Reflective Teaching Explained

Reflective teaching is a self-observation and evaluation process where a teacher examines his or her classroom teaching strategies, considers their efficacy, and evaluates them. Throughout the process, the teacher gathers information about what occurs in the classroom, analyzes the data, and pinpoints the major problems that could either improve or hinder instruction. An educator can impart knowledge to students through reflective teaching while also attending to all of the students’ needs (Zeichner & Liston 2013). Reflective teaching, therefore, is a systematic process of recording, observing and analyzing the thoughts of the students and aligning oneself to the reactions through changes that ensure the objectives of a lesson are achieved.

While other forms of teaching focus on the how well the lessons have been taught, or how much syllabus has been covered, reflective teaching stops and evaluates the lessons is finer details (Zeichner. & Liston 2013). Instead of relying on how far the objectives of the lessons has been covered, reflective teaching looks at how the students have understood and reacted to the lesson. It seeks to understand the behavior of the students, and through analysis, understand if the students have actually gained any knowledge or not (Zeichner & Liston 2013). In addition to that, a reflective teaching develops the educator’s attitude and awareness that therefore benefits their professional growth as teachers while improving the learning environment for the students.

Different from other forms of teaching, reflective teaching steadily increases the quality of knowledge provided to the group of learners. It supports the improvement of outcomes by accounting to the little details and reactions that students present whether in early, further, vocational or higher education (Zeichner & Liston 2013). Moreover, reflective teaching draws attention to the beliefs and social consequences of the education.

References

 Zeichner, K. & Liston, D. (2013). Reflective Teaching: An Introduction (2nd ed., pp. 1-11). New York: Routledge.