Reflective Practises



Musing on this again...

"it is important that reflective practice be cultivated and fostered to become effective. It can then be a “powerful tool to examine and transform practice” (Finlay, 2008, p.10)

Not the only part of the reading to strike a chord, but does alert me to the fact that I am not reflecting enough or in a way that is even remotely useful to make any meaningful change. If I am going to make an effort to be critically reflective then I need to make it regular, documented and purposeful.

I would say that I have certainly thought about my current practice and the things I do in my classroom as a direct result of the Mindlab sessions and in discussing what occurs in my school, my classrooms and experiences of others on the course.

Little things like dropping back the amount of instructions I may give the group to allow for more self discovery, allowing for the kids to trial, error and fail as an accepted part of the learning process instead of where I may have previously jumped in to preempt an eminent mistake. This is especially true of the increasing nature of the BYOD class. As a DTG teacher I have been been pleased with the results of NOT immediately solving kids device issues. Step back and give them time to bitch and moan about it not working the way they want and watching as they sulk and pout as I won't jump smart to their rescue. But then it dawns on them that they are responsible and possibly capable for their own fix. Other students come to their aide and they have a moment of learning or a brief connection over a shared problem. Probably the biggest example of this has been a Year10 unit where we had a piece of software I wanted to explore with the kids but decided to not have a preconceived idea of what I wanted them to produce at the end. As knowledge of features of the software started to be discovered, so to did an objective and a reason to move forward with a project. We, as a group of learners developed a concept and each gave our own spin. We researched for our own answers, shared our solutions (and frustrations) found amazing resource banks online and importantly - learned a common task together. I have no idea if this approach has resulted in a better body of learning compared to a more traditional approach. Hmmm, how would I even gather that data?

Anyway, to close up this entry. I'm understanding more and more that purposeful, regular reflection needs to be a more widely used weapon in my inventory (COD reference)

Comments

  1. Amanda29 November 2017 at 01:19

    Hi Alister, I also like the idea of allowing students to fail and get things wrong first, but then encourage student tinkering, and let them be rewarded by using all those good character qualities in the World Economic Forum infographic of grit and persistence, initiative, collaboration and adaptability, by solving the problem themselves. They are learning how to learn (measure by transfer of skills). They have agency. They will be engaged and motivated (measure by self report). Measure collaborative skills by peer assessment. All a bit psychometric, it could be done, but I think you know you are doing a better job than traditional learning by taking this future focused approach.

    Bitching and moaning do not get the problem solved, complainers do not have agency, and people will not want to collaborate with them. These responses will not lead the learner to adapt successfully to the changes in the future. Such persons are less successful in the workplace.

    Getting something wrong is also more emotionally jarring for us humans, we dislike making mistakes (eaten by tigers), thus we remember errors more than getting things correct (negativity bias). It is the learning from our mistakes, that is the key to the growth mindset (Dwek).

    Sometimes I design case scenarios so that most learners will fail on the first attempt (I put in a seemingly superficially correct answer A) but when they get it wrong, they are required to dig to a deeper level of understanding to know why B is a better answer than A, and what is the critical reasoning differentiating the options.

    Your open ended exploration of a piece of software with the Y10s reminds me of Wengers organic evolution of Communities of Practice. I think you were operating as a COP with yourself and the students. This replicates the sort of collaborative, complex, real world problem solving required of adults in the workplace now and in the future. Well done.
    Amanda Charlton
    29/11/17

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown29 November 2017 at 12:40

      Great response. Appreciate you taking the time. I never thought of purposely designing a task to set them up for a failure first. I will reflect on this as an option for a new task I am designing for a topic next year.

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