Reflecting on 'Reflecting on Reflective Practice'

Switching from holiday brain to school brain - planning, mentoring a masters teaching student and continuing Mindlab course papers - Linda Finlay's (2008) discussion paper raised a lot of flags.

The point in the article that particularly resonated with my own reflective practice journey was the importance of making reflection timely and meaningful.

I will put up my hand and admit to being the teacher who, long after the teaching had occurred (and with no real evidence), filled in the 'evaluation/reflection' box at the bottom of the planning document.  My reflections were never deliberately acted on - although a few ideas seeped through.  No one checked in with me nor did I invite input from students or colleagues.  It was an entirely solo, box-ticking exercise.

My teaching and learning practice has become far more responsive.  Using a teaching as inquiry approach means that reflection is happening formally and informally throughout practice (not after the unit is finished and the form needs to completed and filed away).  Planning and practice shifts as required to meet the needs of my learners.  In order to ensure that any shifts are in the right direction, both teacher and student need to reflect on what is or is not working, how we know and where to go next.

By incorporating reflection into my teaching and learning practice I not only prioritise the time and resource that deep reflection needs but can immediately implement changes to make my practice more effective.

At my school we use a range of reflective tools and do not have one prescribed model.  There is a lot of dialogue between colleagues, teacher-student or student-student (formally and informally).  A framework we have adopted through developing our community of mathematical inquiry is the 'talk moves'.  These are designed to encourage critical participation in maths discussion.  They have a strong element of critical, reflective thinking and justification which makes them apt for reflection.  For our teaching as inquiry foci we use a critical buddy to pose questions and provocations.

The challenge is to record these interactions and conversations in a way that is not intrusive or counterproductive to the reflection process (ideas?).  The record of reflection can then be used as an artifact (and a tool) in our learning journey.