Develop an understanding of how learners learn in order to cultivate effective learning environments
During your teacher education program and throughout your career, you will be expected to continually acquire new knowledge about how people learn. One of the ways that teachers incorporate these new learnings is by reflexive practice.
Reflection is giving something serious thought and consideration after the fact—What was learned and how it can possibly be improved upon the next time. In the process of reflecting, it is not just a retelling of what you observed. What is important about what you saw? What does it make you wonder? How will it change your practice? Reflexive practice is “reflection in action”; considering, with critical thought and introspection, the what and the why, engaging in the moment, understanding what is happening while experiencing an experience, and acting in that moment, with that understanding in mind.
Reflection
- What understanding do you currently have about how people learn?
- How can you apply the reflective cycle to what you are observing in classrooms?
- How can you be a self-reflective teacher candidate in both your observations and your teaching experiences?
- In what ways do you observe teachers and colleagues being reflexive?
- How can you be a self-reflexive?
- How does having an awareness of your worldview, with its presuppositions and beliefs, impact the outcome of your reflexivity?
- Why are reflection and reflexivity crucial aspects of an effective teaching practice?
- Consider the difference, as it relates to reflection and reflexivity, between learning about teaching and yourself as a teacher, as well as learning to teach.
- In the Summary Report of Practicum, the following descriptors are used under the heading of Pedagogical Knowledge. How are you demonstrating these in your program? What evidence do you have? How will you demonstrate them during practicum?