Developing art of critical reflective teaching
A review of Sue Dymoke and Jennifer Harrison edited book – Reflective Teaching and Learning

By GS Sethi
Teaching as a professional activity is widely accepted. But what is little less known is that teaching is a public practice which bears some similarities with the process of acting. This is because teaching involves constant vigilance of audience, with the teacher making regular efforts to imagine how he or she is being understood by students as intended. This comparison with acting stresses the looking-glass nature of teaching. When you stand before a looking glass, you see the image, which is your own reflection. But how often do you critically analyse your reflection, your image - perhaps not very often. But those who do will not only take note of their deficiencies but also take corrective actions to remove those deficiencies. This is what lies at the heart of this book i.e. reflective process as a dynamic developmental process. Learning and teaching are closely allied. Successful teachers are those who want to continue learning and to reflect on and refine their practices throughout their careers. Reflection can be seen as reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. The former is almost unconscious, instantaneous reflection that happens as a more experienced teacher solves a problem or dilemma, and the latter takes place after the event or teaching session and is a more deliberative and conscious process. To be a reflective practitioner, one must possess five important competencies, namely observation, communication, judgement, decision-making, and team working. The author, however, warns that the process of reflection can be a danger of reductionism – to a set of procedures; a skill to be learnt. It should not be reduced to some standardised competence. If that were the case, reflection would become an end in itself.

How Do Learners Learn?
There are many contrasting and complementary theories about the ways in which young people and adults learn. A number of researched theories have been described, like, for example, behaviourist theories which have their basis of how behaviours can change as a direct result of the learning process, constructivist theories which are concerned with the social nature of learning i.e. how learners create their own conceptual structures in order to make sense of the world. Explanation of each category of learning theories is supplemented with a suggested activity, which if undertaken by teachers (especially the debutants) will facilitate their teaching process and classroom management. What should be of particular interest to a teacher is Kolb’s four learning styles, which are distinct with no hierarchical structure:

• Accommodative: active learners who like to take risks, carry out plans and involve themselves in new experiences.
  
• Divergent: Imaginative learners who are interested in people, values and feelings and like to view situations from many perspectives.
  
• Convergent: Problem solvers and decision makers who prefer technical tasks to interpersonal issues.
  
• Assimilative: Learners concerned with abstract concepts and ideas, who will create theoretical models and use inductive reasoning.

Having know the learning theories, the big task that awaits teachers is to use it to their advantage in the given context taking due consideration of curriculum, policies and codes provided. Moreover it is necessary to consider learning ability and learning difficulty of each pupil. The material that a teacher uses will need to be differentiated to suit the learning needs and prior learning of students and to ensure that all are engaged in activities which challenge them. All these issues supplemented by eleven suggested activities have been dealt with in Chapter 3. “Learning and Teaching Context” What is perhaps of direct and immediate relevance to any practicing teacher is how to manage while in the classroom and how to assess the performance of students. These are the subject matters of Chapter 4 & 5.

Classroom Management
Classroom management is of paramount importance especially for the beginning teachers. In fact it starts before the students arrive in the classroom, in terms of preparation of both teaching and the room and requires detailed planning. Once the lesson starts, it is the behavior management and pedagogical aspects of teaching that have to be given due attention by the teacher. The chapter dealing with these aspects lays stress on teacher’s keen observation on students’ behavior, detailed lesson planning, physical environment of the classroom and developing communication (questioning and explaining). This is, in fact, live scenario of reflective learning, where the students act as a mirror for the teacher to see for himself how he is performing. Taking the example of physical environment, it has been explained under what conditions desks in rows, seminar layout or group layout would best fit in for teaching.

While dealing with behavior management, the author has taken recourse to transactional analysis as well, which is very appropriate. All individuals regardless of age are able to exhibit three kinds of behavior: parent (copied from parent or parental figures), adult (behaviours, which are a direct response to the here and now, and tend to be wholly rational in character) and child (behaviours replayed from childhood) and one can switch between them very quickly. Questioning, the author feels, is the backbone of communication between students and the teacher in the classroom. While there are several reasons for using questions and there are different types of questions (open and closed), a teacher has to decide which technique to apply and for doing so he should have a clear understanding of why the questions are being asked and the intended outcome of their use. While dealing with pedagogical practices, it has been stressed that classrooms keep changing as new ideas and media are developed. In short a teacher should not expect classroom management to be an easy experience but should develop his ability through careful planning and preparation.

Assessing Students
Assessment is an essential feature of teaching, the purpose of which is to grade, sort and make judgements about the knowledge, skills and attitudes of each student and it is the responsibility of the teacher to assist students in achieving the best. This has been summed up by the acronym MARRA – monitoring, assessment, recording, reporting and accountability. A unique concept dealt with in this book is that of pastoral care in schools. Its rather poor definition, but still useful and authoritative is “Pastoral care is concerned with promoting pupils’ personal and social development and fostering positive attitudes: through the quality of teaching and learning; through the nature of relationships amongst pupils, teachers and adults other than teachers; through the arrangements for monitoring pupils’ overall progress; through academic systems; and through extra-curricular activities and the school ethos”. Pastoral care, accordingly, should help a school achieve success.

The book closes with a word of final advice to teachers about critical reflection on practice. It should allow any teacher a route to proficiency – evaluate your teaching and performance and couple it with learning from evidence (including the effective practice of others) are both key aspects of critical reflection.

Professional knowledge lies in the doing of the job. Many experienced teachers cannot actually articulate what they know – they just do it. This book should hopefully help them do better.