Critical Reflection In Action Research

Reflecting on my teaching practices

Benefits of critical reflection
Research has shown how deliberate and critical reflection on teaching practices contributes to excellence in teaching, and improved educational outcomes for all children. Critically reflective teaching practices encourage teachers to: • • • • • regularly evaluate their approaches to teaching and learning understand more about the positive impacts of high-quality effective pedagogies on children’s learning become more aware of the importance of high-quality interactions, including strategic intervention and substantive conversations to maximise children’s learning use action research approaches — e.g. drawing on alternative teaching strategies to help children to learn
Often in collaboration with teacher aides and colleagues, teachers articulate, question, consider and debate their range of knowledges to make meaning of their theories and practices. (Refer to the Early Years Curriculum Guidelines for more information about teacher roles, lenses, and pedagogies within a framework for practice, and the list of questions to aid critical reflection at the end of each key component section.) The following table lists questions for teachers to reflect on from the perspectives of their principal role as educator, and related roles of: • • • • builder of relationships scaffolder of children’s learning planner for learning teacher as
assess what children know and can do with increasing independence in particular contexts for learning and development? actively involve children in beginning to monitor and assess their own and others’ learning? How do I: • make stereotypes and biases in multimodal texts explicit through discussions? use and encourage narratives (i.e. personal stories, literary/cultural texts) to build understandings across early learning areas? cater for children’s personal interests and needs when planning using the early learning areas? How do I: • link real world problems and issues with children’s personal experiences, e.g. peace, human rights and conservation of the environment? use multimodal texts and information technology to investigate ”the world” outside the classroom? Supportive classroom environment • • • • • child direction social support active engagement co-construction of learning self-regulation Engagement with difference • • • • • cultural knowledge inclusivity narrative group identity active citizenship Connectedness • • • • knowledge integration background knowledge connectedness beyond classroom problem-based