Reflective teacher

Teaching is a complex phenomenon as it involves making choices and taking actions spontaneously.  The reason for complication is that more than one process is going on in a single class at the same time.   This makes it difficult for advance planning in teaching.  This also present the idea that teacher is also a learner in the class room along with other students though he learn more about behavior, assessment and learning style rather then about content.  The major key element for self learning is thinking and reflecting back.  The teacher learns through experience and about experience.  The person who goes through this process is called reflective practitioner.  There are many sources which help a teacher to be a reflective practitioner, but all of these involve internal motivation and self desire.  The major sources are as follows:

1)      Talking and collaborating with colleague:

By discussing with one’s colleagues one teacher can enhance his capabilities.  The collaboration can be done in many forms for example team teaching during which  every teacher consult regularly to co-ordinate the content of their courses.  It best works when every teacher involved in the process bring new ideas and competencies.

2)      Participation in professional development activities:

The second best way is participation in professional development activities which include publication, conferences and meetings helping the participants to enhance their professional capabilities.  They also give newsletters which provide information on specific subjects, some associations publish online journals.  The characteristic feature of these associations is that they stimulate thinking by discussing the issues and dilemmas.  There is variety of forms of conferences which include one-day workshop or as long as full weak series of sessions.   These conferences provide different experiences for example small associations will focus on local needs while the larger ones will work on large trends in education such as educational campaign.  As  the experts take participation and discuss is such associations new ideas are generated which help the teachers to reflect back.

3)      Reading professional articles:

The most easily available source is reading professional articles which serve three major purposes:

I)                   Provide a framework for understanding teaching and learning process.  They help to understand the specific events and issues related to teaching process.

II)                The second major purpose is that they provide advice about appropriate teaching practices.  They help the reader to get knowledge about areas in which different instructional technology can give better results rather than the traditional ones.

III)             The third purpose of published articles is to advocate the ideas and theories presented for the benefit of society and individuals.  These also help to stimulate thinking and to develop or stabilize ones believes about own teaching and learning.

The above resources were mostly theoretical and need internal motivation.  There is another way to evaluate one’s own teaching and to find the solution of problems.  This is action research.  The research conducted by educational researchers and administrators do  not help the teachers much in the sense that it do not provide them the solution of particular problems which they are facing in particular situation of class room.  They also do not give any information about self evaluation and ways to become better.  These all and related problems can be resolved by using a better technique called action research.  This is sometime also called teachers research. It refers to the systematic, internal inquiry by the teachers for the purpose of improvement in their own practices.  Several defining characteristic features of action research are as follows:

I)                   It originates in the problems and dilemmas of class room practice.

II)                Its outcomes offer information focused on particular teacher and classroom. This feature makes it more reliable as a source of practical information.

III)             It provides insider perspective on educational problems.

Though the action research is widely appreciated resources for improvement in teaching and learning process and in handling variety of situations, but there are certain ethical and practical cautions which should be kept in mind while conducting this.  These include:

I)                   Ethical cautions include firstly insuring privacy of the students’ disabilities whenever the research is published or discussed.  Secondly, the teacher should explain the nature of the research project clearly and should tell the participants i.e. the students and parents that data would be publicized.  Thirdly teacher should not force the students to participate in the study or he should not demand him to perform in a desired way as the research process require. 

II)                Practical issues about action research; it is considered that action research is not practical because it may take teacher’s time and effort which they could sometimes use in other way.  However the major point to remember is that action research is more passive observation of students and classroom.  it also include educational interventions, efforts to stimulate students to new thinking and new responses.

 (This is made as summary of a chapter from book of psychology as class assignment)