Teaching is a very intricate and engaging task. Being a teacher often means you will have to plan and implement curriculum while also keeping up with students, co-workers and parents. Improving your teaching skills and learning how to manage students is important to becoming a great teacher. You can often use many different resources to help guide you; however, you can also enhance your teaching skills by practicing reflective teaching.
Reflective teaching techniques
Reflective teaching is a practice that involves learning how to become a more engaging teacher by learning from your environment. Being able to reflect on what things work and what things don’t can help you improve as a teacher. Reflective teaching practices include being able to learn from your students, co-workers and even yourself.
Many teachers do this by getting feedback from students. It may be as simple as asking the students their thoughts on the lesson, or as elaborate as sending out surveys to parents and students via Google forms. It is important to have this type of feedback because it can help guide you on what you need to improve on and what you are already doing well.
Another way to practice reflective teaching is to keep track of your day in class. Some teachers write down things in a notebook to help them remember certain things that happened during a lesson. Others write blogs that can be used to share thoughts and insights on what worked well and what did not work in a lesson. You could also keep a private blog that will give you a space to confidentially reflect your thoughts. Another way to record your thoughts is through a video blog. By taking a video recording of yourself, you can set goals for the upcoming week and reflect on those goals at the end of the week.
While teaching can be incredibly time-consuming, it is worth dedicating some of that time to use reflective teaching practices will help you sort out your thoughts and improve as a teacher. Being able to know what works effectively may save you time in the future. Reflective teaching can be an effective way to improve as a teacher and help your students learn successfully.
Learn about the A-State online MSE in Educational Theory and Practice program.
Sources:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/reflective-teacher-taking-long-look-nicholas-provenzano
http://reflectiveteaching.co.uk/what-is-reflective-teaching
https://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/TYC_V3N4_Reflectiveteacherexpanded.pdf