Reflective Teaching - Makeup Assignment

1. How do each of the following qualities contribute to reflective teaching? 

Openmindedness is the willingness of an individual to assess what they are doing and decide if it is most effective and if it is fair for their students. Zeichner and Liston urge that "reflective teachers are continually asking themselves why they are doing what they are doing" (Loc. 461). Reflective teachers are willing to assess their teaching to find evidence that what they are doing is working in addition to finding evidence of where their teaching may miss the mark. If they cannot answer the question as to why they are doing something a certain way or why they're teaching it, that practice is reflective of their teaching as a whole and they can adjust or make major changes as a result of that reflection. Openmindedness is entirely about the willingness to recognize that our practices may not be working, or that there are options that are better.

Responsibility is somewhat connected to the quality of openmindedness, in my understanding. When I discussed that openmindedness relates to questioning why we have certain practices and we must be able to really answer that question in order to be reflective, responsibility takes that one step further. Zeichner and Liston say that "responsible teachers ask themselves why they are doing what they are doing in a way that goes beyond questions of immediate utility (i.e., does it work) to consider the ways in which it is working, why it is working, and for whom it is working" (Loc. 484). I don't fully understand the concept of responsibility in detail, but I do understand that teachers that are reflective will understand some of what we expect students to get out of our lessons and teaching and some of the unintended things that students learn from us along the way. My understanding is that a reflective teacher would be able to consider why some students accessed the content and were more successful in their learning than some of their classmates may have been. They would understand what about the lesson was geared toward students that made it work better for them than for others.

Wholeheartedness really seems to me to be a full commitment on the part of the educator to examine their attitudes, understandings, and perceptions as a bit of a self-assessment as a way to grow as an educator. As Zeichner and Liston put it, "As teachers, they continually strive to understand their own teaching and the way in which it impacts their students, and they make deliberate efforts to see situations from different perspectives" (Loc. 495). This contributes to reflective teaching because seeing situations from all manner of perspectives gives the educator insight into how a lesson might be perceived by different members of their class and help to inform them of changes that might be more advantageous for their students.

Collaboration helps to bring this all together in my mind.  Collaborating with other educators will help to give an individual insight into those other perspectives they may struggle to see. Simply having another voice or multiple voices in one conversation will bring more perspectives and understandings to the table. As a result, we're bound to see our own ideas, beliefs, and attitudes in a different light because of the conversations we have with other educators. Also, seeing how other people operate in their classrooms and the beliefs that they have will help to inform us. Through collaboration, I believe we will naturally work on the other three qualities that contribute to reflective teaching.


2. Re-read Teresa's "teacher as technician" and "teacher as reflective practitioner" responses on pages 2-3 in Chapter 1. What is "technical" about the first response, and what is "reflective" about the second response? What does this tell you about reflective teaching?

The first response was technical because it was entirely student focused. There was no consideration for what was being taught, how the lesson was being taught, if students needs were met, etc. All of the focus was placed upon changing student behavior and using consequences and a specific system in order to do so. In comparison, the second response is reflective because she began to consider the "why" for the behavior. Why might students be disruptive or off-task? How might she make alterations to the content or the delivery in order to reduce the likelihood of such behaviors? She began to think about her students and how they may learn most effectively and let that guide the content rather than have the content and then have consequences if they didn't meet some arbitrary expectation.