Chapter the Reflective Teacher

Chapter The reflective teacher

Reflection is central to learning for both teachers and students. If teachers regard themselves as reflective practitioners, with all that the concept entails, they are more likely to help students develop as reflective learners. Although we are concerned here mainly with reflective practice for teachers, many of you will be introducing your students, particularly those on professional courses such as nursing and social work, to reflection in theory and practice. You might also want to consider the ideas in this chapter in relation to student learning (Chapter 2) and students’ employability and personal development (Chapter ?). This chapter begins by considering the main focus of our reflection as teachers - how can I be a better teacher?

What makes a good teacher?

The old maxim ‘good teachers are born not made’ still seems to exert influence, as evidenced by the recent suggestions that teachers in schools and colleges do not have to be trained and qualified, they only need to be subject experts. Whilst there may be those who exhibit ‘natural’ confidence and an ability to inspire and motivate groups of people, they are not necessarily good teachers. They might struggle to plan classes and to use a range of methods; they may be unfamiliar with even simple technologies; may have very little understanding of how students learn and the implications of this for their teaching. A great physicist or a great psychologist will not automatically be a great teacher.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) movement (Boyer 1990) affirms that if academics are required to continually research, extend and improve their discipline knowledge they should also continually develop their pedagogical knowledge, skills and understanding. As Boyer (1990:23) suggested, teaching is not “… a routine function, tacked on, something almost anyone can do.” More importantly, training and development for teachers and lecturers is not ‘remedial’, it is not about ‘fixing problems’ with teachers’ performance. Pedagogical training and development is vital to improving students’ learning and achievement. In their research into the efficacy of professional development in schools and colleges, Thompson and Wiliam (2007:2) state:

“We were led to teacher professional development as the fundamental lever for improving student learning by a growing body of research on the influences on student learning, which shows that teacher quality trumps virtually all other influences on student achievement.”

As suggested earlier, subject expertise and research are fundamental requirements for HE teachers, but are not sufficient in themselves to make a good, or even effective, teacher. What then, are the qualities or attributes of a good teacher? Su and Wood (2012: 143) suggest that “Great teachers have an extra ‘something’ which is in some ways beyond words; it alludes measurement and, therefore, lists of qualities are inadequate.” Similarly, Harris (1998), writing of the research tradition based on the notion of ‘teacher artistry’ states that, “Within this research tradition there is the central recognition that teaching involves creativity and is carried out in a highly personalised way.” However, given the proviso is that good teaching is, to a great extent, personal and unquantifiable some guidelines from research may be useful for the novice lecturer.

A synthesis of the research by Ramsden, et al (1995) suggests good teachers display these qualities. They,

• are good learners in that they reflect on their teaching and they continue to engage in professional development activities;
• are enthusiastic about their discipline and are able to convey this to their students;
• are metacognitive about their teaching and therefore plan, monitor, evaluate and adapt their teaching in response to their students and the learning context;
• use approaches that promote deep learning and problem solving strategies;
• use their knowledge to help learners construct their own knowledge and understanding;
• have clearly defined goals, assess student learning appropriately and provide meaningful feedback;
• encourage lifelong independent learning;
• challenge and support their students and are aware of and responsive to their students’ needs

In their analysis of university undergraduate students’ perceptions of what makes a good university lecturer, Su and Wood (2012: 147) propose the following characteristics:

• being authoritative and expert in knowledge and skills
• being able to apply knowledge to real-life scenarios
• being a good communicator
• being good at using educational technologies
• having a sense of humour
• being able to interact with students
• being passionate and inspiring being supportive
• being able to facilitate students independent learning
• being approachable
• being able to provide timely feedback
• being a reflective practitioner

This last point is the most important. Teachers will only improve if they reflect on their teaching and on their own learning. They learn lessons every time they teach by reflecting on and evaluating what they do with the intention of continual improvement.

Reflective practice

What is reflection?

Common parlance has it that a definition of madness is repeatedly carrying out the same action but expecting a different result. We all have experiences but we only learn from them if we reflect on them and draw lessons for change. The learning aspect of reflection is concisely stated by Boud, et al (1985: 19):

“Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning.”

Some may argue that reflection doesn’t need any complex theory or special practice; it just means thinking about things. Thinking about the structure of the universe or why you disagreed with your partner last night might be regarded as reflection; others might regard it as mere idleness and self-indulgence. We may spend time thinking about what we do and how it affects others, but we don’t always take it a step further and reflect on our actions and make plans to do things differently. In a professional setting, however, reflection is:

• deliberate
• purposeful
• structured
• about linking theory and practice
• to do with learning
• about development and change

Moon (2005: 1) suggests that reflection is:

“… a form of mental processing that we use to fulfil a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to gain a better understanding of relatively complicated or unstructured ideas and is largely based on the reprocessing of knowledge, understanding and, possibly, emotions that we already possess.”

The journey from beginner to expert

In his book ‘Outliers’ Malcolm Gladwell (2009) popularised the notion that it takes 10000 hours to make an expert. The ‘10000 hours rule’ was, it seems, originally proposed by Ericsson, et al (1993) in a paper entitled ‘The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance’. The title is important because it emphases the ‘deliberate’ nature of practice; ‘acquisition’ suggests, even though some talent or natural ability may be important, expert performance, whether in sport or teaching, is acquired through practice and, furthermore, deliberate practice underpinned by reflection.

The process of reflection helps us to navigate and monitor our own professional development from raw beginner to expert. Reynolds (1965: 69) asserted “Learning to deal with new experience involves paying attention to it.” She proposed a model of learning and teaching in social work beginning from the ‘stage of acute consciousness’ to mastery and uses the example of learning to drive as an illustration. Mastering clutch control, for example, is a deliberate and conscious practice of trying, sometimes failing, trying again, and becoming confident, until it is an unconscious process. Our teaching careers may follow a similar path. Early attempts at planning the timing of activities or the use of a particular technology can be difficult, even scary, but eventually become second nature. Fig 8.1 shows a simple adaptation of Reynolds’ model.

INSERT Fig 8.1

Another, uncredited model, suggests a movement through the stages of:

• Unconscious incompetence – in which we are unaware of what we can’t do or don’t know
• Conscious incompetence– in which we become aware of our development needs and start to do something about them
• Conscious competence– where we are using our new skills and knowledge, but watching and monitoring ourselves
• Unconscious competence– the skills become naturalised. This is similar to Reynolds’ notion of ‘second nature’

Many of our skills, our knowledge and competences will become, like driving a car, second nature. There is a danger, however, that ‘second nature’ can become complacency, leading to the feeling that there is nothing more that we can learn and that we have reached our full potential. Success in teaching requires us always to challenge and develop our practice by regular reflection, review and informed practice.

Berliner (2001) outlines the stages of teacher development as proceeding from the Novice – the raw recruit who is learning the basics and is relatively inflexible – to the Expert, who, like a Grand Prix driver or a professional footballer, is completely at one with their art, performing effortlessly and naturally. Experience and length of service do not, however, necessarily make an expert; experience needs reflection if we are to become expert teachers.Rollett (2001) describes what it means to be an expert teacher and is worth quoting at length:

‘…. Experts rely on a large repertoire of strategies and skills that they can call on automatically, leaving them free to deal with unique or unexpected events…. The wealth of knowledge and routines that they employ, in fact, is so automatic that they often do not realise why they preferred a certain plan of action over another. However, when questioned, they are able to reconstruct the reasons for their decisions and behaviour.’ (Rollett, 2001)

Rather than understanding reflection as change, Biggs and Tang (2007: 43) propose ‘transformative reflection’ as a better term. To use a mirror metaphor, they suggest, reflection simply shows us as we are, whereas, “Transformative reflection is rather like the mirror in Snow White; it tells you what you might become.” This echoes Barnett’s belief that higher education should be a process of transformation, not reproduction, and that “the learning society is founded on continuous change”. (Barnett, 1994:175) This notion would seem to apply to teachers as well as to students.

Criticisms of reflective practice

Reflective practice is ubiquitous. It has permeated most areas of education and professional development and become virtually mandatory in some professions. It is right, therefore, that we should cast a sceptical eye over the field of reflective practice and remind ourselves of its basic purpose – improvement. Whilst emphasising the purpose and value of reflection and arguing for a “common-sense framework of reflective practice”, Rushton and Suter (2012:2) caution against “… the pursuit of a holy grail of reflective practice that can be taken as a cure-all for improving all teaching and learning.”

In the field of nursing and nurse education, for example, reflection and reflective practice are central to learning and professional development. Greenwood (1998:3) suggests the efficacy of reflection should not be taken for granted. She says “the world of nursing seems to have gone ‘reflection-mad’ in that its embrace of reflection and reflective practice appears a little unbalanced.” Whilst far from rejecting reflection completely, Greenwood makes several critical points. Firstly, she suggests there is evidence that nurses need time for reflection and, more importantly, training in how to do it because it is a “highly sophisticated intellectual skill.” Secondly, a consequence of this lack of understanding and training in reflection can lead to ‘single loop learning’ rather than a ‘double loop learning’. These concepts were developed by Argyris and Schön (1974), a key principle being that learning revolves around the detection and correction of error. If error is encountered a different strategy is sought for and applied. In single loop learning, however, the new strategy is sought within the ‘governing variables’ such as the personal mental models and habits of the individual and the structural, procedural and cultural aspects of the organisation. The problem with such single loop learning Greenwood suggests “is that it could result in nurses doing wrong or inappropriate things perfectly.” (1998:3)

Whereas single loop learning tends to reinforce routines, double loop learning is more risky and requires creativity. Rather than following the rules, double loop learning demands that we consider changing the governing variables and, hence, the actions. The difficulty, of course, for individual teachers is that even though, as a result of reflection, they may become aware of the constraints of the governing variables they may be unable, or perhaps not allowed, to change them. Double loop learning is likely to require a learning organisation, one which focuses on “generative learning which is about creating well as adaptive learning, which is about coping.” (Senge 1996: 289)

At a more basic level, reflection and reflective practice can become simply routines undertaken without enthusiasm from or benefit to the individual simply because they are required by the organisation or deemed to be a desirable professional attribute. Too often reflective practice is tied to the requirements of accreditation, recognition and regulation. Reflection is a process, not an end itself. Individuals will develop their methods of reflecting and recording the reflections through journals, portfolios, blogs and other means but the production of these artefacts is not the purpose of reflective practice. If these practices and methods do not lead to learning and improvement then they are pointless.

Theoretical perspectives

This section provides an overview of a range of theoretical perspectives from some key thinkers whose work has influenced the development of reflective practice.

John Dewey

John Dewey (1859-1952) was a leading educational philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th century whose ideas, particularly the notion of ‘reflective intelligence’ are still influential. Dewey believed that traditional education in his native America was rigid, static and inadequate for the needs of a changing society and rapidly developing industrial economy. What was required was a system of education that questioned traditional methods and habits, encouraged a problem solving approach and emphasised the individual’s lived experience as the beginning of learning. Key to Dewey’s philosophy was the development of thinking, particularly, reflective thinking. In How We Think, he states:

“Thought affords the sole method of escape from purely impulsive or purely routine action. A being without capacity for thought is moved only by instincts and appetites, as these are called forth by outward conditions and the inner state of the organism. A being thus moved is as it were pushed from behind.” (Dewey 1933:15)

In other words, such people are not in control. They are dragged along by events, unable to understand or change them. To use more recent terminology, such a person is merely reactive, rather than active or proactive. We must, as Dewey says, move from routine action to reflective action which is characterised by ongoing reflection and development.

For Dewey, reflection is a rational and purposeful act which proceeds from a state of doubt or perplexity. When we are faced with difficulties and uncertainties in practice, when things don’t go according to plan or don’t fit with theory, we may feel powerless and unable to resolve the situation. For Dewey, these are key moments for learning; we can reflect on these problems to solve perplexity and learn from it. However, simply encountering perplexity or doubt and drawing on a solution from personal experience may not be reflective. There may be a lack of critical thinking or a simple falling back on old methods. Reflective practice requires a willingness to endure the doubt and to search for new solution, for “to be genuinely thoughtful, we must be willing to sustain and protract the state of doubt which is the stimulus to thorough enquiry.” (Dewey 1933:15)

Donald Schön

Donald Schön was concerned with reflection in the context of understanding and developing professional practice. Where Dewey writes of the learning opportunities inherent in “perplexity, confusion and doubt”, Schön states that the reflective practitioner “allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique” (Schön 1983: 68). The key elements of Schön’s work which are relevant here are:

• technical rationalism
• knowing-in-action
• reflection-in-action
• reflection-on-action

Technical rationalism

Schön suggested that much professional education tends to be academic and theory-based and, as such, presumes that only logical, scientific explanations of reality have value. However, in practice - for example, in teaching, nursing or social work - this technical rationalism may be inadequate when seeking solutions to complex, practical problems. Teachers may have acquired theoretical knowledge of pedagogy, but while this might frame their classroom practice as it should be, it might not explain it as it actually is. Insistence on the primacy of technical rationalism is a ‘this is what the theory says, so this is how it’s done’ approach.

Knowing-in-action

Schön’s research was, to a large extent, set in the context of ‘minor’ professions such as nursing, social work and teaching “which have long grappled with aspects of their practice that could not be easily reduced to fixed and testable scientific theory” (Redmond, 2006:31). These ‘minor’ professions contrast with the ‘learned’ professions, such as medicine and law, in which technical rationalist procedures might be more rigidly followed.

Schön characterised the ‘learning’ professions as inhabiting the ‘high ground’, whilst those in the minor professions work in the ‘swampy lowlands of practice’ where real problems are encountered. ‘In the swamp’ practitioners develop their knowledge through encountering and solving unexpected, complex problems. They learn to ‘think on their feet’ and be creative in response to the contingency of real practice. Thus, these workers develop, through their artistry, a stock of skills, knowledge and understanding, the ‘know-how’ that underpins their professional practice. This tacit knowledge, Schön’s ‘knowing-in-action, is so embedded in the individual and their activity that it becomes ‘second nature’ and ‘unconscious competence’. For Schön, reflective practice means making this tacit knowledge explicit through the processes of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.