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Critical thinking skills and reflection
Critical thinking skills and reflection
The benefits of reflective practice
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In professional fields that are always changing due to the surrounding of the career and the participants, incorporating reflective practice is a great way to engage in the process continuous learning. Reflective practice is a great source of personal improvement and development for one to enhance one’s profession. This form of practice is a great way to reflect back on one’s abilities, actions, and experiences that have accord during one’s professional career. For education, the reflective practice is geared more toward the educator’s teaching methods and what can be learned and use to fit the student’s needs. Along with verifiable theories, the consideration of the students and the procedures used is taken into effect. Normally, “the terms reflective thinking, critical thinking, reflective judgment as well as critical reflection have each been used to define a way of thinking that accepts uncertainty and acknowledges dilemmas, while ascribing less significance to the role of self in the reflective process” (294). In order to achieve the best practices for reflection one should refrain from “mental habits, biases, and presuppositions that tend to close off new ways of perceiving and interpreting our experiences (296). According to Barbara Larrive, a teacher needs to be able to flexible with the changing aspects of society and the challenges that are presented to them. For a person to be able to do that, reflection on previous work and processes need to be critically considered and reflected on (293-294). The reflection process is most useful when teachers are able to engage in critical reflection and continue with ongoing discovery so that they stay trapped in “unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions, and expectation... ... middle of paper ... ...a series of phases. The first phase would be the examination stage, where one questions and seeks change. Then the struggle stage where the ideas of fear are battled with the thought of accomplishment is afar. Lastly, the stage of perpetual shift of personal discovery leads to transformation (305). Given the fact the there is no straight line to reach critical reflectiveness for teaching purposes, the best option to reach it would be with personal growth, and self-reflection. There is no standard model, so to say, for one to critically reflect on ones’ own practice, however the best option would be to remain free from being judgmental and bias, and to remain productive at all times. References Larrivee, Barbara. "Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the Critically Reflective Teacher." Reflective Practice 1.3 (2000): 293-307. Web. 20 May 2014.
...hat has worked and what hasn’t. If a student for example is taking blood for the first time and something goes wrong, they don’t find the right vein. Reflective practise would help that student to understand what he/she done wrong while carrying out the procedure and how they could stop that from happening again. Not is only reflective practice good for pointing out the bad factors of something but can also be there for when a procedure goes exceptionally well. If a health professional finds a certain technique works better than what’s in place already, reflective practise is a good way to shear the information you found with other colleges so they can carry out that particular producer. Gibbs 1988 is an example of reflective practice, he uses six stages when doing reflective practice which include Description, feelings, evaluation, analyse, analyse and actions plan.
As part of my HNC study, I will look to define and discuss the importance of reflection. I will be using a variety of sources such as books, web pages, articles and journals in order to gather information. Which in return will allow me to explain why reflection is of such importance.
When becoming a reflective practitioner, the knowledge allow them to know how to support children while providing them with a deeper understanding of how children develop; theories are continuously being researched and developed in order to provided more research on learning experiences and high-quality learning opportunities. Theories are vital to work as practitioners will be able to understand various things about children like their development, behaviour and reaction as well as styles of learning and attachment and transition needs; each part is vital in order
My sixteen week class in English 111. I was really nervous about this class. Because English has never been my strong point. This class has hard, but fun all at the same time. I learn a lot from this class. Meanwhile,the first day of class you handed a paper with a question on it. “The first thing I want to say to you who are students is that you must not think of being here to receive an education; instead, you will do much better to think of being here to claim one.” Even though putting my all in what I have learned, claiming my education with hard work because using the skills of the meal plan, as we write to different audiences and learning to be a Critically thinker as I start becoming a critically-Literate Citizenship.
Vachon and Leblac (2011) claim that reflective learning is facilitated by Critical Incident Analysis, the key components being a thorough analysis of an authentic, contextualised experience. In practise, through research, Kettle and Sellars (1996) established that peer reflection amongst groups of students, was integral to challenging preconceived ideas of their own pedagogy. In addition, Onjanen (1993), argues that the use of reflective journals, group discussion and own personal history are the most effective means to reflect, and subsequently improve on practise. A critical incident isn’t necessarily a dramatic event, usually it is an incident which has personal significance, one that makes an individual
Without agreement on what reflective practice is, it is difficult to decide on teaching‑learning strategies. Reflective practice may be a developmental learning process (Williamson 1997), may have different levels of attainment (Wellington 1996), and may be affected by a learner’s cognitive ability (James and Clarke 1994), willingness to engage in the process (Bright 1996; Haddock 1997), and orientation to change (Wellington 1996). However, there does seem to be some agreement that critical reflection consists of a process that can be taught to adults. Brookfield (1988) identified four processes central to learning how to be critically reflective: assumption analysis, contextual awareness, imaginative speculation, and reflective skepticism.
Reflection is a process of ‘reviewing, analysing and evaluating experiences, drawing upon theoretical concepts or previous learning, in order to inform future actions’ (White, Laxton, and Brooke, 2013, p1). Scales (2014) postulates that reflective practice enables teachers to better understand the abilities and requirements of their learners. Equally, by engaging in reflective practice teachers are enabled to plan, respond and evolve teaching approaches which are informed by experience and theory (Mcgregor, 2012; Helyer, 2015). Nevertheless, reflective practice should not be adopted as means of justifying existing practice (Finlay, 2008), indeed, to achieve meaningful reflection, an individual must be analytical, self-aware and critically evaluative
Reflective practice means thinking about and evaluating what you do and discussing any changes which could be made. By using reflective practice and constantly monitoring the way in which you work your evaluation will give you pointers in how to make your activities more efficient. By making activities and sessions better teachers and teaching assistants will be increasing the childrenâ€TMs learning possibilities and standards. This is closely related to your own professional development and also the way in which activities are carried out with the children and whether the activities need adapting. For example, an activity that I completed with a small group of children was a maths intervention group for using long multiplication. The first time I tried this intervention group I started with a 3 digit number times by a two digit number. Some of the children understood this technique but not all were successful. After looking at how I
Questioning one’s own self for the success or failure of the learning process in the classroom in terms of attitudes, beliefs, values, traditions and pedagogy is not only an essential ingredient of teaching profession but it also helps an individual to be a valuable resource of a prosperous society. Theorists have named this self-evaluation as reflection and have given different perspectives and processes to define and practice it. It is necessary for an individual to understand the process of reflection and its types based on the time factor for the reflective action. The importance of reflective practice is so much emphasized that it is considered as a bedrock activity for the teaching identity. For some individuals it is an inborn property but anyone can master the skill of reflective practice by using the strategies and tools provided to accomplish the goal of continuing professional development and lifelong learning. Among the prominent strategies, students’ evaluation forms are the most common source of reflection along with their advantages and limitations. It is vital that a teacher fully understands the concept of reflection, its implementation using different strategies especially students’ feedback and its purpose and significance in work-based learning. So the first step that a teacher needs to take is to comprehend the broad multi-dimensional concept of reflection.
First of all, I would like to refer to the act of reflection for us as teachers. To develop a profesional competence we need to accomplish a cycle that is called the reflective cycle, stated by Wallace (2001), and that requires two main stages: the first one is Pre-training whose core is the learner’s existing conceptual schemata, that is to say, the prior knowledge the student has, an...
Reflection within early year’s settings and schools allows for the practitioner to think about the work that is being completed either whilst doing it or after it has occurred, the reflection allows for seeing how the work has gone or whether it needs to be changed for future practice. Schön is a key writer about reflection and illustrates the differences between reflection in action, reflection on action and reflection whilst completing the task. The above critical skills help all practitioners to develop understanding as they hugely impact on others lives, if this skill is not engaged in then practice could be effected (Leeson, 2004).
As part of my teaching training it is important that I can reflect on my practice and create SMART targets to evaluate and create areas of progression for my future placements. Reflective teaching supports and enhances initial school based training and therefore, also supports the lifelong professionalism of teaching suggests Pollard
When later consulted the teacher suggested that the girl was a waste of time since she could not read or write and any effort to help her was wasted. This reaction from the teacher invoked critical thinking in me as an aspiring primary teacher. The teacher’s belittlement of the student who clearly had a problem in understanding and writing was perceived negatively since the teacher did not offer a solution but rather only ignored the issue. The teacher did not implement critical reflection as suggested by Larrivee, “unless a teacher develops the practice of critical reflection, they stay trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions and expectations. Approaching teaching as a reflective practitioner involves fusing personal beliefs and values into a professional identity (Larrivee 2000, p.293).
Thus reflection leads to the growth of the individual personally and emotionally. There is great need to use reflection in clinical teaching. Skills in medical facilities are needed to keep reflection on a higher level. The clinical teacher should work with the group in a way that is similar to that of a medical interviewer working with a patient who has psychological issues. Clinical teachers should encourage discussion that elaborates on a specific topic and takes it to a deeper level rather than having a discussion that raises many different topics.
Consistent reflection is embedded into my practice, and I regularly evaluate the effectiveness of my three components of teaching: relationship, relevance, and rigor. These three R’s are the foundation of my identity as an educator, and they challenge me to elevate my teaching. By engaging in this process, I can keep assessing my professional growth, so I can more effectively impact student achievement as I continue to learn alongside my students.