Essay On Reflective Practice

The reflective practice and the use of a journal is an important tool for teachers to use to access their teaching practices and discover what is going well and areas that are in need of improvement. While in the moment we may not be able to see all angles of a situation, but when we take the time to sit down and write out thoughts, feelings, and actions that took place we can look back on a situation and see where and why things happened the way they did and how to maximize or minimize the potential of it reoccurring in the future. The reflective practice of journaling can aid in individualizing instruction to produce the most opportunities to engage in powerful interactions with the children in the classroom. When we journal we can discover
Sometimes when we reflect on a moment we can find that there was a mishap in the process, maybe it was a failure to be fully present in the moment because we couldn’t quiet the static that was going on in our minds. With so many things going on it can be hard to slow down and be in the moment, but we know we want to have that interaction with a child and we may mistakenly think that we are ready to engage, but our minds were just not ready. We can find through our reflective journals that it was possible that the upcoming change in the normal schedule may have been clouding our mind to really be present in the moment. Reflective journaling can also help us to see the positives as well, like how we were able to make a positive connection with a child. Evaluating how the connection was able to go smoothly we can look to produce more powerful connections in the future as we have found a successful and individualized approach. Extending a child’s learning can benefit from reflective journaling as well. When we take the time to note the things that children are interested in we can better prepare ourselves with the tools and strategies that will promote learning. Discovering that a child has an interest