Chapter 4. Findings
4.3 Perceptions of Reflection and Reflective Practices
To explore the perceptions of teachers related to reflection and themselves as reflective practitioners, the participants were asked about their understanding of reflection and of the role that it plays in their work. Overall, all the participants perceive reflective
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thinking as important for any individual and, especially, for a teacher. Among the definitions of reflection given by the participants, the idea of retrospective analysis prevails. Most of them agree that reflective thinking develops naturally over time and contributes to the improvement of their practice. It is noteworthy that experienced teachers are more confident defining reflection and more specific when describing the ways it affects their professional and personal development.
4.3.1 Retrospective analysis. When asked to define reflection in their own words, all the participants, in one form or another, mentioned the idea of “looking back” at what has been done at a lesson and asking oneself whether the result may be evaluated as successful or not. For example, one participant reported that she always tries “to reproduce all the 45 minutes in my head and analyze whether it went right or wrong” (P1) and P7 figuratively called reflection “the whys in the end of a day”. The suggested definitions may be summarized as follows:
Reflection is retrospective analysis of a past action against a set of internal criteria.
As may be inferred from the discourse of the participants, the criteria of their retrospective analysis usually include either the needs of their students or their own teaching practice. A vivid example of this kind of thinking may be observed in the response of P5:
I usually reflect after a lesson, so when the lesson is finished, I just go through all my papers and just think what went well and what didn't and how I can improve, for example, things that didn't go well and what I can do to better help my learners, so they can understand something better.
According to the participants, in the process of retrospective analysis, they pose a set of questions to themselves when they reflect about a lesson that has been conducted.
These questions, though the wording may differ, include the following:
- What has been done?
- What was planned and what really happened?
- Why has it been done in that specific way?
SCHOOL IN KAZAKHSTAN - What was right and wrong?
- If anything went wrong, how to solve the problem in the future?
In addition, it is interesting to consider the definition of reflection given by P4 that differs significantly from the general view:
Reflection is a mental process when we either structure or deconstruct our experience, knowledge, or a problem.
P4 is a mathematics teacher who reported that she had been studying various strategies of reflection and practicing reflective thinking on her own since her childhood, which might have affected her way of thinking.
Overall, no significant difference has been observed in the perception of reflection as a retrospective process depending on the subject a participant teaches or the level of teaching experience. All the participants used different terms meaning looking back at a recent event. However, more experienced teachers tend to use their own professional development as the criterion of retrospective analysis while less experienced ones focus mainly on student achievement and attitudes.
4.3.2 Improvement of practice through a cycle of actions. Another aspect of the perception of RP by the participants that recurred throughout the analysis of the interviews is the cyclic nature of the process of reflection that leads to the improvement of practice and personal development. All the participants emphasize that the purpose of their reflection is improvement of their daily work and that “it is to ensure that your future lessons … are better than previous ones” (P8). The explanation of the process of reflection by P2 illustrates these ideas:
… for example, I conduct a lesson for the first time and have problems with time management, I don’t have enough time to do something or some tasks turn out to be more difficult or easier than is necessary. When I go to another lesson in a different class, I analyze my lesson plan and correct it when I teach the same lesson for a second time… Also, there may be questions from students that I am not
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prepared to answer … then I look this up somewhere and answer the question at another lesson.
The participants were asked to describe the process of reflection as it occurs in their practice. The stages that they identified may be summarized in the following diagram:
Figure 1. The Cycle of Reflection Source: created by the author.
Moreover, some participants even suggest that reflection is the basis of innovations and social development. For example, P4 thinks that
… first of all, we need reflection for the development of a personality, self- education, self-improvement. This is very important for a teacher. Also, how do new theories and methods appear in education? They appear as a result of reflection. And innovative technologies appear the same way… When people understand the social and political context where they live… For example, why did the three-level courses appear? Because teachers realized that children had become different from those of the 90s and need to be taught in a different way.
In general, there is no difference depending on the subject a participant teaches in their perception of reflection as a cyclic process aimed at the improvement of practice.
Meanwhile, more experienced teachers demonstrate a tendency to be more consistent in describing the stages of the cycle whereas less experienced ones sometimes mention only a
Action
Evaluation identification and of a problem
Analysis of the reasons
of the problem Finding a
solution of the problem Conclsusions
and setting the criteria
for the evaluation of
practice
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few of the stages or admit that in reality they deviate from the full cycle of reflective actions.
4.3.3 Development of reflective thinking. An unexpected theme that emerged in the course of the interviews was the development of reflective skills. Most of the
participants admit that in the beginning of their careers they did not reflect almost at all.
However, they also report that, as their experience grew, their reflective thinking developed proportionally. It is noteworthy that most of the participants perceive the
development of reflective thinking as a natural process and reflection as an inherent quality of a human mind and “a characteristic feature of any teacher” (P1) or even “a natural reaction to a problem” (P8), though emphasizing that it largely depends on a personality.
The perception of the development of reflective thinking may be illustrated by the following passage from the interview with P1:
It might have been named differently but reflection has always been part of teaching… When a student has just graduated from a university, he or she cannot reproduce this model immediately for a very simple reason that he or she has no experience. When he or she has worked for some time and gained some experience, the new teacher begins asking questions about what he or she likes or dislikes, what he or she has done well or not and why. However there must be a personal need for reflection. And by the presence of this need all teachers may be divided into two categories: those who have it and those who don’t.
Some teachers report that they reflect about their teaching even when off-work. For example, P2 says:
All our time is devoted to teaching, this is our life… Even if you don’t want to reflect, on your way home or even at home, you keep thinking about children and their needs… It seems to me that we reflect all the time even if we don’t write about it. Even during lunch with colleagues we talk about lessons.
This quotation also highlights the general perception of reflection as an integral part of teaching practice among the participants.
To sum up, the majority of the participants, regardless of their subject or experience, perceive reflective skills as developing naturally, without any purposeful
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influence, though they admit that their own reflective skills improved as they gained experience.
In conclusion, three main aspects of the perception of RP by the participants have been identified. The cumulative definition might be formulated as follows:
Reflection is a cyclic process of retrospective analysis aimed at the improvement of practice and learned naturally.