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Reflection as a future teacher
The importance of reflection on teaching and learning
The importance of reflection on teaching and learning
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“Thinking about one’s own thinking” is how metacognition is defined. (Darling, 2003, p.158) When educators are able to reflect on their own work, they become better teachers to their students. Good educators know that “there are two aspects of metacognition: reflection—thinking about what we know and 2) self-regulation—managing how we go about learning.” (Darling, 2003, p. 157) Therefore, a good educator can only be as good as their own metacognition when teaching others.
A good educator knows that “we direct our own learning when using metacognition is everyday life. Individuals who lack these skills are usually beginners who have yet to master these skills because of lack of guidance.” (Darling, 2003, p.157) Hence, younger students will need more guidance on appropriate ways to learn ways of reflecting on their work. Yet, sometimes older students have not been given proper guidance in the ability of metacognition and will need to learn new strategies of self-reflection.
I truly feel that “Teachers must create the classroom equivalent of the mirror on the dance studio wall or the videotape of the golf swing.” (Darling, 2003, para 4) for students can see what they are doing well at and have an insight on areas they need improvement. Not everything an educator teaches is black and white, there are many areas that are the grey that prevent a student from understanding the fundamentals of a lesson.
As children learn through their educators, they are capable of “learning in specific contexts, the better they become at using them across domains.” (Darling, 2003, para 11) For instance a child who learns their letters first by saying them, then by seeing them and finally by writing them can learn in a way that is a bene...
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...ave to agree that, “it is also important for teachers to reflect on their own teaching with their students and with other teachers.” (Darling 2003, p. 164) The fact is an educator never truly knows how good they are educating others until they are able to get feedback from their students and their fellow teachers. When an educator has “activities that encourage a reflective and strategic stance toward learning should be embedded in the regular activities of a classroom” (Darling, 2003, p. 164), students are taught from the beginning how to learn and critique themselves then as time goes on there is an easier process in learning from an educator versus the struggle of knowing what is expected by the educator in the classroom Metacognition is only as good as the one who is thinking about one’s own thinks as is a student is only as good as the educator who taught them.
Metacognition can be complex; however, it is essential to teach at an elementary level because it’s an intellectual habit that can be obtain by the teacher’s method of teaching and the student’s consciousness of learning. Thinking about thinking is necessary in elementary level because of the awareness of the student’s thinking process. The teacher must be conscious of the different aspects of learning of each student and be able to work with them with different strategies that are the best to make their learning process more effective and interesting.
One reason for Reflection being used is to give practitioners the chance to change an aspect within their setting, which they feel can be improved in order to help the development of children within their practice. Reflective practice is about improving practice and coming up with theories to support the improvement (Holmes, 2011, p.7). Reflective practice using critical reflection will allow the practitioners to identify what they do well and what they need to improve on within their Early Years settings. It can also give practitioners the opportunity to develop their professional identity, and work at improving their working environment (Forde et al, 2006, p.65, 66). By allowing practitioners the chance to improve their working environment, it can have a huge influence on the children and their development within the Early Years. For example, a teacher looking back and being reflective over their lesson, will allow them to make amelioration for when they teach that lesson again, thus leading to further learning development of the
Metacognition is a cognitive theory, defined as a leaner’s awareness of his or her own learning process. Grounded in constructivist theory, metacognition gained widespread prominence in the 1970s. Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking”, is not a clearly defined word. research on metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning must be firmly connected with theory. As Winters et al. (2008) note, the lack of clear guiding conceptual frameworks in research studies creates confusion in terminology and leads researchers to use terms interchangeably. Thus, rather than asking how metacognition is involved during self-regulation, we end up asking whether metacognition is the same as self-regulation. Such definitional quandaries thwart
Metacognition is referred to as 'learning about learning' or as 'knowing how you learn'. The DfES Thinking Skills glossary helpfully defines metacognition as strategies to take on such as "The process of planning, assessing, and monitoring one's own thinking" and "thinking about thinking in order to develop understanding or self-regulation”. Some of the metacognitive strategies are that learners become aware that their cognition - their ability to comprehend something - has failed them, for example, not being able to understand some textual information or a mathematical formula, and that they have work to do to make sense of it. The metacognitive act, then, would be interpreted as the learner's realisation, firstly, that there are limitations on their knowledge to complete a task, and, secondly, that they possess strategies for rectifying that situation.
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 key element of the human learning process. It can be used to justify aspects of practice and legitimise the knowledge gained from it, as opposed to traditional forms of learning.
Let me say personally, reflective practices therefore imply more systematic process in terms of collecting, recording, and analyzing teachers’ thoughts and observations, as well as those of their students, and then going on to make changes towards teachers' professional development for a better teaching skills. All in all, I can say that reflective practice is important because it helps teachers to make more informed decisions about their teaching skills which are basically based on solid evidence that thoroughly collected over a period of
Metacognition is the understanding of one's thought process. The way Dr. Saundra mcguire explains the way of learning should actually be makes it more relatable. She helps you realize the little things that you're doing in your study habits are wrong and generates easier ways to study. Dr. Saundra Mcguire talks about studying at the right level not how you should actually be studying because everyone studies differently. She talks about how you should not be procrastinating and you should be studying little bit every day and doing homework the same day. And not to rush your work and take your time with doing it. She explains the right ways to study as well go through all of the examples of the answers and she wants you to recognize your mistakes
(2010). For schools to promote metacognition, self-regulated learning, and critical thinking in their students; It all starts in the classroom. Ways schools can encourage metacognition is by; informing students on metacognition, implementing reflections in assignments, learning journal, testing formats. Informing students on what metacognition is and how it works, through this they will have a better understanding on what it is they’re doing.
Through the certification process, candidates must compile a portfolio with various pieces of evidence related to general teaching practices and their specific content area. There are videos of whole group and small group lessons, analysis of student work samples and inclusion of artifacts of leadership, professional learning, community involvement and communication that must demonstrate consistent and continuous growth. Throughout the process, you are required to think about what you teach, how you teach and why you teach it a certain way. This constant reflection was revolutionary in my teaching methodology. I knew what metacognition meant but the act of writing it out and defending my thought processes clarified my reasoning and helped me to see patterns that needed to change. As teachers, we constantly reflect on our teaching but until it is articulated, those ideas tend to be nebulous and easily dissolve in the daily duties of our regular lives. I never would have realized the power that the word “because” has until it links a lesson to a child, standard, or
believe that teachers who have the ability to reflect are ever evolving and hold themselves
A preoperational child uses their mastery of language, and explores several surfaces of social behavior. In this article, it also states that young children display a diversity of learning styles. Nevertheless, the ideal way for many children to learn is not the traditional teacher-directed, verbal approach. We must be delicate to these different learning approaches, particularly as we serve an ever larger diversity of children (Wardle, 2016). Evidently many of these developmental needs tie up well with appropriate use of technology in the classroom such as exploration, manipulation of symbolic representation, matching alternative learning styles, and rapidly changing learning modalities that individual students can control and pace to meet their individual needs.
This semester I came in not knowing how to self-reflect on my performance, I would often get offended if people would tell me I was doing something wrong. By self-reflecting on my performance I was able to adjust my instructional methods to best fit my students. I found that I should provide guided notes to help students follow along my presentation on PowerPoint. Through my self-reflection of my lesson, students would often get off task when we would go over the PowerPoint. I found that providing guided notes helped students pay attention and better retain the material. I also self-reflected on positive things I did during my lessons, such as stating the agenda to give my students a heads up on what we were going to talk about that day. I made a changes to my previous lessons to include reviewing of the agenda. I also found that I did not need to put students in groups during my science lesson because they all worked better independently. I learned to view myself critically to analyze how I could better teach a lesson, and to critically view my performance from different
We need to continuously assess and evaluate our students so we can set appropriate goals for each student and individual instructions. Each child learns different, so as a teacher we need to have different styles of teaching for positive reinforcement.
Training future teachers is an important part in a good school system because it gives future teachers superior and inferior examples of how to teach. In college, teachers in training will only use textbooks to study. One problem with only learning how to teach through textbooks is teachers can’t see the process of teaching, they only read it. Cameras also benefit teachers because it shows them how they teach. Thomas Roberts an administrator at Hafen Elementary School in Nevada quotes what some teachers’ feedback is, “‘I didn’t know I leaned to the right when I speak. I didn’t know I focused more on the girls than the guys’” (Gray). By seeing and knowing what each teachers’ learning styles are, they can try to fix anything they don’t like. For instance, if a teacher realizes they lecture too long th...