How to be a reflective teacher?

As a new teacher candidate in Vancouver 2020, this article was very insightful and effective at discussing the importance and qualities of a reflective teacher. Given the current state with fully/blended online learning and split quarter system semesters due to COVID-19, this is an important time for new teacher candidates to think about how to be a reflective teacher. Grant and Zeichner compares routine action and reflective action; they define routine action as “behaviour guided by impulse, tradition and authority”, while reflective action is behaviour that involves active and careful consideration of beliefs and practices and consequences as a result. I have seen educators who have been teaching for a long time and have fallen into a “routine trap”, where they have been integrated into a traditional mindset of teaching where each class is the same standardized pattern. This makes classroom activities predictable and less effective as the school year progresses because it is not stimulating to students’ learning. This behaviour seems completely relevant in Vancouver as classrooms are very fast-paced with high student-teacher ratios which make it difficult for teachers to find time to engage in reflection. Teachers are also so overworked from developing lesson plans, marking, and administrative tasks, they become so drained out at the end of the day to even have the mental capacity to reflect. A positive change I have seen now (which makes this paper seem dated), is that the school curriculum has begun integrating reflective practices so that teachers can reframe and reassess their lessons to be better at teaching all students and not just certain students. In math education for example, teachers are starting to assess how students answer questions and meet specific competency goals rather than having the answer correct or incorrect.  

This article helps me develop several questions and ideas about teacher inquiry. The first idea I have is to think about how I can continue my reflective practices upon completing the teacher education program when I have my own classroom in a new school. Grant and Zeichner mentions that the reflective habits new teachers have developed during practicum is “hopeless” as they may be “washed out” as teachers “become forced into standardized patterns and conformity of bureaucratic norms of obedience and loyalty to those in authority.” New teachers face a lot of pressures to be effective, and one of my worries is how new teachers will be treated if they go against the routine standardized patterns. What if the math department has established that math learning is done only through math packets full of problems, while a new teacher has a more fun way to do math practice problems? Another idea that came up when reading this article, was to think about how I can be wholehearted when it comes to math education. How can I make my future classrooms be an inviting space for students with different levels of understanding in math? 

 

Paper: Grant Carl, Zeichner Ken. On Becoming a Reflective Teacher. Preparing for reflective teaching. 1984.