional practice which are critical
in the rather different sense that they are
indicative of underlying trends, motives, and
structures. These incidents may appear to be
‘typical’ rather than ‘critical’ at first sight, but
are rendered critical through analysis” Tripp
(1993)
Critical Incidents
Defined
• Critical incidents do not need to be
monumental or turning point events. They
can re relatively minor incidents--everyday events that happen in every
school and in every classroom. Ainscow
(2000)
• Events attain “criticality” via the
justification, the significance, and the
meaning given to them by participants.
Roach and Kratochwill (2004)
The Definition We Used
• A critical incident can come from your observation in the
classroom, school lunch room, the teachers’ lounge or the
hallways of your student teaching placement. I t may
involve a major behavioral issue with a student or between
students, yourself and or your supervising teacher. It could
just as easily be an everyday event or occurrence. “Events
attain ‘criticality’ via the justification, the significance, and
the meaning given to them by participants” Roach(2004).
When something occurs in the classroom or the student
teaching experience that intrigues the observer, it should
be recorded as a critical incident.”
Experiential Learning
Cycle (Kolb)
Concrete Experience
Abstract Active Experimentation
Reflective observation
Abstract
Conceptualization
Kolb’s Four Step Model
• Concrete Experience, is purely
descriptive words (who, hat, where,
when, how many, etc), describe the
significant event that occurred. This
part should read like the opening
paragraph of a news article.
Step 2 and 3, 4
• Reflective Observation, Write about the feelings and
emotions you (and others) experienced about this event.
This part deals with the affective component of the event.
• Abstract Conceptualization, In this part, state what
conclusions you have drawn from what you described in the
first and second step. State what you learned about
yourself and/or others in this part.
• Active Experimentation How will your experience in this
incident influence or impact your future actions.
Three levels of
Reflection
• Technical reflection, relates to the effective
application of skills and technical knowledge in the
classroom setting (pre-service and new teachers)
• Contextual, concerns reflection about the
assumptions underlying specific classroom
practices and consequences of practice
• Dialectical, involves the asking of questions about
moral, ethical or socio-political issues. LaBoskey
(1993)
Our Assignment, Part 1
Students fill out a form with these questions, then share their incidents in
small groups. They also turn in a copy to the instructor for comments.
They are encouraged to write observations and remarks on the form in
response to questions and comments from group members. Small group
decides on one of the critical incidents to be used in part 2 of the
assignment.
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What happened?
How do/did I feel about what happened?
What were my actions/approaches?
How did my knowledge/skill influence what happened?
What else would I like to learn?
How would that inform my future decisions and actions?
What did I learn about myself?
Assignment, Part 2
Students post critical incident chosen by small group to large
group discussion board. Student posting the incident
answers the following questions when posting incident. In
addition, members of class are required to post a
meaningful response to at least three of the postings.
1. A brief description of the critical incident
2. Whose interests were served or denied by the actions of
this critical incident?
3. What power relationships between principal, teachers, and
students were expressed in this incident?
4. What did you learn that would affect he outcome of a
similar incident in the future?
5. What questions do you have?
Assignment, Part 3
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Critical Incident Reflection Analysis (to by administered during the last
session of class when students review all of the incidents they have
submitted)
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Can you identify a common theme running through your Critical
Incident reports, if you addressed multiple issues list discuss those.
Did you notice patterns of your teaching behavior that you want to keep?
What are those behaviors? Did you notice teaching patterns that your
would prefer to change? Which behaviors?
Examine you Critical Incidents across the ten weeks, reflect on your
development as a teacher over this period of time.
As you review your teaching practices, to what extent were you able to
translate what you learned in your coursework into practice?
What changes would you make in the Critical Incident assignment to
increase the meaning and value it had for you.
Examples of Experiences
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“My supervising teacher takes over every time I establish a
relationship with a student”.
“I needed to physically manage a student…”
“My student had a contagious disease and the principal refused to
send him home”
“A student’s father hit the principal during a manifestation
determination hearing”.
“I made a breakthrough….”
“Student won’t work, calls me names…”
“Two students started a fight.”
“Student, threw soda, then bit me.”
“I held a class meeting and it went very well.”
“I had to take over the lesson…”
Feelings About What
Happened
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“Frustrated because I couldn’t get him to comply before the behavior escalated”
“Disappointed because I couldn’t follow through with the time-out because of the
physical part.”
“I was dumb struck. I can’t believe the school doesn’t have some sort of policy on
this.”
“I was afraid that I would not be able to get to him in the locked bathroom.
“puts me in a position of not knowing what to do because either way I feel I fail”
“I was very unsure about the situation.”
“I was shocked.”
“I was unsure of what to do in class…”
“I feel really good about helping this student.”
“I was stunned. I wasn’t sure of the correct procedure on how to handle the
situation. I felt helpless, uninformed and unprepared to handle a situation like that.
“My CPI training went out the window, instead of leaning in to get him to let go, I just
took the pain.
Some Conclusions
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Pre-service teachers were diligent about recording and reflecting on
critical incidents
Many were not able to see the “in depth” ramifications and implications of
the incident, but relied on surface explanations. Didn’t seem able to take it
to the next step.
Pre-service teachers often described their feelings via student feelings..
”I felt sad for him, “ I felt frustrated for her because she didn’t
remember the words.”
Students often reported what they observed or were part of, in situations
where they had little influence or control.
Pre-teachers found it difficult to connect information and strategies in
class with actual events.
Pre-service teachers did a good job of reviewing their critical incidents to
determine which teaching behaviors they wanted to keep or improve.
Instructors discovered more about the job of surviving a pre-service
teacher field assignment resulting in some changes in seminar curriculum.