Standard 6-Reflective practice in diverse settings

Maria Sideri
EDU 448 Elementary Education Portfolio Development
Fall 2011
Wheelock College Standards For Educator Preparation Programs

Standard 6. Reflective practice in diverse settings

Educators should continually reflect on their practice to extend their knowledge, improve their teaching, and refine their evolving philosophies of education. They should stay abreast of developments in the profession, and be able to think critically about various teaching practices. Educators should continually strengthen their knowledge of subject matter through scholarly study, professional reading, and discussion with colleagues. They should deepen their understanding of children’s learning and development through classroom-based action research. Educators should be open to change and innovation, continually engaging in the process of professional growth.

6.1 Continually reflect on their practice to extend their knowledge.
6.2 Continually reflect on their practice to improve their teaching.
6.3 Continually reflect on their practice to refine their evolving philosophies of education.
6.4 Stay abreast of developments in the profession and be able to think critically about various teaching practices.
6.5 Continually strengthen their knowledge of subject matter through reading, studying, and conversing with colleagues.
6.6 Strive to deepen their understanding of children's learning and development through classroom-based action research.
6.7 Be open to change and innovation and continually engage in the process of professional growth.

As much as I would not like to admit it, reflection is something that I used to avoid doing. I dreaded being critiqued, critiquing myself in a self-reflection, or critiquing the work of others. I felt like I was being so harsh on myself, and other times, I did not want to admit that changing in some ways could be extremely beneficial. It was not until I started my freshman year at Wheelock College that I was truly introduced to what reflection really means. In almost all of my classes, self reflections were required. The amount of experience that I gained in the process of reflection made me aware that reflection and feedback are extremely helpful in growing as a student. Writing my own reflections made me feel more self-aware and in control of how I was performing in classes. Over the next four years, reflecting is something I now do naturally, and I believe it has helped me to become a more effective student and student teacher. Every piece of advice that I received from my professors, supervising practitioners and college supervisors, I took seriously and tried to apply it to better my effectiveness as a student and student teacher.
This standard is extremely important to me as a prospective elementary educator. Reflecting is part of what is means to be a teacher, because every student and every classroom is going to be unique. Reflecting on lesson plans, behavior management styles, activities, attitudes, and anything else that goes into teaching is essential in becoming an effective teacher. I believe that if a teacher does not continually reflect on her practice, then there will be no growth or improvement in her teaching. Therefore, I will be sure to make reflection a part of my daily routine.
Professional development is just as important to me as a prospective elementary teacher. I love learning, and I believe my love for it should be applied to my profession in the sense that my knowledge should only keep expanding the more time I spend in the classroom. I believe this expansion should not only come from experience with the students and reflecting on what works well and what does not work well, but professionally through readings, discussions with colleagues, seminars and continued education. This will not only introduce me to new knowledge and research in my field, but it will also help me apply it to my future classroom in order to continually refine my educational practices and philosophy.
The education course Racial and Cultural Identities (RCI), truly opened up my eyes and changed the way I thought about culture, ethnicity, race, and inequality. This was the main course that required me to reflect on myself in a way that I never had before. I remember reading Peggy McIntosh’s (1990), "White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack". This article was discussed in my RCI class, as well as provided in one of the readings for my Introduction to Elementary Education course in Classroom Conversation: A Collection of Classics for Parents and Teachers by Miletta and Miletta (2008). McIntosh (1990) truly made me reflect on my own ethnicity and culture as I thought about my own "white privilege". When McIntosh (1990) delineates the daily effects of white privilege, I reflected on my own ethnicity and race in an entirely new way. McIntosh (1990) explains that, "As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact with in this particular time, place, and line of work cannot count on most of these conditions" (McIntosh, 1990, p. 172). Two of the main conditions that stuck out to me was when she stated, "I can turn on the television or open the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented" (McIntosh, 1990, p. 172), and also that, "I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race" (McIntosh, 1990, p. 173). These two conditions I never thought of before as being a privilege. This made me deeply reflect on myself as a prospective elementary teacher in the sense that the children in my future classroom may be from very diverse ethnic backgrounds. Their ethnicity and race may represent a minority group, and I need to be aware of the "privilege" that my race assigns to fully understand and appreciate some of the privileges that I am awarded daily based on my race. Reocognizing and acknowledging my privileges makes me aware of the social justice and racial equality that needs to be present in the classroom.
Another educational expert that also utilizes reflection to enhance teaching is Steven Levy. Levy (1996) noted in Starting From Scratch: One Classroom Builds Its Own Curriculum, that "Only when I look back on my word do I begin to articulate the principles and ideals that guide me" (Levy, 1996, p. 1). Therefore, Levy (1996) reflects throughout the entire book on what guides him through teaching as he analyzes what theory or model he used to teach. Levy (1996) reflects on his belief that as a teacher he is responsible for finding the genius in every student. Levy (1996) explained that, "...rather than trying to meet the needs of every single child, I concentrated on shaping the learning environment to enable each child to manifest the genius that he or she brought to the classroom" (Levy, 1996, p. 4). This delineation made me reflect on my own teaching and learning, and realize that in my future classroom, each child will be his or her own individual person and that teaching should be directly linked to each individual’s genius.
Based on my own student teaching experience, I feel as though I've met the teaching standard 6, reflective practice. According to 6.1, I believe that I have continually reflected on my teaching in order to extend my knowledge and better my instruction. During my practicum at the Graham and Parks school in Cambridge in a first and second grade classroom, I continuously reflected on my teaching in order to inform the subsequent lesson. The first lesson I led was a fall activity that involved reading a book to the students, creating a class tree, and then having the students write on leaves their favorite fall activity to be placed on the trees branches. While I was going over my lesson plan, my supervising practitioner suggested that I make a template for the leaves in order to eliminate the time it takes the first and second graders to make the leaves. Also, she said it would alleviate problems if they were not able to write on the leaf if they drew their leaf too small. This was a great suggestion, so I altered my lesson plan and had the students just cut out the leaf that I previously stenciled on paper. That way they were still involved in cutting, but it eliminated problems anticipated by my supervising practitioner. The tree came out well (as shown in artifact 6.1), and the lesson ran more smoothly than I thought. Reflecting on my supervising practitioner's advice helped me to alter the lesson and forsee student difficulty in advance.
I believe I have met 6.2 of the standard as well, because I have continually reflected on my practice to improve teaching. As seen in artifact 6.2, my Wheelock College supervisor wrote me a letter of feedback on one of my lessons during my pre-practicum. Most of it was positive feedback, but there is one part where she noted that some parts of the lesson were unnecessarily time consuming. I definitely reflected on her feedback, and found ways to protect instructional time. I feel that her feedback helped me to pay more attention to pacing and time management.In the next part of this standard, 6.3, the teaching candidate must continually reflect on practice to refine evolving philosophies of education. I believe I am still achieving this part of the standard every chance I get in the classroom, but so far, I believe that I have definitely refined my educational philosophy after I completed my pre-practicum. I completed my pre-practicum while I was taking a curriculum development course. In this course, we were asked to write our educational philosophies and view of assessment now that we had completed our pre-practicum and learned through the course. My new view of assessment, after developing as a teacher as well as a student, is provided through artifact 6.3.
For part 6.4 and 6.5 of standard 6, I believe that I have begun to stay abreast of developments in the professional and am become able to think critically about various teaching practices. Thinking critically is a skill that I have learned to do through strengthening my knowledge of subject matter through reading, studying, and conversing with colleagues. During the course, Elementary Teaching and Learning, I worked with one of my fellow student teachers to answer a question that we both struggled to answer during our practicum, “What are some strategies for encouraging the ‘I’m done’ students to keep going during a writing assignment?” By interviewing our supervising practitioners as well as reading the book, Positive Discipline in The Classroom (2000) by Jane Nelson, Lynn Lott, and H. Stephen Glenn, we created a handout that provides solutions to this answer. This handout is displayed as artifact 6.4 & 6.5.

Standard 6.6 delineates that educators should strive to “…deepen their understanding of children’s learning and development through classroom-based action research.” I believe that I have reached this goal through the researched that I conduction within my practicum classroom. In order to understand the students’ learning and development, I took many notes and observations daily of the students in my classroom. These observations helped me to understand the way that the students learned, and also which techniques were best to use when planning for my lessons. These observations and notes provided me with insight to the ways that students preferred to learn, what activities engaged them in the best way, and what to be aware of. One example of my daily observations is shown through artifact 6.6 and provides evidence of my daily classroom-based action research.
Lastly, for standard 6.7, I believe I have achieved being open to change and innovation and have engaged in the process of professional growth. I thought the way I was originally taught how to write and think about a lesson plan was the right way and the only way. It wasn't until curriculum development that I discovered there is more than one way to write a lesson plan, and reflecting back on my former lesson plan, I prefer the new lesson plan formed through "backward design" that I was taught in curriculum development. It organizes the lesson in a way that truly gets to the heart of what you are trying to get the students to learn. In artifact 6.7, I show the two lesson plan formats. By embracing a “backward design” approach to lesson planning and curriculum development, I have made changes in how I teach. In artifact 6.7, a lesson plan from my pre-practicum is displayed and in artifact 6.7A a lesson plan from my practicum is displayed. Although both show the backward design approach, it is clear that my lesson plan from my practicum became even more refined and incorporated more “backward” thinking which shows professional growth.
References

McIntosh, P. (1998). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. (As cited in Miletta, A. & Miletta, M. eds). (2008). Classroom conversations: A collection of classics for
parents and teachers. NY: The New Press.


Levy, S. (1996). Starting from scratch: one classroom builds its own curriculum. NH: A Division of Reed Elsevier Inc.