As a manager of alternative education for a local authority with the responsibility for commissioning, quality assuring, and monitoring private sector education providers, I critically reflect on my practice of delivering continual professional development (CPD) for the provisions, and I promote the practice of critical reflection to all provision staff.
With less than ten percent of staff in provisions holding qualified teacher status and being specialist coaches, instructors, or tutors in their respected vocations I assume the foundation that all staff have not had the privilege of teacher training, of mentor support through their first qualified teaching year and that their pedagogical approach to teaching will be a ‘mirror’ of their own learning experiences.
By introducing all staff to the model posited by Rolfe et al (2001), What, So What, and What Now, staff have a model to use to analyse their own teaching practices. By scaffolding their experience of reflection, and enforcing the importance of the practice, staff are also invited to witness my use of the model after a set CPD session that I have delivered to, and for them.
Embracing the benefits of critical reflection is crucial to the quality of education delivered to students on alternative education. By utilising the model by Dreyfus (1980) the journey from novice to tacit and intuitive knowledge is a visual aid that can be incorporated into my sessions. Adult learners need to see the relevance of any training to their vocational context. With 24 years of classroom teaching experience and a further six years of sports coaching experience I hope I have messages and stories that will make continual professional development sessions worthwhile and will subsequently benefit students who are on alternative provision learning programmes.
I have found that an incomplete handout of a visual representation of Kolbs Learning Cycle (1984) allows the provision staff to take part in critical reflection as individuals and then once this activity is complete group reflections can draw together thoughts feelings and conclusions. By utilising a social constructivist approach to staff development allows the alternative provision department of the local authority to influence the standards of teaching and outcomes for students across the borough. As Vygotsky (1978) posited, by incorporating my own personal teaching experiences to the continual professional development of less experienced staff, these staff who I always assume are at an embryonic state will develop to a state of increased mastery, relating directly to Dreyfus (1980).
It is fair to relate to my own initial teaching post through the constructivist lens and the lack of critical reflection that I experienced, and the lack of promotion of critical reflection by my initial mentor on entering teaching. Fixated with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of teaching such as utilising a curriculum, into a scheme of work and subsequent lesson plans and lesson observations relates directly to Schunk (2012) who states that I was fixated on the reflection on external feedback through mentor lesson observations, through performance management rather than reflecting on internal feelings and thoughts. Again, this adds credence to the work of Dreyfus further, mapping my experiences as the experiences of a novice as I was dependant on rules, structure textbooks, and guidelines.
By directly relating my own personal experience to alternative provision staff, and how my practice developed as time passed into one of reflection in action, and reflection on action, (Schon 1983), dependence on external feedback has reduced. Furthermore, by incorporating the four lenses of critical reflection as posited by Brookfield (2017) I inform alternative provision staff that by incorporating the voice of the child, colleagues’ perceptions, the use of a critical friend, personal experience and subsequent critical reflection, deeper reflection in our disciplines will be achieved.
References.
Brookfield, S.D.(2017) Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons.
Dreyfus, S.E. and Dreyfus, H.L. (1980) A five-stage model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition. California University Berkeley Operations Research Center.
Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection for Nursing and the Helping Professions a User’s Guide.
Schon, D. (1983) Becoming a reflective practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. London: Temple Smith.
Schunk, D.H. (2012) Learning theories an educational perspective sixth edition. Pearson.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Socio-cultural theory. Mind in Society, vol. 6, pp. 52-58.
Reflective Education 