Reflective Teaching

“Reflection-on-action” on teachers’
practices
Teachers’ Training Seminar, Mallorca 2003

Fernando M. S. Alexandre
Rational Teaching
The teacher is seen as essentially a means-ends
broker and teaching is conceived as a technical
exercise,
exercise an applied science, concerned with, and
judged according to, the criteria of means-end
efficiency.
efficiency
Rational teaching relies upon a range of means-
enhancing devices such as psychometric analysis,
isolated technical competence, linear thinking and
instrumental reason.

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An Educational Paradigm
Education is a “delivery system”
within which the worth of teacher-
operatives is defined entirely in terms
of their possession of a prescribed set
of skills or competences and
professional beliefs require justification
by technical-rational procedures of
investigation.
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A Major Contradiction
Teachers as inquirers
and critical thinkers

?
Standards for
the award of
QTS
Teachers: blurred
between professional
and personal domains
Requirements for
courses of initial
Teachers as teacher training
discriminators
Technocratically oriented curriculum
focussing on competencies

Approaches that tend to highlight teaching

in terms of performance standards for
individual subjects

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Limits of Technical-Rationalism
Complexity

Uncertainty

Instability

Singularity

Conflict of Values
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The Reflective Approach…

Goes beyond the assumption which

states the existence of a linear and
mechanical relation between teachers’
scientific and technical knowledge and
their classroom practices.

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Reflective Teaching…

Involves thinking about one’s teaching,

an account of which will include use of
such cognate terms as “reasoning“, and
“reasons”, “critical thinking” and “analysis”,
as well as “planning” and “evaluating”.

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Reflectivity - Different Approaches

Social reconstructionist - viewed as a

political act which contributes towards or
hinders the realisation of a more just and
human society; the action is focused both
on practice and on the social conditions in
which they were developed.

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Reflective Teaching is not…

identical to “reasoning about teaching”

or “analysing and evaluating” one’s
teaching.

just any old example of thinking about

what one is doing.
doing

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Teachers as Decision Makers
Once teachers make decisions…
9 Concerning educational outcomes
9 Concerning the matter of education
9 Concerning the manner of education

It is reasonable to expect a teacher to be able to justify his

or her decisions and actions in the classroom - provide
good reasons or grounds for that course of action

He or she must think about what is taking place, what

the options are, and so on, in a critical, analytic way

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Teachers as Decision Makers
Reflection

When there is a real problem

to be solved

Empowerment
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Teachers as Decision Makers

An empowered teacher is a reflective

decision maker who finds joy in learning
and in investigating the teaching/learning
process - one who views learning as
construction and teaching as a facilitating
process to enhance and enrich
development

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Reflective Action and Practice
Reflection-for-action
Reflection-in-action
Reflection-on-action
A process that…
Involves what the teacher does before entering
the classroom, and retrospectively, after leaving
the classroom.
Can be defined as a spiral, in which we begin
with reflection-for-practice, move into
reflection-in-practice, and then to reflection-
on-practice (inevitably leading us back to
reflection-for-practice in an ongoing process).

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The Process of Reflective Teaching
Reflect
Reflect

Evaluate
Evaluate data
data Plan
Plan

Analysedata
Analyse data Make
Makeprovision
provision

Collectdata
data Act
Act
Collect (Pollard, 2002: 16)

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Being a Reflective Teacher…

Is a process structured around three main

elements: cognitive (knowledge that
teachers need), critical (moral and ethical
aspects), and narrative (teachers’ accounts
of their own experiences).

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Reflective Activities

A few examples…
(Pollard, 2002)
Knowing Ourselves as Teachers
Aim:
Aim to analyse dimensions of our “selves”.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection think of specific and
memorable incidents in which you were centrally
involved. Try to identify the most prominent
characteristics of your “self” which they reveal. It
may be helpful to situate your reflection (e.g. as a
“parent”, as a “child”, as a “pupil”, as a “trainee”, as a
“teacher”). It would probably be beneficial to do this
exercise with a friend. It could help you to deepen
your understandings, share and explain your
perceptions, whilst providing mutual support.

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Students’ Perceptions of Teachers
Aim:
Aim to find out students’ criteria for a “good teacher”.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection hold a discussion (with the
whole class, or in small groups which can then report
back to the whole class) on what makes a “good
teacher”. Perhaps the discussion could be couched
in terms of suggestions for a trainee on how to
become a good teacher. Discussions with students
on such a topic must obviously be handled very
carefully and only with the agreement of any teachers
who are involved.

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Relationships: Teachers’ Perspectives
Aim:
Aim to monitor and place in perspective our own
feeling on classroom relationships.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection probably the best way to
do this is by keeping a diary, not an elaborate one,
but simply a personal statement of how things have
gone and how we felt. It is very common for such
reflections to focus in more detail on particular
disciplinary issues or on interaction with specific
individuals. It should be written with awareness of
ethical issues and the feelings of other classroom
participants. Diary-keeping supplies a document
which can be of great value in reviewing events.
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Learning Process
Aim:
Aim to consider the influence and strengths of different
learning approaches when applied to students’ learning
and school practice.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection review a selection of major
learning situations and teaching methods, which
your class has experienced during a school day. Note
each learning situation, each teaching approach and
then consider the psychological rationale for its
use. Consider if you are drawing effectively on the
strengths of each approach. Does this activity have any
implications for the repertoire of teaching strategies
that you use?
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Developing an Official Curriculum
Aim:
Aim to examine statements of aims and values
presented in national documentation.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection are aims and values
stated within the national curriculum documentation
at your disposal? If so, are the aims consistently
supported by the stated underlying values? What
“vision” of an education system do you derive
from reading these statements? If not, can you derive
some of the core aims and values from an
examination of the curriculum advice presented in
the documentation? Do they reflect your own views?

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Developing an Official Curriculum (2)
Aim:
Aim to consider the influence of views of knowledge
on a part of a national curriculum.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection this is a potentially large
activity which needs to be scaled down and made
specific. We suggest that you study the official,
national documentation of a single subject - history
or geography are often good choices. Consider, how
is knowledge viewed? Is it seen as an established
body of subject content and skills to be transferred
or as something to be created?

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Behaviour: the Unexpected
Aim:
Aim to monitor responses to a classroom crisis.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection after a crisis has arisen, a
diary-type account of it and of how it was handled
could be written. This might describe the event, and
also reflect the feelings which were experienced as
the events unfolded. It might be valuable to
encourage students to record and talk about a
similar account and reflection after the event, so that
you can gain an insight into why they behaved as
they did. Did you minimize disturbance? Did you
maximize reassurance? Did you make appropriate
judgements on how to act?
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Beyond Classroom Reflection
Aim:
Aim to consider micro-politics in school.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection thinking of a school in which
you have worked, reflect on the various groups of
staff and their perspectives and actions within the
school. What relationships exist between these
groups? Thinking of a significant incident or event,
what variations were there in the responses of
different individuals and groups? What strategies
does the leadership team use in managing the
different positions? To what extent do you feel that the
culture of the school is affected by the influence
which particular groups or individuals exert?
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Beyond Classroom Reflection (2)
Aim:
Aim to investigate processes of political activity and
decision making with regard to an educational issue.
Evidence and reflection:
reflection the basic strategy here is to
focus on one issue and to trace the debates in the
media and elsewhere. The issue could be local or
national. Newspapers provide useful sources of easily
retrievable information (e.g. through an index). Having
gathered statements about the issue in question, an
attempt should be made to classify them so that the
competing positions are identified (e.g. to gather policy
statements). Then, the decision-point can be studied:
were the public arguments influential? What interests
seem to have prevailed when decisions were taken?
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The Reflective Process

An example from research

 Reconnaissance
(e. g. narratives)
5 Evaluation of the global process in
order to understand and assess its
effectiveness, and to identify both
what kind of changes, if any,
occurred in the teachers’
practices, and the obstacles that
might have unable those same
changes.
school practices
Identification of the ideologies and
social paradigms expressed
through the various discourses,
namely in what way they mean a
break with traditional approaches
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to education.
(Project POLITEIA, 2003)
1
Presents the results of the content
analysis from the narratives,
stressing patterns, themes and
categories that emerged from the
data; each teacher is confronted
with the perspectives he or she
expressed in their discourses.
End and beginning of the reflective cycle
Analysis and identification of 2
Personal discourse divergences, among the
narratives of teachers, as well as between them
and other social actors;
clarification of the conceptual
nature of such differences.
Analysis of core concepts,
introducing other sources of
information (e. g. official
documents and texts, articles from
experts), as an attempt to identify
the frame of reference to which
they can be related.
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References
Liston, D. & Zeichner, K. (1996). Culture and Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaun.
Parker, S. (1999). Reflective Teaching in the Postmodern World. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Perrenoud, P. (1994). La Formation des Enseignants entre Théorie et Pratique. Paris:
L’Harmattan.
Pollard, A. (2002). Reflective Teaching: effective and evidence-informed professional
practice. London: Continuum.
Reagan, T. et al. (2000). Becoming a Reflective Educator. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.
Ritchie, J. & Wilson, D. (2000). Teacher Narrative as Critical Inquiry. New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York,
NY: Basic Books.
Schön, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Zeichner, K. & Liston, D. (1996). Reflective Teaching: an introduction. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaun.
Usher, R. et al. (1997). Adult Education and the Postmodern Challenge. London: Routledge.
Other reference Journals on this subject: Teaching Education (Carfax Publishing), Reflective
Practice and Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice (both from Taylor & Francis).

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Contact and Address

Fernando M. S. Alexandre
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia - UNL
Ciências e Tecnologia da Educação e da Formação/SACSA
Quinta da Torre, Monte da Caparica
2829-516 CAPARICA
PORTUGAL

Tel. (+351) 21 294 83 94 Fax. (+351) 21 294 85 92

e.mail: fma@fct.unl.pt / fmalexandre@hotmail.com

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