by Sally
B. Gutierez
Researchers claim that personal reflection on one’s practice is one of
the methods of capability building among teachers (Darling-Hammond &
Richardson, 2009); Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2009; Reeves, 2010).
Moreover, by blending reflective practice into continuing professional
development, teachers develop self-knowledge and self-challenge on their
professional learning journey (Leitch & Day, 2000; Klein, 2008; Ng &
Tan, 2009). Based on these claims, effective professional development for
teachers goes beyond enhancing their knowledge and skills to providing them
with opportunities of self-reflection within a support group that establishes
sustainability and collaboration. In education, a growing interest to move away
from one-shot workshops has attracted education specialists to instigate a
life-long learning community among in-service teachers. Teacher inquiry groups
(Crockett, 2002), peer coaching, collaborative teacher
consultation, teacher
mentoring (Brownwell,
Adams, Sindelar, Waldron & Vanhover, 2006), lesson study (Lieberman, 2009), and collaborative professional
learning (Gutierez, 2015) are just few of the promising teacher professional
development models at the present. According to Shriki and
Movshovitz-Hadar (2011), through these professional development activities,
teachers are able to acquire new knowledge and skills by participating in a
learning community that focuses on teaching practices as learning objects.
Reflective practice in education is said to scaffold
critical thinking (Conway, 2001) and promote self-regulation (Singh, 2008;
Boud, 2007) as the teaching process is believed to be a process that is open to
examination and deliberation (Van
Manen, 1995; Schön, 1983; Elliot, 2001) for significant
improvement in the teachers’ instructional practices (Kemmis &
McTaggart 1988). Engaging in a reflective practice provides rigor in the shared
repertoire of knowledge development through constructive sharing of opinions
and feedbacks. Constant interaction draws collegial and critical examination of
their actual teaching practices (Daniel, Auhl, & Hastings, 2013). In this
method, feedback forms the basis of critical analysis which provides sustainable
evaluation of existing practices (Han, 1995; Hatton & Smith, 1995).
On-going feedback thus becomes a crucial component in a community of reflective
practitioners in response to the changing paradigms of professional engagement.
Through feedback, Loughran (2002) stressed the importance of establishing
meaning to actual experiences so that these may be valued ‘in ways that
minimize the possibility establishing a routine on a faulty teaching practice’ (pp.
34). In light of the foregoing literature, reflective practice brings implicit
knowledge based on actual practice so that it can be recognized, questioned,
and perfected (Parra, Gutierrez, & Aldana, 2015). Classroom practices serve
as the objects of learning and not from the theoretical knowledge from formal
education settings (Schön, 1983).
Lesson study captures the idea of enhanced learning
and intellectual functioning when a group collaboratively work together which
eventually leads to the development of personal expertise as a product of the
constant interaction and deep reflection (Hadar & Brody, 2010). This means
that constant interaction is vital to the optimum development of instructional
practices. Moreover, the sustainable collaborative reflection to evaluate teaching
routines not only examines the alignment of teaching practices to new and
existing paradigms but builds a community of practice where teachers become
more critical and constructive with each other (Achinstein, 2002; Grossman, Wineburg, &
Woolworth, 2001; Little, 1990, 1999; Witziers, Sleegers,
& Imants, 1999).
In a qualitative study
which documented and categorized the reflective practices of three
(3) groups of public elementary school science teachers from their year-long
professional development through lesson study, findings reveal that there exist
three types of reflection exemplified by the teachers across the stages of the
lesson study process but these were hardly noticed during normal conversations.
In-depth analyses of the transcripts show that the team mostly used descriptive
reflection and this occurred mostly during the planning and goal setting stage
(47.37%) and in the post-lesson reflection and discussion ([PRD], 41.78%]) between
the teachers and the “knowledgeable others.” The presence of the knowledgeable
others prompted the teachers to engage in a critical dialogue and make attempts
to evaluate their lessons. In this study, critical reflection is considered as
the highest form of reflective practice thus, as beginning reflective
practitioners, teachers showed less skill on this method of reflection.
However, the 26.24% attempts to use this reflection is indicative of teachers’
potential to become reflective practitioners among themselves which increases
in the presence of the knowledgeable others in the planning and goal setting
and PRD stages given a sustainable and enough opportunities.
Analyses
show that the participatory, collegial, and collaborative nature of lesson
study were the enabling factors in the open sharing of information and establishment
of consensual and mutual understanding (Cooper, 2014) between and among the
teachers and the knowledgeable others. This supports the claims of Healy (2009)
who said that collective and reflective approaches to evaluate professional
practice supports the development of understanding leading to a shared
professional identity. This adapts the claim of Marcos, Sanchez, and Tillema
(2011) that reflective practice among teachers helps them to deliberate and
solve instructional problems critically. Findings also indicate that a professional
development activity tailored to the direct experiences of teachers result to
significant outcomes.
