Becoming a Reflective Practitioner
Reflective practice is defined as “the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning” (Schön, 1983). Reflective practice assumes that individuals, as professionals and teachers, have a high level of commitment, ability, and insight to reflect on what they do, how they do it, and how they might change (Larrivee, 2000). The focus is on self-direction and self-evaluation to seek improvement and increase effectiveness. Reflective practice is a tool that can provide you with the information necessary to guide action towards personal growth and development.
Reflective practice has become a guiding philosophy across several helping professions including science, nursing, medicine, law, and of course, teaching (Loughran, 2002). Helping practitioners are encouraged to question and investigate all aspects of their role to develop an enhanced understanding of their profession, sustain competence, and exercise good judgement in their day-to-day practice (Day, 1999; Smyth, 1992). In the field of teaching, reflective practice has become the gold standard following work by Schön (1983, 1987, 1992), who first linked the concept of reflection to teaching practice. Following Schön, the literature has proliferated, reaffirming the centrality of reflection to good teaching practice (Brookfield, 1995, 2005; Valli, 1992, Zeichner & Liston, 1996; Karnieli, 2020; McLeod et al., 2020; Contreras et al., 2020; Greenberger, 2020; Ruffinelli et al., 2020).
So why is reflective practice in teaching so important? As a faculty member, you are responsible for preparing a diverse student body for a demanding and dynamic workplace environment. To help students stay current (or ahead of the curve), you need to critically examine your values and biases, how your teaching can support change, how you can provide a quality learning experience, and ways you can show respect for difference (Zeichner & Liston, 1996). Reflective practice can help keep your biases in check, problem-solve, and question McLeod et al., 2020 the structures that may support or hold back students (Jay & Johnson, 2002). Reflective practice among educators has also been shown to have a direct impact on preparing students for the ‘real world’. Mann and colleagues (2007) found that learning environments can have an inhibiting or encouraging effect on supporting reflection and reflective thinking among learners. An important factor to creating a supportive environment was the behaviour of the mentor or supervisor and their ability to model self-reflection. If your primary role as a faculty is to prepare students for a workplace environment that will likely demand them to be reflective practitioners themselves, as an educator, you need to role model these skills within and beyond the classroom environment.
How to Engage in Reflective Practice
By its very nature, self-reflection is an individual activity. However, self-reflection can be further enhanced by the powerful feedback sourced from others including your students, faculty peers, fellow professionals or practitioners in your discipline or subject area, and academic management leaders. This is called ‘formative evaluation’ since it is aimed at ongoing, process-oriented learning and development.
There are many ways you can collect feedback regarding your effectiveness as a teacher. Tools can include standardized course evaluations such as a Watermark tool which Centennial College initiated at the institutional-level for all courses. Course evaluations are useful as they can provide broad and generalized feedback on your course(s) success and support the institution in collecting metrics on student satisfaction. However, course evaluations can be limiting in providing you with the detail and direction necessary to make substantial changes to your teaching practice. While it is reassuring to receive satisfactory scores from course evaluations, it may be difficult to continually improve teaching practice with little insight as to how improvements can be implemented. Another common source of feedback regarding your teaching practice are statistics on course retention. Unfortunately, you receive this data post-course leaving you no time to make changes that could have impacted a specific cohort of learners. This data also does not answer the critical question – why are students failing your course?
Developing your full potential as a faculty member requires deep, personal reflection and an openness to fully listen (including with your heart), critically process, and implement others’ feedback with humility and appreciation. This manual provides you with a compilation of tools and ideas to assist you with this process. The goal of these tools is to provide you with data for your own reflective practice to help you understand how your teaching is perceived by others (e.g., students and colleagues), give you insight into your teaching, and allow you to pause and reflect on questions you may not have previously considered.
Having an improved understanding of your strengths and challenges will help you become more personally aware and effective in all your roles as a faculty member. By using this manual for your own reflections, and the tools within it to gather insights from others, you will be able to uncover your blind spots and hidden biases. This will lead you to developing a practical and powerful action plan to guide you on your journey to mastering the art of teaching.