Reflective Practices In Teaching: Schon’s Model, Advantages And Implementation Essay.

Reflective practice in teaching

The reflective practices in teaching are referred to the involvement of processes that examine the underlying set of beliefs of a practitioner regarding the mechanisms of teaching as well as learning (Slade et al. 2019). It is also about the alignment of one practitioner with his or her actual practices in the classroom before taking the class, during the class as well as after the course is fully taught to the children in the classroom. When the reflective practices in teaching is followed in the classroom, the teaching practitioners critically analyses their way of teaching as well as observe the improvement of the mode of their learning patterns by introducing the effective teaching through reflective practises (Sivula 2018). To acquire the reflective practices in the teaching mode, the teachers or the practitioners of the teaching professions are able to take important decisions regarding the improvement in their teaching practices by inducing a positive environment in learning processes. The introduction of reflective practices help the teachers to constantly develop and work for a repertoire regarding the relevant as well as strategies and techniques that are context specific (Sabella 2019).

The Schon’s model of reflective practice had been developed in his book “Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action” in 1983. He heavily emphasised over the role of intuition regarding the professional practice as well as considers reflection in a practical way by using tactical knowledge (Laursen 2020). The key components of the model are ‘knowing in action’, ‘refection in action’, ‘reflection on action’. The ‘knowing in action’ refers to the intuitive ability of an individual to understand how to proceed with a task. The ‘refection in action’ takes place before ‘reflection on action’. The ‘refection in action’ helps an individual in becoming more dynamic as well as responsive in an act.

The Schon’s model of reflective practice takes one to consider the situation, decide the action to the situation and act immediately, whereas ‘reflection on action’ helps the individual to take some more time to consider the situation with various other interpretations (NAGESH and PADMAJA 2020). This would help them to respond in a different manner in future. The benefit of the model is it is flexible and less time consuming. It helps in building strong management skills, dynamism, and helps the practitioner to react immediately. The limits of the model are it can make the practitioner to act as anxious, and it does not provide a provision to explain reflection on the situation. Also, it has been argued that reflection is not a semi-intuitive process.

• Limitations of Schon’s model of reflective practice- The two main limitations of the Schon’s model of reflective practice are that the approach of Schon towards the reflective practices is considered as the presupposition of the self-protected individualism. Also, the model has failed to consider as well as provide sufficient attention to the ethical concerns and background to the practitioners of the learning process (Mantzourani et al. 2019).
• Disadvantage of Schon’s model of reflective practice- There are few disadvantages to the Schon’s model of reflective practice which make the model of reflection to lag behind in the usage of the practices by the teaching professionals. It is incomplete in nature in the perspective that it has failed to acknowledge and provide sufficient consideration to the ethical concerns and background to the practitioners of the learning process (Landry-Thomas 2018). Also, the model has provided very little advice on the fact to perform operational practices on the way of teaching as well as the assessment regarding the reflection. Additionally, the students, after going through the reflective practices proposed by the Schon’s model of reflective practices, found it to be unequipped for them to practice the process in the real world of teaching.
• New found information of the Schon’s model of reflective practice- The New found information of the Schon’s model of reflective practice enables the practitioners to “think what they are doing while they are doing it” (Cunninghame and Pitman 2020). Schon claimed that in order to manage the indeterminate sections of the professional practices, it requires a practitioner to enhance the ability to consider thinking on the course of the action as well as make the use of the experiences of the previous practices to the newer conditions in order to improve the teaching profession to make it an effective one.

Model of reflection

The key understanding of the Schon’s model of reflective practices is that one takes some time to consider the change in action to react in a better way in future. This consideration of one’s ability to change helps in attaining development in professionalism in the field of teaching. The model claimed that there are two types of the process of reflection that exists in the profession of teaching used by the professionals in the time of the event and also after the completion of the event in order to analyse the action (Coward 2021). For example, at the time of teaching, after applying the reflection theories in the mode of my teaching and explaining processes, I felt that the theories and models automatically made me evolve the developmental processes in order to adjust as well as response to the issues raised by the children. It made me realise the concerns that the students face by losing interest during the time of learning their course materials.

The reflection in action during an event, according to the Schon’s model of reflective practices, is considered to be the experiences gathered in the event itself, thinking about a situation in the time of event, also deciding upon the course of action to be taken in the situation, and planting action to the situation on the immediate basis (Kacetl and Semradova 2020). Five factors are- environment, emotions, unmotivated, loose of interest, planning.

It determines the reflection of the experiences which had already taken place. It helps in the thinking of the actions and considers the facts which could have performed differently. Through the process, it acknowledges the information and experiences gained during the course of action (Makrides and Yeates 2022). Five factors are- communication, reaction, student interaction, strategies, planning. These factors help in determining the actions to be taken in an event later in time so that the actions get improved after all the analysis and observation.

1. The benefits of critical analysis of reflection practice are

• It helps to develop an understanding of the problem
• It is  a deliberate process to get ideas on how the ideas emerge (Frumos 2019)
• It is convergent process of thinking where ideas get valued

2. The habit of reflection has helped to analyse the process of teaching to the students in a more improved manner so that they take it easier.

For me, the mastery as reflection helped in teaching and considering the individual needs of the students.

Practising reflection has helped me to be efficient in the process of teaching and inculcate what had been missing earlier.

The decision making as reflection has helped me in structured thinking of the problems and analyse the decision taken in order to solve the problems related to teaching (Esguerra-Prieto, González-Garzón and Acosta-López 2018).

3. The up skilling with the process of reflection has helped me improve to the whole reflection.
4. Yes, there were improvements using reflection in the teaching methodology. Initially, I used to teach the students only by explaining the chapters but after incorporating reflection, I involve the students in the course of the teaching, explain them, ask for their opinion in the topic, and emphasise on the practical experiences.
5. The school has introduced activities like seminars, debate, counselling and various workshops by the teachers which have helped and influenced me in involving reflection.

1. Teaching is considered to be one of the most challenging professions which give the teachers an opportunity to bring changes in the future generations. It takes enormous knowledge regarding a subject to be taught to the students in the most effective and influential way (Beugelsdijk and Welzel 2018).
2. The benefits of PLC have increased the collaboration, bond as well as connectedness in between the teachers in order to approach improvement in teaching (Supriyanto et al.2020).

The benefits in views helped the students to put forward their problems and opinions regarding the teaching. Similarly, the benefits in working in teams during debates and seminars helped in taking responsibilities, encouraging the creativity in the teaching process (Marshall 2019).

Limitations and Advantages of Schon’s model of reflective practice

The benefit of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions is that it helps in the understanding of the differences across different cultures. It helps in the consideration of the students of diverse background in the teaching processes to involve different modes of teaching to make them understand (Mulryan-Kyne 2021).

The benefit of discipline of learning is that it helps the process of learning in a significant and routine manner with responsibility.

The benefit of social justice is that it helps in promoting fairness as well as equity to the society (Sicora 2019).

The benefits of pareto principle is that it helps in identifying as well as determining the root causes in order to check defects and problems.

3. Three qualities which we develop in students are-

• Teaching of tolerance
• Teaching of resilience
• Identification of strength

4. The reflection process is an active and cyclic process because the practitioners grow and adapt to the process gradually with a motive to improve the teaching process by identifying the strength and weaknesses (Cao, Su and Cui 2022). It is active and sets of ethical skills which help in dealing with real as well as difficult situation in the profession of teaching such as adapting to a different mode of teaching.
5. The professional development requires to evolve the attitude of a person, what they can do, how they can proceed with a job, modifies their behaviour, the intellectual behaviour, as well as the thoughts an individual possess in the mind. The efforts as well as initiatives of professional development are totally dependent on the behavioural change. It facilitates the decision making process, helps in enhancing new ideas to be incorporated in the teaching methods, helps in the blooming of the taxonomy and the growth of confidence. It also helps in improving in depth knowledge and insights.

The reflective practice for teaching is one of the significant perspectives of professional development. A teacher’s effectiveness is tested when they admit that there is always a room for improvement no matter how much easy the lessons are as they seem to be. The role of reflection is important because it helps the teachers in collection, recording, as well as analysing all the things taking place in the lesson (Waheed et al. 2020). It helped me to shift to understanding from only experiencing. By developing and practicing reflection improved my teaching processes with making it a strong foundation of learning. It also helped me in creating a collaborating environment in between the students. The process of reflection is a medium that conceals different sort of ideas over the nature of reflection as well as the application of it on the profession of teaching and on the education of teachers. Thus, reflection can be defined as the process of systematic reviewing of all the teachers that allows one to make a link from one experience to the other one by making sure that the students can max the maximum progress in the curriculum. I adapted the newer methods of teaching by showing various videos of the subject that I am going to teach the students. The video consisted of various attractive sounds, music, and visuals to which the students got attracted and this helped them to achieve better understanding of the subject. Also, there were the fun activities related to the subject matter included in the process of teaching and fun competition among the students related to the subject

Reflection has guided me as an educator by uplifting my confidence in teaching profession. From the initial days, I have analysed as well as observed each of my processes of teachings as an educator so that all the actions are subjected to improve with time as well as experience to make me better in my job in the teaching profession. Developing professionalism is one such action required for the change in the career. Through reflection, I have learnt to bring changes in my teaching ways so that the students understand the subject in a better way. Things that I have managed to change are the explaining methods, now I have incorporated many video, sound, music and other attractive materials related to the subject matter that the children love and enjoy. I have incorporated many fun activities in the form of learning materials so that students learns and find it playful in the same time. Also, before proceeding with the teaching of different subjects, a thorough research on the teaching processes are done to try and find out more effective ways to teach the students. As of now, my teaching abilities have changed for better now after reflecting it over and over again in a manner so that I can improve everyday with the potential that I pose for as an educator to teach the kids and make their learning processes an experience to remember. Better understanding of the subject matter with playful activities, competition, and exams makes a learning process more viable for both the ends. Reflection helps pointing out, assessing, analysing, and observing the problematic areas of a profession. As in my case, reflections have helped me improve my teaching ability in teaching of subjects.

Benefits of different concepts

The Gibbs reflective model is based on different stages which demands one to answer different questions in each stage to thrive deep into with the reflection. He suggested the stages of description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion as well as the action plan. The concept of the model is used to systematise the reflections as well as isolate the feelings (Adeani, Febriani and Syafryadin 2020). In the description phase, one needs to answer by describing the situation regarding what happened and not to make any judgemental statement and draw a conclusion. In the feelings stage, one is required to analyse through the stages of the situation as asked to describe the emotional response towards the situation as experienced. In the evaluation stage, one requires to share the experience gathered in the situation by making judgemental statements. In the analysis stage, one senses the greater details of the situation after evaluating it by bringing different ideas to make the experience better. In the conclusion stage, one concludes regarding the personal situation throughout the experience as well as analyse what have been undertaken throughout the whole process of the specific situation. In the personal action plan, it is decided what actions will be taken in similar situation next time, what types of steps are to be considered on the basis of the experiences gathered from this event (Markkanen et al. 2020). The benefit related to the Gibb’s Reflective Model is that it allows one to learn and analyse with time on the basis of the experiences faced through the whole process and it can be implied to people to deal with situations in a better way.

The Schon’s theory of the reflective practice had been developed in his book “Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action” in 1983. He heavily emphasised over the role of intuition regarding the professional practice as well as considers reflection in a practical way by using tactical knowledge. The key components of the theory are ‘knowing in action’, ‘refection in action’, ‘reflection on action’. The ‘knowing in action’ refers to the intuitive ability of an individual to understand how to proceed with a task. The ‘refection in action’ takes place before ‘reflection on action’ (Casey 2020). The ‘refection in action’ helps an individual in becoming more dynamic as well as responsive in an act. It takes one to consider the situation, decide the action to the situation and act immediately, whereas ‘reflection on action’ helps the individual to take some more time to consider the situation with various other interpretations. This would help them to respond in a different manner in future. The benefit of the model is it is flexible and less time consuming. It helps in building strong management skills, dynamism, and helps the practitioner to react immediately. The limits of the model are it can make the practitioner to act as an anxious, and it does not provide a provision to explain reflection on the situation (Cosh 2019).

Importance and benefits of reflection in teaching

The Gibbs’ cycle has been helpful to me because it allowed me to learn from my past experiences in the teaching processes. The experiences are the building blocks of my career as a teacher in this teaching profession. The model has made me sense the usefulness of the situations at the work place and made me understand where I delivered less as well as provided me the room for improvement.

Conclusion

Reflection enables the teachers to be benefitted in the following perspectives- it helps in the deep understanding of the ways by which the teachers, including me in this case, resort to the developed as well as effective styles which will be helpful in enhancing the already existing or incorporate new abilities to pose a challenge to mode of traditional way of the teaching practices. As a result of which, the engagement of the teachers, including me as well, in the manner of reflecting the practices on the past experiences, the professional teachers are able to examine, analyse and observe their actions and different performances inside the classroom. Different researchers like Gibbs and Schon have laid out different theories and models of reflections and reflective practices that differentiated between the reflectiveness to the routine traditional actions of teaching. These models have helped me to learn and analyse mistakes from the past experiences and also, the reflection provided enough room for the improvement of the teaching style that involved more of discussions, interactions with the students, practical and fun activities, seminars, debates, regular conduction of evolutionary exams which helped the students involve more into the system of learning in their classroom study.

References 

Adeani, I.S., Febriani, R.B. and Syafryadin, S., 2020. USING GIBBS’REFLECTIVE CYCLE IN MAKING REFLECTIONS OF LITERARY ANALYSIS. Indonesian EFL Journal, 6(2), pp.139-148.

Beugelsdijk, S. and Welzel, C., 2018. Dimensions and dynamics of national culture: Synthesizing Hofstede with Inglehart. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 49(10), pp.1469-1505.

Cao, D., Su, Y. and Cui, R., 2022. Multi-parameter pre-stack seismic inversion based on deep learning with sparse reflection coefficient constraints. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 209, p.109836.

Casey, T., 2020. Reflective practice in legal education: The stages of reflection. Clinical L. Rev., 20, p.317.

Cosh, J., 2019. Peer observation: A reflective model.

Coward, M., 2021. Encouraging reflection in professional learning. Nursing Management, 28(3).

Cunninghame, I. and Pitman, T., 2020. Framing the benefits of higher education participation from the perspective of non-completers. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(5), pp.926-939.

Esguerra-Prieto, B., González-Garzón, N. and Acosta-López, A., 2018. Mathematical software tools for teaching of complex numbers. Revista Facultad de Ingeniería, 27(48), pp.79-89.

Frumos, F.V., 2019. Reasons for Teaching and Mid-Term Career Predictions among Future Teachers. Astra Salvensis-revista de istorie si cultura, 7(14), pp.13-24.

Kacetl, J. and Semradova, I., 2020. Reflection on blended learning and e-learning–case study. Procedia Computer Science, 176, pp.1322-1327.

Landry-Thomas, K., 2018. Who Benefits? A Critical Analysis of State Merit Aid Programs and the Impact on Public Higher Education Institutions. Controversies on Campus: Debating the Issues Confronting American Universities in the 21st Century, p.335.

Laursen, P.F., 2020. Professionalism and the reflective approach to teaching. In Changing Research and Practice (pp. 48-55). Routledge.

Makrides, A. and Yeates, P., 2022. Memory, credibility and insight: How video-based feedback promotes deeper reflection and learning in objective structured clinical exams. Medical Teacher, pp.1-8.

Mantzourani, E., Desselle, S., Le, J., Lonie, J.M. and Lucas, C., 2019. The role of reflective practice in healthcare professions: Next steps for pharmacy education and practice. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 15(12), pp.1476-1479.

Markkanen, P., Välimäki, M., Anttila, M. and Kuuskorpi, M., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a school setting. Educational Research, 62(1), pp.46-62.

Marshall, T., 2019. The concept of reflection: a systematic review and thematic synthesis across professional contexts. Reflective Practice, 20(3), pp.396-415.

Mulryan-Kyne, C., 2021. Supporting reflection and reflective practice in an initial teacher education programme: An exploratory study. European Journal of Teacher Education, 44(4), pp.502-519.

NAGESH, A. and PADMAJA, V., PEDAGOGIC PRACTICES: AN OVERVIEW OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE.

Sabella, J.A., 2019. Exploring Leadership in the Middle: an Application of Schon's Reflective Conversation—a Decision-Making Process for Assemblies of God World Missions Area Directors.

Sicora, A., 2019. Reflective practice and learning from mistakes in social work student placement. Social Work Education, 38(1), pp.63-74.

Sivula, M.W., 2018. Reflective Practice Series: Selected Instructional Models Using Synchronous Video Conferencing Software.

Slade, M.L., Burnham, T.J., Catalana, S.M. and Waters, T., 2019. The Impact of Reflective Practice on Teacher Candidates' Learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13(2), p.15.

Supriyanto, A., Hartini, S., Irdasari, W.N., Miftahul, A., Oktapiana, S. and Mumpuni, S.D., 2020. Teacher professional quality: Counselling services with technology in Pandemic Covid-19. Counsellia: Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling, 10(2), pp.176-189.

Waheed, H., Hassan, S.U., Aljohani, N.R., Hardman, J., Alelyani, S. and Nawaz, R., 2020. Predicting academic performance of students from VLE big data using deep learning models. Computers in Human behavior, 104, p.106189.