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Assessment Chapter 5 – Assessment of One’s Teaching Practice
in
Lesson 10: Reflective Practice
Learning 1
At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
identify some difficulties encountered by novice teachers; and
make a reflective writing using Gibbs’ Model.
Objectives
In learning environments and teaching contexts, teachers may
encounter situations or episodes where they need to pause, think and make
intelligent decisions. Reflective practice for teaching is for those teachers
who are disposed to think about their teaching practices, and are willing to
put reflective practice into action. Reflective practice challenges teachers who
have unquestioned assumptions about good teaching, and encourages them to
examine themselves and their practices in the interest of continuous
improvement.
Introduction There are several modes and frameworks for reflective practice used
for the enhancement of students’ learning experience and also professional
development. An example of this is the Gibbs model. The reflection model
developed by Gibbs (1988) can be useful to reflect on something unexpected
that happened in the classroom, when something went wrong (or perhaps
extraordinarily well) in the classroom that we did not anticipate.
Gibbs’ reflective cycle Gibbs (1988, p.49) created his “structured
debriefing” to support experiential learning. It was designed as a continuous
cycle of improvement for a repeated experience but can also be used to
reflect on a standalone experience. One of the key things about Gibbs is the
acknowledgement of the importance of Feelings in reflection. He also
Discussion separates out Evaluation - what went well as well as what didn’t. These extra
stages make it a useful model for some practitioner courses but some find
them prescriptive.
Gibb’s model is as follows:
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The 6 stages:
Description
Here you set the scene:
• What happened?
• When it occurred?
• Who was there?
• What did they do?
• What was the outcome?
It’s important to remember to keep the information provided relevant and to-
the-point. Don’t waffle on about details that aren’t required –if you do this,
you’re just using up valuable words that you’ll get minimal marks for.
Feelings
Discuss your feelings and thoughts about the experience. Consider questions
such as:
• How did you feel at the time?
• What did you think at the time?
• What impact did your emotions, beliefs and values have?
• What do you think other people were feeling?
• What did you think about the incident afterwards?
You can discuss your emotions honestly but remember that this is an
academic piece of writing, so avoid ‘chatty’ text and ‘dear diary’.
Evaluation
How did things go? Focus on the positive and negative even if it was
primarily one or the other.
• What was good and what was bad about the experience?
• What went well? What didn’t?
• Were your contributions positive or negative?
• If you are writing about a difficult incident, did you feel that the situation
was resolved afterwards?
Analysis
This is where you make sense of what happened, using the theory and wider
context to develop understanding.
• Why did things go well? Badly?
• How can the theory explain what happened?
• How does my experience compare to the literature?
• What research/theories/models can help me make sense of this?
• Could I have responded in a different way?
• What might have helped or improved things?
This section is very important, particularly for higher level writing. Many
students receive poor marks for reflective assignments for not bringing the
theory and experience together.
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Conclusion
Gibbs actually proposed two conclusions: a general one, which could be
transferable and a specific one, focused your personal situation. These are
now normally merged but the idea may help focus your conclusion.
• What have you learnt? Generally, and specifically
• What can I now do better?
• Could/should you have done anything differently?
• What skills would I need to handle this better?
Action plan
Action plans sum up anything you need to know and do to improve for next
time.
• How /where can I use my new knowledge and experience?
• How will I adapt my actions or improve my skills?
• If the same thing happened again, what would I do differently?
Using Gibbs’ reflective model in reflective writing
The following text is an example of a piece of reflective writing,
following Gibbs’ model. The task was to write a reflection about an incident
which occurred during the first few weeks of a teaching placement (1000
words). Please note that the references used are fictional.
Description
I am currently on a teaching practice placement in an adult education
college in the south-west of England, learning how to teach GCSE maths to
various groups of adults. As my placement is in the early stages, I am mainly
assisting the class tutors and have just started planning and delivering a small
part of each lesson. The incident occurred in an evening class during which I
was due to deliver my very first session. The class tutor had been teaching the
learners about fractions, and my task was to continue with this instruction,
looking specifically at how to multiply two fractions. However, when I was
due to teach the session, I got to the whiteboard and became so nervous that I
struggled to speak to the group. I felt myself visibly shaking and was unable
to articulate my first sentence coherently. The students were quite
understanding, as they are all mature students who are aware that I am new to
teaching and am nervous, but the teacher was unsympathetic and responded
by taking over the lesson whilst I sat at the back of the room trying not to cry.
I left the session as soon as the class was over, and did not speak to anyone.
Feelings
I felt extremely miserable at the time and even considered leaving
my teacher training course. I was also embarrassed and upset by my own
inability to speak in front of the group, but I was also extremely angry with
the class teacher for her response in the presence of the learners. I felt
afterwards that she had not given me sufficient time to compose myself, and
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that she should have allowed me to address my nerves. The situation left me
very distressed and I rang in sick the following week; it was only when I
reflected on the experience that I decided I needed to speak to the placement
supervisor. I also realised later that feeling nervous is a natural reaction to
speaking in public (Jones, 2000) which made me feel less embarrassed.
Evaluation At the time, I did not feel that the situation had been resolved at
all. I very deliberately left at the end of the class without speaking to the class
teacher or the learners. However, after speaking to a fellow trainee about his
own experience, I felt much more positive. I realised that everyone feels
nervous before their first few classes. This is clear in the relevant literature,
as Greene (2006, p. 43) points out, saying that nine out of ten new trainee
teachers found their first session “incredibly daunting”. It appears that most
trainee teachers have moments of being “tongue-tied” and “losing their way
with the lesson” (Parbold, 1998, p. 223).
Analysis
The situation was made worse by both my own actions and those of
the class teacher. I feel that I should have stood up to her, rather than letting
her take control of the lesson, and that I should have spoken to her
immediately after the lesson about how I was feeling. Dealing with situations
like this immediately is preferable, as Cooper (2001) points out. Instead, I
spoke to my placement supervisor several days later, and did not see the class
teacher again until a formal meeting consisting of myself, the teacher and the
supervisor. Daynes and Farris (2003) say that, by not dealing with situations
immediately and personally, and instead taking it to an authority figure, the
situation can be made worse. The class teacher could have felt that she was
being “ganged up on” (Thomas, 2003, p. 22), which could lead to future
problems. The teacher’s actions also made the situation worse, because she
did not give me time to overcome my fears and she deliberately embarrassed
me in front of the class. She claimed that she had thought she was helping me
to overcome my anxieties, but I do not believe that to be the case. However,
as we only spoke about the incident over a week later in the meeting with the
supervisor, she rightly argued that I should have said something to her at the
time.
Conclusion
In retrospect, I would do several things differently. I should have
spoken to the class teacher immediately after the session and voiced my
opinions. I should also have been more assertive by advising the tutor that I
could continue with the lesson. However, the incident made me realise the
importance of building up a relationship with the teacher, a skill that Jackson
(1999) stresses as fundamental to a successful placement. I feel that, had I
developed a professional relationship with the teacher in the preceding
weeks, I would have been able to explain how nervous I was beforehand.
This would have provided the opportunity to discuss strategies for dealing
with nerves and perhaps the incident could have been avoided entirely.
Action Plan In future, I will ensure that I build up a relationship with
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colleagues. I am working alongside several different teachers during my
placement, and I intend to speak to each of them about my nerves. I have
already had a beneficial conversation with one teacher and together we have
developed a programme of team-teaching for the next few weeks so that I do
not feel so pressurised. I plan to do this with the other class teachers, as it will
help them to understand how I feel. I also need to speak to my fellow trainees
more often about how they feel, as I think I will be able to learn from them.
In terms of training, I have booked onto a presentation skills workshop at
University, and intend to follow it up by attending the practise sessions
afterwards. This experience has made me realise that I need to gain more
confidence with presenting, and I feel addressing my presentation skills will
help me to do this.
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Exercise No. 1: Reflective Writing
Directions: Identify some difficulties in the teaching and learning process
encountered by novice teachers and make a reflective writing using Gibbs
Exercise/s Model.
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