Erika Peterson and Dr. Stefinee Pinnegar, McKay School of Education
Main Text
In the field of education, self-reflection is an important skill to help teachers assess and enhance their own teaching. As stated by Samaras and Freese, “When teachers critically reflect on their practice, they makes sense of the complexities of teaching and participate consciously and creatively in their own growth and development” (2006.) This active role in developing one’s work can greatly improve a teachers’ teaching. Self-reflection is a skill that can be developed and strengthened with practice. However, as a preservice teacher (a college student studying to become a teacher), self-reflection is a skill I am still developing.
I volunteered as an orphanage worker in St. Andrews orphanage in Iasi, Romania, from January to April 2010. I worked in the orphanage for three hours a day, five days a week. I worked with children ages eighteen months to eleven years, all of whom had special needs. In my work in the orphanage, I implemented activities to improve their development, fitted to the needs and interests of the children. Activities were things such as singing songs, playing simple games, etc. In this environment, I implemented teacher self-reflection to reflect upon my work in the orphanage. I placed myself in the role of “teacher” with the children I work with serving as my “students.” In my study, I researched how the use of self-reflection increased my understanding of my students and my own teaching.
In my research, I implemented many techniques of teacher self-reflection as outlined by Mason (2002), Davis (2006) and Samaras and Freese (2006.) I began my research without implementing any self-reflection techniques. For the first two weeks, I will merely kept a regular field journal, writing daily notes of my work in the orphanage. This time allowed me to form a habit of keeping a detailed, regular field journal. After two weeks, I began to include topics of interest in my notes. These topics of interest were areas in need of special attention that I noticed in my work at the orphanage. My topics focused on individual children and what needed to be done to interact with them. These interest areas provided me with a focus in my note taking. Mason stated, “I can only noticed what I am primed… to notice,” and this was crucial in my research (2002). I focused on individual details about the children to allow me to best understand them. With this in mind, I used the questions and themes from my early field notes to direct my focus toward certain students and topics of interest in my teaching practice.
After these initial weeks of basic note taking, I began taking more specific and detailed reflections. As the first step to my detailed reflections, I began taking jottings during my work in the orphanage. To take jottings, I kept a small notebook with me and quickly made notes at the end of my shift to help myself remember important details. At the end of the day, I incorporated these jottings into the expanded notes of my field journal. Once I effectively mastered jottings, I began adding elements of focus to my self-reflections as suggested by Mason. I will first focus on “keeping and using accounts.” Mason suggests writing unbiased notes in a non-narrative form; this way, when referring back to my own field notes, I can read the notes with a more objective perspective. Another point I will focus on is what Mason calls “noticing in the moment.” As stated by Mason, it is much more difficult to notice in the moment than it is to notice something after it has already happened. This is so difficult because often we as humans will be caught up in the emotion of a moment. However, if one is able to notice “in the moment,” meaning the ability to remain objective and observe the events presently happening, then one will be able to better notice and reflect upon decisions made and actions taken (2002.) Based on these methods suggested by Mason, I structured my note-taking to implement these techniques. Throughout my three months of work in the orphanage, I improved upon my self-reflection by writing more detailed notes.
My research project was very enlightening, and not at all in the way I expected. I planned on using my self-reflections only to better understand my students, but in the process of self-reflecting, I learned about my students and myself.
Self-reflecting gave me the opportunity to focus on my work in a greater depth. When I was working with the children, I paid greater attention to my interaction with them, because I knew that in a few hours I would need to be taking detailed notes on the day. I also found myself questioning what I was doing and why, helping myself better understand the motives behind my work and the decisions I was making. This environment of greater attention to detail as well as more investigation into my work allowed me to be a better worker for these children. I came to know the children and what they did and did not like, what they best responded to, what their challenges were, and how I could best assist them in growing and learning.
Through self-reflecting, I became a better researcher, a better teacher, and a better person from my work.
References
- Davis, E. A. (2005). Characterizing effective reflection among preservice teachers: Seeing what matters. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 281-301.
- Mason, J. (2002). Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing. New York: Routledge Falmer
- Reynolds, A. (1992). What is competent beginning teaching? A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 62(1), 1-35.
- Rodgers, C. R., & Raider-Roth, M. B. (2006). Presence in teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(3), 265–287.
- Maxwell, J. & Miller, B. (2008). Categorizing and connecting strategies in qualitative data analysis (pp. 461-478). In S.N. Hesse-Biber & P. Leavy (Eds). Handbook of emergent methods. New York: Guilford Press.
- Miles, M. & Huberman, M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers.
- Samaras, A. P., & Freese A. R. (2006). Self-study of teaching practices. New York: Peter Lang.