Nurturing self-regulation through reflection: The teacher as reflective practitioner

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1 Nurturing self-regulation through reflection: The teacher as reflective practitioner ~ Mary Grosser ~ The Norms and Standards for Educators document (SA, 2000) explains teacher competence as consisting of three interconnected types of competence, namely practical, foundational and reflexive competences. Practical competences involve the making of informed decisions when confronted with a range of possible actions, which then carries over into what teachers do, namely use relevant teaching strategies to teach, adapt teaching strategies according to student needs and apply strategies to encourage critical and creative thinking in the classroom. The foundational competences point to the teachers abilities to show comprehension of the levels of knowledge and thought when deciding on specific actions (Fraser, 2006:2). Reflexive competences indicate teachers abilities to, among other things, adjust to change, explain why specific adjustments were made to their teaching practice, consider possibilities for overcoming barriers to learning in the classroom and reflect on the quality of learning and teaching that takes place in the classroom (Fraser, 2006:2). A competent teacher is therefore a teacher who becomes skillful at assessing and adapting his or her teaching, and thus has more than just the ability to transfer knowledge to others. Competence is therefore more than just planning a lesson, writing a lesson, presenting a lesson or marking an assignment or test. It also entails the ability to reflect, and as distinguished by Schön (1983), this implies the ability to reflect in action and reflect on action. Reflection in action takes place while the teacher is engaged in teaching practice. As the lesson unfolds, the teacher adjusts teaching strategies and plans according to the needs of the situation. Reflection on action takes place after a teaching experience to determine what worked and did not work during the instruction, in order to learn from successes and mistakes and plan meaningfully for the next lesson. A third type of reflection, namely reflection for action (Thompson & Thompson, 2008:16) refers to planning and thinking ahead of what might happen in a classroom and how the incident/event might be handled, by drawing on previous experiences. 1

2 In sum, reflective practitioners constantly question their teaching practice. Teaching then becomes a cyclical process rather than a linear process (SAIDE, 2013:20, 500). Figure 6 below, provides a diagrammatic representation of the reflective-action cycle. Stage 1: Reflection on an experience: Honestly and objectively assessing how you felt during the experience. Did the students understand? Were they interested? etc. Stage 4: New experience Creates a new learning experience modified by the teacher s evaluation and planning. Looks differently at the teaching and learning situation. A real experience with all its complexities Stage 2: Abstract reasoning The teacher seeks reasons for events that occurred during the lesson. Thinks about what happened and why. Uses reading and talking to other teachers as information resources. Stage 3:Planning active experimentation: Bringing together all the information that could modify the experience. Considering various options to effect change. Figure 6: The reflective action-cycle (SAIDE, 2013b:500) To develop the skill of reflection, keeping a reflective journal to reflect on one s own positive and negative teaching experiences according to the following guided reflection protocol, can be of great help (Gravett & De Beer, 2010:12). 2

3 What happened? Why did it happen? Search for explanations in the context of the teaching event, by consulting literature and talking to colleagues. How did I respond? Why did I respond in this way? What are the key issues I need to be aware of? Do I have information available to help me act differently? What do I need to find out to help me in future to deal with similar situations? How would I deal with similar situations in future? What are the implications for my practice? What do I need to change? What worked well today during my teaching? Why? Guided reflection enables one to find meaning within everyday events, and as teacher, you take charge of your own personal and professional development (Gravett & De Beer, 2010: 13-15). In addition, teachers also need to nurture the skill of reflection among their learners to enable learners to become self-regulating. Reflection should be ongoing throughout the entire learning process. Reflections help learners to draw conclusions from their experiences and create possible action plans for the future. Self-regulation is a cyclical thought process that consists of three phases, namely planning, monitoring and evaluation, and reflection serves as a link between planning, monitoring and evaluating during learning to draw conclusions and make adjustments to optimise the learning process (Ocak & Yamaҫ, 2013:318). Planning The purpose of planning is to ease the actual performing of the task, to increase the possibility of a successful completion of the task and to produce a product of quality (Bannert & Reimann, 2009:194). Three major activities involved in task completion are setting a clear goal, selecting and choosing strategies and identifying hitches (Cazan, 2012). Monitoring The learner mentally checks what he is doing and whether he is still on track to achieve a specified goal. He becomes aware of what he is doing, understands where it fits into his established sequence of steps and what he must do next. Monitoring will indicate whether steps should be altered because they do not achieve the desired goal (Ertmer & Newby, 1996:12). According to Zimmerman (2000:20), feedback plays an important role in monitoring. Feedback assists a person to take corrective action. Moreover, feedback should be informative so that learners can see value in the feedback. Effective monitoring can therefore lead to a greater personal understanding and to a better performance. Evaluating Learners assess the product (goal) they have achieved and the process they followed to achieve the goal. They determine how effective their steps were in achieving their goal and whether they handled the obstacles they encountered effectively (Ertmer & Newby, 1996:13). 3

4 The following table provides sample questions that teachers can provide to learners to assist them in acquiring the skills to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. Planning Monitoring Evaluation What is the goal of the lesson? What strategies are most effective for this task? What do I already know about the topic/task? Adapted from Ertmer and Newby (1996:20) Are the strategies I have chosen effective for this task? Do I understand what I am doing? Am I making progress? What resources should be added? How well did my approach work? How could I improve my approach? What did I learn? What new goals do I have References Bannert, M. & Reimann, P Supporting self-regulated hypermedia learning through prompts. Istr Sci, 40: Cazan, A.-M Assessing self-regulated learning: Qualitative vs quantitative research methods. Brasov, International Conference of Scientific Paper Afases. Ertmer, P. A. & Newby, T. J The expert learner: Strategic, self-regulated, and reflective. Instructional science, 24:1-24. Fraser, J.D.C Mediation of learning (In Nieman, M.M. & Monyai, R.B., eds. The educator as mediator of learning. Pretoria: Van Schaik. p.1-21.) Gravett, S. & De Beer, J The teacher as reflective practitioner (In Conley, L., De Beer, J., Dunbar- Krige, H. et al., Becoming a teacher. Cape Town: Heinemann. p.1-15.) SAIDE. 2013b. How do we improve our professional practice (In SAIDE. Getting practical. A guide to teaching and learning. 3 rd edition. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. p ) Schön, D The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic books. South Africa Norms and Standards for Educators. (Government Notice No. 82.) Government Gazette, 20844, 4 Feb. Thompson, S. & Thompson, N The critically reflective practitioner. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Zimmerman, B. J Attaining Self-Regulation. A Social Cognitive Perspective. (In: M. Boekaerts, M., Pintrich, P.R. & Zeidner, M., eds. Handbook of Self-Regulation. New York: Academic Press, p ) 4

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