Topic 1- Knowing Yourself and Reflective Practice

Dot Points

 Being a reflective teacher is important

 Reflective means to think deeply and thoughtfully, critically thinking
 Reflection is a response to situation/ events and the experiences associated with the
situation/ event
 People can learn from experiences and reflecting on the experience
 The teacher is responsible for the quality of learning in their class room
 Three aspects of reflective teaching; open-mindedness, responsibility, whole-heartedness
 Need to recognised diversity, assumptions, power, learning environment
 Question things that happen in the classroom and initiate change where and when required
 Learn from experience to help guide us in the future
 Think divergently and offer solutions to situations
 Reflect on technical aspects, moral, ethical, political and social factors of teaching
 Change ways you look at situation (reframe)
 Reflection-on-action: self-evaluative thinking that occurs after the lesson which is an
attempt to understand past events to shape the future
 Reflection-in-action: continuous and automatic analysis of the classroom whilst the teacher
is teaching, how students are reacting is an example
 Ask why questions
 Awareness of how you teach
 Change teaching style to the student
 Adapt
 Collaboration with colleagues is important
 Reflective teaching increases interpersonal relationship
 Understand why you are teaching something and why they are doing the activities
associated to this principle.
 Focus on specifics
 There are barriers to reflection which need to be overcome eg, time, being preoccupied, fear
of failure
 Reflection helps personal growth
 Understand the consequences of decisions
 Think outside the box
 “human flourishment is not a mechanical process it’s an organic process, you can’t
predict the outcome of human development all you can do like a farmer is create the
conditions under which they will begin to flourish” – Ken Robertson
 Reflection

At school I had many different teacher experiences. I still remember the teachers who had a
positive impact on my learning experience and the ones that had a negative impact on my
learning experience. The teachers who left a positive impact we kind, caring, enthusiastic,
fair alongside many other wonderful characteristics compared to the teachers who were
unenthusiastic, unfair and clearly had favourites. In secondary school there again was a
variety of different teachers but the ones that stood out the most to me were the teachers who
were passionate about their teaching subjects and brought that passion and enthusiasm to
their class rooms. The passion that was brought to the class made me excited to learn and also
really opened my mind up to learning new things and finding something that I too can be
passionate about and pass that on too many other students. I decided to become a secondary
teacher as I have been a swim teacher for 4 years now and love to see children learn and
grow, and after volunteering in many different countries I believe that education should be
available to all children and is very important as it opens up many opportunities. My passion
is to make a difference and I believe teaching is the first step to making a difference.
Everyone in this world is constantly learning.
The Ted talk by Ken Robinson said some really interesting things which stood out to me.
Firstly when he speaks about how people make poor use of their talents and that there are two
types of people in this world, people who enjoy and love what they do and people who don’t
enjoy what they do, and how it’s about passion and what excites the persons spirit and
energy. This stood out to me because when I was a student in a classroom I could tell the
teachers who loved their job, who had a passion to teach and who spent time organising their
classes compared to the teachers who didn’t, and found I had a more positive and greater
learning experience with the teachers who loved what they were doing and this is something
that I aim to achieve in my career. Another point that Mr Robinson said which stood out to
me was that “education dislocates people from their natural talents” and how the education
system is industrialized and very linear. This stood out to me because when I was in high
school I wasn’t allowed to do chemistry or physics as I didn’t have the grades which were
deemed good enough to do those units, however when I went to university I was able to study
this unit and really enjoyed it. If I had of stuck to what my school told me I may have always
thought I could never do chemistry, I believe all children should be able to have a go at
different subjects and not be told they can’t do them. The final thing that Mr Robinson said
that stood out to me was how “human flourishment is not a mechanical process it’s an
organic process, you can’t predict the outcome of human development all you can do like a
farmer is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish” this stood out to me
as it emphasises not everyone is the same and not everything is going to work we have to
evolve and adapt to different student in order to help them flourish.
I have decided to become a teacher as I believe education is the most important thing in this
world and everyone is continuously learning and growing even when they have finished
school. I hope to be the kind of teacher I remember with fondness. The teacher that is always
fair, consistent, respectful, and enthusiastic. I am a Swimming teacher for my employment
now and I always try to build rapport with my students and maintain a positive learning
environment. MY past learning experiences have really influence this view as I remember at
school I learnt the most from the kind, caring, enthusiastic teachers and I aspired to have
positive relationships with all my students and create a positive learning environment in all
my class rooms.