Pausing to reflect is essential to continuous improvement of your practice. Taking time to process your thinking after any instructional event and analyzing the many decisions you made in the planning and implementation of your lesson are important. By thinking about these things and the impact they had on student learning, teachers can determine where to focus in making revisions and choose which parts of the lesson need continued instruction in the future. Reflecting on Teaching is component 4a in the Danielson Framework.
How do you reflect?
- Through collegial conversations?
- Journal writing?
- Examining student work?
- Conversations with students?
- Thinking about your teaching?
Reflecting with accuracy and being able to use what you learn in your future teaching is an acquired skill. Mentors, coaches, and principals can help you develop these skills through supportive and deep questioning. Over time, thinking both reflectively and self-critically while analyzing your instruction through the lens of student learning becomes a habit of mind, leading to improvement in teaching and learning.
The first element is ACCURACY.
As teachers gain experience, their reflections on practice become more accurate, corresponding to the assessments that would be given by an external and unbiased observer. Reflections are accurate and teachers can provide specific examples from a lesson to support their judgements.
The second element is USE IN FUTURE TEACHING.
If the potential of reflection to improve teaching is to be fully realized, teachers must use their reflections to make adjustments in their practice. As their experience and expertise increases, teachers draw on an ever-increasing repertoire of strategies to inform these adjustments.
The Danielson rubrics state the following for a teacher who is proficient in 4a:
The teacher makes an accurate assessment of a lesson's effectiveness and the extent to which it achieved its instructional outcomes and can cite general references to support the judgement. The teacher makes a few specific suggestions of what could be tried another time the lesson is taught.
A distinguished teacher offers specific alternate actions in their thoughtful reflection, complete with the probable success of different courses of action.
A shout out to the PBL collaboration and learning that took place this week in Madison! Thanks to Sarah, Courtney, Rachel, Lindi, Sarah, and Richelle! You'll get a chance to hear about their new learning and the fantastic projects they've planned this week!
This week's comment questions:
Reflect: what did you do this week that worked well for kids?
Why did it work?
What didn't work the way you had planned?
What will you do next week because of what you learned this week?
