June 21

The SAN Script – Tuesday, June 21

Smiling is definitely one of the best beauty remedies. If you have a good sense of humor and a good approach to life, that’s beautiful.

Rashida Jones

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St. Anthony Today

Track and Field – Nora, Sandra and Paul away

PLC students to read to Dalhousie Daycare- Part 2

Culture Shock Hip Hop Dance Lessons

 

Where is reflection in the learning process?

Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.

Critical Reflection in the Learning Process

There are those who believe as I do that deep, meaningful, long-lasting learning is left to chance if it is not a strategic, integrated part of the learning process.

Critical reflection is an important part of any learning process. Without reflection, learning becomes only an activity — like viewing a reality TV show — which was never meant to have meaning, but was only meant to occupy time.

Critical reflection is not meditation, rather it is mediation — an active, conversive, dialectical exercise that requires as much intellectual work as does every other aspect of the learning process, from analysis to synthesis to evaluation. But in reflection, all the learned material can be gathered about, sorted and resorted, and searched through for greater understanding and inspiration (https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/612829/wiki/heres-what-to-do-on-saturday).

Educators as Reflective Practitioners

When I entered my doctoral program, I was quickly introduced to David Schon’s Reflective Practitioner (in an adult learning course), and was immediately drawn to importance of reflective practice.  Later, as a counselor and teacher educator, I have held tightly onto the belief that good counselors and educators need to be engaged in ongoing reflective practice.

The critically reflective habit confers a deeper benefit than that of procedural utility. It grounds not only our actions, but also our sense of who we are as teachers in an examined reality. We know why we believe what we believe. A critically reflective teacher is much better placed to communicate to colleagues and students (as well as to herself) the rationale behind her practice. She works from a position of informed commitment. She knows why she does and thinks, what she does and thinks. Stephen Brookfield

The only way that educators can teach and promote reflective practice by their students (of all ages) in their own classrooms is to engage in, embrace, and fully understand this process themselves.

It is important to realize the implications for our students of our own critical reflection. Students put great store by our actions and they learn a great deal from observing how we model intellectual inquiry and democratic process. Given that this is so, a critically reflective teacher activates her classroom by providing a model of passionate skepticism. As Osterman (1990) comments, “critically reflective teachers – teachers who make their own thinking public, and therefore subject to discussion – are more likely to have classes that are challenging, interesting, and stimulating for students” (p. 139). Stephen Brookfield

I fear that many educators and educators-in-training are not reflective practitioners. There are several resources to assist educators in gaining knowledge and skills for reflective practice:

If reflective practice is not encouraged within one’s teacher education program or school work environment, then it becomes that educator’s responsibility (verging on an ethical responsibility) to do so on his or her own.

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Posted June 21, 2016 by mcguirp in category SAN Today

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