Having looked at some examples of the type of reflection activities and platforms available, which one would you consider engaging in to start off your journey as a reflective practitioner and what are some of the potential pitfalls you think might hinder you? Do also suggest how you intend to get around these pitfalls. Hit the comment link below and share your thought!
332 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 332 of 332I think each of the reflective tools will aid different stages of the learning process. Group discussions should be encouraged as long as the time allows. Discussion facilitates the learning process, but without a proper facilitator and method, it can also go the way of the dogs. In the interest of time I would do a video journaling to record my classes and review them later, cos i'd probably forget a good portion of what I was saying without a digital record.
Carolyn Liu Yang said...
I would like to use teaching journal to start off together with group discussion. Journal will help me for self reflection and recollection and group discussion will provide me opportunities to benefit from others' experience. Video recording and class observation are useful too but it may cause some distraction in class.
I would adopt all if possible. But with regards to videographing the class, probably not. Not many people are comfortable with cameras. We can probably hide the camera though.
Can start from observation and discussion to find out what the students hope to learn in the classroom and what kind of activities will draw their attention. The pitfall will be time, sometimes we just don't have enough time to implement all these...
I plan to start off with group discussion and teaching journal. Group discussion may help the students in better understanding the topics if properly planned. Teaching journal will help greatly in aiding in the reflection process such that the effectiveness of the learning activities can be recorded and improved on. Some of the pitfalls include time limitation and making it a regular practice rather than a practice when there is spare time.
I would choose to use a teaching journal to note down my thoughts or ideas to work on. I like to record down my ideas as I tend to be forgetful. Sometimes good ideas just pop up and if I don't get it logged into my journal, it just flies away.
On top of it, I enjoy having group discussions with fellow lecturers during lunch time or simply a chat over coffee. Difficulties faced, good practices and even little things to take note of can be shared amongst the lecturers. This way learning is more effective cause we don't need to go through the same experience in order to learn.
Potential pifalls:
For the teaching journal, the inertia to write everyday may be huge. Or when good ideas are written down but no follow up is done because there isn't any review. Before I start my teaching journal, I ought to start categorizing the possible thoughts I may have and set timelines to review the good ideas. This way it wouldn't be a random diary.
As for group discussion, it may be limited to the availability of the lecturers. For a start, meeting for lunch with lecturers during holidays is a good time to share.
Definately keeping a teaching portforlio.
It is the fastest and the easiest way to do a reflection of teaching method used.
It is also self initialised so little need to get external input.
however, it is self-motivated and procrasination is highly possible. Especially with paper work that piles up during the acad year.
And it is personal reflection. So it will be lacking students feedback. So i guess a good balance is required still to ensure the portfolio is all rounded and that the all grounds are covered.
and i guess an input once a week should be possible.
janice
I would get to know my students better through my interaction with them in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Common pitfall would be to make assumptions about them which may or may not be true.
Hi U-Liang here,
I think i would start with keeping a teaching journal. I very much like to write, and I think this would very much be in my style.
However, I think the pitfall might be that such journal might end up being a sort of "navel gazing". To counteract that, keeping an objective record of classrom successes and failures and classrom observations by senior staff are the way to gain more constructive feedback.
Although it may not be a perfect way, I believe that one can measure success in the classroom by talking with students in an off-the-record setting or in a casual setting. I believe that one can glean valuable feedback from talking to students too.
To start with, I think its worth the shot to get the students' attention by giving them a physical demonstration related to the subject matter that will be taught & get them involve in it.
While they are at it, we could observe & identify each individual or groups who are particularly active or inversely, totally detached.
This will help us to get the totally detached ones more involved by engaging them frequently.
Showing them current movies/music videos that is related might also help.
Then again, it may not be easy to provide demonstration/videos for each subject matter. In addition, we might get too predictable & the students might then know our 'style' & get there will be no element of surprise anymore.
I will start off with :
*an observation and get to know the class and understand their level/standard.
*To engage the students in projects and verbal discussions and feedbacks through blogs, multimedia such as facebook.
*To prepare the lessons plan well.
Some of the potential pitfalls:
*students attendance and late for class.
*time management on updating the teaching journal
Suggestion to get around these pitfalls:
*Asking the peers to contact them and check upon them when available is effective.
*Schedule a weekly time slots for updating the teaching journal.
Brad Yeo:
Observe how the class (01 & 02) chemistry is like. I’m currently teaching 2 different class but I seem to be able to have better chemistry with 02. Both learn at different pace as one is more outspoken, asking questions and also interaction in class is good. For the other, more attention would be made to draw them out of their caves and have them interact more with myself and with each other.
This is Adeline Ho.
I think it depends on the amount of time and resouces I have.
Group Discussion will be good for new lecturers as we can learn from the experienced lecturers on how to better faciliate learning.
I guess keeping a teaching journal will be feasible for me to reflect on interesting activities and how do I overcome or learned from them to improve for future similar incidents.
Classroom observations are always helpful for a new teacher. Journals will be another method I may take on since I like writing down my thoughts.
The possible setback to these are of course, the lack of time, and the ability to be consistent.
Definitely like group or focus discussions plus having a RO or a veteran lecturer to sit in and comment. Student's feedback and regular updates from them will help too.
Student feedback, group discussions with fellow colleagues will be the point at which I would start at. Inputs from observers in class such as yourself and / or my RO would help as well.
I am currently working on 3 new modules for the coming work year.
So I am definitely looking into using teacher journal to log down on the process of preparing the notes for the students. Coming next April when I am going to teach the new modules, I will see how well the students can absorb and modified my teaching program.
Group Discussion is also another tool that I intend to use because it will provide more interactive for the students. They would take learning into their own hand if they take ownership of it.
CHAN YONG JIET GRACE CLS:
Group discussion will be the start off point for me. This is a platform whereby I can share with fellow teachers varying from methods to experiences.
ShuFen: Writing journals . I enjoy writing and taking photos. Teaching is time intensive, so to ensure I do not add on to my workload/stress, I should start with something I am comfortable and enjoy doing.
Pitfall: Students may be uncomfortable of me taking photos. So it may become tiring to explain what I am doing everytime I take a photo.
I may explore video journaling on a later stage to try something new.
I would probably start by having discussion with other lecturers. Being in the ABE ‘s active learning classes conducted by experienced lecturers helps tremendously. They often share their valuable experience in classroom management, how to make boring subjects interesting.
Liow Zhengping
Group Discussions with lecturers teaching the same modules will be helpful. We can share the difficulties we have in class or find a better way to deliver a hard concept. Class observations is useful too. It will provide an objective opinion on how you can improve your class delivery methods.
IVAN HO
in design, we do not have textbooks, we question, learn and understand issues, topics from our environment, the matrix that we inhabit.
drawing relevance from daily lives to classroom activities is crucial. the students need to feel engaged. we as educators should learn from students, their social skills, their lingos, their sub-culture. with comprehensive understanding we are able to reduce the generation gap and gain trust, respect and commitment from students.
active discussions can promote openess and willingness to share, to promote spontaneous learning.
pitfalls will be students that gave up on themselves before anybody else...
Since all methods have the same purpose in encouraging reflection, I would choose the more comfortable ones such as teaching journal, group discussion and teaching portfolio.
Already performing most of the listed at various levels, save for the teaching journal. Hence...
As stated earlier also - I am not so sure if operating/reflecting on either of the levels at a time would be helpful. I believe that it is more of a cyclic pattern for these three different levels of reflection rather than a straight hierarchy, where in all three levels to operate in tandem with each other depending on the need of the students. Hence I understand that a cohesive approach of the three together might be useful. Such an approach might demand more preparation time for the lecturer and at the same time always be prepared for shifting to different levels of reflective practices during the classes. Class observations and more preparation times with possible anticipations would be helpful to overcome the shortcomings.
Ujjaval Parekh
I think teaching journal would be good as one needs to reflect on their teaching and activities for the day's entry. It would also be of a more personal level as it could include the feelings and thoughts as well. One main pitfall for this is time, to continually update it and one suggestion could be to allocate a small amount of time each week for it.
I have started few of them, like group discussion, teaching journal and action research. I do think that teaching journal is very important. When I first came in, i jot down the problem i faced in the class. Slowly, i jot down those things the students like, including cartoon in the slides, answer and question in the slides, sharing article and news and joke. I notice there is improvement in my teaching from the teaching journal that i have. Group discussion might take time and some of the students do not like it too. Action research is a must do thing whenever we have class in order to improve every day
I find that having a teaching journal and teaching portfolio are viable approaches towards reflective practices. The possible pitfalls is likely to be the lack of time and expertise (especially if it is a electronic portfolio) might hinder the approach. Only way to get around this is discipline, stop procrasting and start early.
I will try to observe the students first and see whether my current teaching style is able to match their expectation. At the end of the day, we need to get the students' attention and connect with them from their prespective on things but not our prespective. Thus, I think for me, will be to always challenge myself to reinvent my teaching techniques to cater to the students needs.
I will start off with the observation of my students' eye level. And I have participated other lecturers' classes before. Based on other lecturer's teaching style, my teaching video recording and the feedback from the students, I'll find out what would be the best possible way.
The difficulty may lie in how to involve the students in the engineering calculation modules.
I am very open to new ideas and I will continue to be thoughtful and reflective in my approach and wouldn't mind starting a Reflective Journal.
I think there is a lot of value in classroom observations and would love to start on that. Students feedback whether good or bad are helpful to keep me in check at all times.
The challenges that I see would be time and the ability to maintain it given the demanding tasks that we all handle. But choosing to do it is a good start.
I strongly believe in classroom observations, personally, I feel that it's one of the ways through which I learn best. I also think that it will be useful to start a teaching journal, to capture and clarify the experiences I had in the classroom and learn from them through journalling. I think action research is a very structured and useful process too, but I'm doubtful if I have enough discipline and time to follow it through. However, I may (and already do) employ elements of it.
Potential pitfalls:
- lack of time
- getting sucked into/carried away by the urgent tasks that come my way
- lack of discipline for structured and regular reflective practice.
Ways to get around them:
- to schedule a short block of time regularly for reflective practice, starting from journalling, so that I don;t forget about the lessons learnt through weekly lessons.
- to get support of my RO to help schedule me for teaching observations with 'willing' lecturers.
To start with : Get to know the class well, their strength & weaknesses. Work according to the data & observation collected
Pitfalls : Time factor, students lack of interest in the course (due to being posted to instead of the course of their interest)
- Fang Siong
I prefer the classroom observation and group discussion as reflective activities.
The teaching portfolio would enable us to revisit past events which could be useful for planning.
Sometimes we may not be able to judge our own weaknesses.
I think I could start off with keeping a teaching journal, to capture the experiences that I had in the classroom daily (e.g. questions asked, frustrations faced and joy experienced) and learnt from them. I also think classroom observations are good, where we could learn from one another how things could be done better in one way or another. However, some potential pitfalls i might experienced could be:
(i) lack of time - getting carried away by urgent tasks that come my way
(ii) lack of discipline for journaling
Ways to get around them:
- to schedule some time daily for journalling. This would allow prompt capture of lessons learnt
- to take initiatives to schedule teaching observations with experienced and excellent lecturers.
From Goh Kok Min
As a start, classroom observation will be good. Its great to learn
from others using this method. Sometimes you learn alot just by observing and listening critically. Group discussion and students feedback are important method
to understand the requirements from the learner point of view.
Keep a teaching journal is a great idea too to store the knowledge obtained from the daily classroom experience. But the challenge is maintaing the teaching journal,
due to indiscipline, time and resources constraint.
Prior to the first session, I will print out the class of students with their photos. Try to remember their faces with their names. So when I first step in the class, I can call their name and they will get the sense of respect and importance from me. I will then start off with my background introduction and classroom observations. Then other reflective activities can come together especially action research and teaching portfolios.
Pitfalls that might hinder me might be time management. However, we should spend more time on this to have a good reflective practice.
I will start by observing the students.. different group of students have different standards.. therefore you have to adjust your pace to the different groups of students that you are teaching..
I would start with group discussion and classroom observation. I chose this mode of relection activity as they are conventional and readily achieved (more easily accomplished). Other forms of reflective activities I would try is to create a teaching portfolio.
In my opinion, some possible pitfalls are:
- time management to do up the teaching portfolio
Suggestions to get around pitfalls:
- Allocate timeslot to update portfolio regularly, e.g. once/twice a week
We have a active learning community started by 2 senior lecturer where we meet once a term to discuss the best practices encountered. I learn from my seniors when they share their classroom experiences.
I would go with group discussions and classroom observations. Teaching portfolio is another good reflective record.
Greatest pitfall is:
- time and effort!
Suggestion to get around pitfall:
- Chart them into your timetable which you will need to follow religiously.
Simon Tan
Time is of the essence. Electronic diary for me
Starting off with observations, journals and group discussions are straightforward avenues to begin the reflective experiment, (that invariably involves making mistakes). Thus, they tend to be more 'private' and more individualistic.
Teaching portfolio and action research projects allow for more knowledge sharing and more disciplined approach to reflective practice. Formalized practice may hinder authentic recording of mistakes and mishaps.
Should start off understanding the crowd. First know the students and their style and make them comfortable in the teaching enviroment, essential for learning to be comfortable.
Next engage them in group discussion to further understand them and know the strong and weak points, do reflection and ajust teaching style to the crowd in order to engage them.
That ideally if time permits
Group Discussions especially in group that I have built rapport and understanding with. I rather call it "TEAM discussion" as it would suggest common mission and goals.
With fellow like minded colleagues, sharing of experience, teaching methodology, classroom observation and industry experience can vastly enrich my teaching 'knowledge' pool.
If I had a say, my first day of teaching would involve me being a TA. Classroom observation is also useful because, like being a TA, it gives 'first-hand' experience of being in the classroom.
i prefer teaching journals and group discussion. i think they can complement each other very well. one can internalise and externalise his thoughts at the same time.
I'll try to get to know the class during the first few lectures. I'll note the points I want to remember throughout the journey! I'll start adapting approaches and practices that would suit the class atmosphere. Inevitably, different approaches must be adopted because usually the students are from diverse backgrounds which makes it close to impossible to have one approach to please the whole class. Therefore, different methods must be utilized to address a group of students at a time. Eventually, all of them being in their own world would benefit from the lectures.
One other thing that I will try to do is to speak with my colleagues about my experiences from the lectures to hear what they have to suggest. Also, I'll try to create chances with asking indirect questions from the students to see how they feel about the lectures.
I think the teacher journal is something I can begin with. Potential pitfall, I am concern with how students will "grade" me and if at any instant I may be graded "wrongly", I guess I will give up teaching
Wales Ong, SB
I feel most comfortable to begin with group discussions. The benefit to this is to hear and share among fellow lecturers valuable scenarios, experiences insights and what solutions, if any, each encountered in the different classrooms. The potential pitfall would be the fact that we may be coming from teaching different modules and the students may be from different years, so the sharing of knowledge, skills and expertise may not be applied directly. We can, however, discuss and improvise these to suit each other's specific needs.
Classroom observation - it is hard to engage another teacher to sit in and start evaluating me. So, I plan to buy a video camera, hopefully in the near future and record my own teaching. This way, i can watch the playback either alone or with other colleagues of mind and hence, we are able to do group discussion basis the video clips.
I will also embark on action research and teaching portfolio. The hindrance here is -TIME!!! Nevertheless, I will and have to think of a way to address the hindrance.
Sorry, I am posting again because I did not indicate my name in the previous post. Here goes:
Classroom observation - it is hard to engage another teacher to sit in and start evaluating me. So, I plan to buy a video camera, hopefully in the near future and record my own teaching. This way, i can watch the playback either alone or with other colleagues of mind and hence, we are able to do group discussion basis the video clips.
I will also embark on action research and teaching portfolio. The hindrance here is -TIME!!! Nevertheless, I will and have to think of a way to address the hindrance. - Cheong Kwee Thiam, SMA
Definitely not a video journal as I don't have the necessary skills to do that. I would go for group discussions or classroom observations as we can definitely learn from more experienced teachers as well as colleagues who have experimented with their teaching pedagogy. A teaching journal would also be good for reflection and to chart my progress over a period of time. A pitfall may be the pressure of time -- we can get caught up in the daily grind of things without focusing on self-development. Possible solution would be to set aside dedicated time for self-reflection and development.
Jimmy Fan here. I'll start with observation of my class, identifying the type of students in my class before determining what type of engagement strategies might work best on them. A problem that I may have is the number of classes that I have and the number of students in each class may prevent me from conducting a thorough evaluation. I can get around that problem by starting from one class and try to fine-tune/streamline the process of evaluation. This will hopefully be less onerous as time goes by.
Preferably it would be a group discussion and teaching journal. Whilst the latter could be a quick and accurate record of the happenings after a class, one could refer to it almost immediately or jot down notes in the midst of other activites.
It maybe an accurate record of the daily events, but accurancy in the the findings and appropriateness of the experiments to the issues might not be best interest in improving the teaching methods, thus to compliment this lack, group discussions are necessary to help evaluate and question the experiments and findings. Group discussions could even give insights to one's peer's methods, these would then eliminate any possiblity of having to make observations in an isolated manner.
I think I've actually done something unique. I commented on my own power point slides as footnotes. For those slides which I've found particular problematic, I've included some fancy ways to deliver the content. For instance, I may write... "If you explain the difference as it is, they won't understand. Crack a joke about XYZ, and they will get it immediately in laughter." Those comments helped a lot to the new lecturers who taught this module.
Shwu Lan said...
I prefer classroom observation and group discussion for time being.
The potential pitfall for classfoom observation are:
1)You need to have extra time for sit-in classes. 2) You able to find someone willing allow you to sit-in his/her class.
The potential pitfall for the group discussion are:
1) Avaialbility of sebior staff. 2) Willingness of sharing by experience staffs
Building rapport with students and allowing them to be comfortable enough to ask you questions and engage in discussion with you. The direct responses from the students that you can get through such engagement should be the best way to help me improve my teaching. Other than that, perhaps it will also help to have a good mentor who is able to inspire......
nan feng here.
I've benefited much from teaching observations; my teaching mentor gave me much advice when he sat in my class. I also like group discussion and then note down the thoughts in my teaching journal.
I will start off my journey as a reflective practitioner by several steps. As a new lecturer, I will make sure that my materials and notes are sufficient & relevant to the learning outcome. From time to time, I will look back at the work I do, the work process, and consider how it can be improve. I will design varies reflection activities according to students with different learning styles, engaging students in the activities such as case studies, board game, video, role playing, questioning, group discussion, presentation and etc. I will choose various reflection activities with consideration of the development level of the students. Varying the types of reflection activities will help to address the learning needs of all students in the classrooms and will maximize the effectiveness of reflection and to keep students interests in the projects. To ensure what I implement is useful to the students I will collect the feedback from students by creating questionnaire and request the students to complete the evaluation. I will reflect by reading and studying the comments from my students and use the information to improve my teaching methods. I will continue to focus on reflection on my teaching because it provides an opportunity to step back and think about what I should improve to enhance student learning. My journey in teaching through reflective practice continues….
I think the major potential pitfalls might hinder me to implement those tasks is time management. As a new lecturer, we are struggling between lecture, training, meeting, and many ‘unexpected’ problems from the students. It is really a challenge to prepare the reflection in writing and at the same time preparing the lecturer notes, tutorials and assessments for the students. Besides, students are lack of knowledge, skills and resources in preparing projects especially for first year students. This will reduce their interests in learning.
In order to get around these pitfalls, I will try to manage time very efficiently, prioritize the tasks and self-reminder to update the teaching portfolio. Lecturers should provide guidelines to the students on how to do the projects when varies reflection activities given to them. For example, first year students should attend course on how to do projects by using different tools, how and where to get resources, how to do presentations and how to do peers evaluations. All these activities need to depend on the efforts from lecturers.
I have a few methods in mind and some of it had acted on it:
1. After my 1st 2nd lectures, I would ask my students to comment and share with me on how was the lecture been conducted - eg. Is it interactive and what are the areas to improve. The most important objective is to make sure that the students understand the topic and at the same time involve themselves thru the activities you have conducted.
2.I would also like to do a video reocrding on myself when i am lecturing and also at the same time record my students reaction. With these on hand,I would be able to review and analyze it. I believe during lecture it works both ways. Lecturer must engage students and student must react back.
3. Observation by RO could be helpful and valueable feedback could be obtained.
Jessica -
i would do the group discussion and teaching journal.
1 pitfall i forsee is the laziness of updating the journal. the entries would get shorter and shorter and then slowly "forget" to update it.
Maybe i can overcome this by updating every other lesson rather than every single one. so i dont' get bored with writing the same thing.
I would, if time permits, use both teaching journal as well as video, depending on what I am teaching on that particular day. There are certain topics where video is not practical, while there are others where it make more sense to immortalise using motion capture such as video. I feel that using video is more effective. We are not only capturing the reflection but the entire atmosphere that can be critical in our teaching reflection.
One major pitfall is that student may behave differently the minute you press the record button. The girls will make sure that their hair are done properly while the guys are mindful with the kind of words coming out from their mouth. It could work in your favour, they are generally more well behave when I start to set my camera ☺
//esman
Anything to do with observations! A journal or portfolio may not reflect the full picture as it may be interpreted differently by the recorder. Of course, most people, especially when they feel they would be judged may not welcome such observations. That is why an honest reflection and discussion between observer and observee would be beneficial to both parties that are open-minded. I believe the impact from such reflection activities would be deep and the lessons learnt would be realistic for the observee as he or she can then model after best practices observed.
I would start with an introduction of my experience and get to know the students first. Observe and discuss with the students on the objective of the course and how this skill can be applicable to the industry. Have activities in between lecturer to break away from the monotony.
I believe that different types of reflection activities & platforms have different advantages and that a lecturer should be aware of the options available. Then based on each lecturer's teaching style and each class's general learning profile/ synergy, the lecturer would then be able to use a combination of different reflective activities/ platforms (under different circumstances), to achieve the most effective learning environment possible.
I have personally engaged in various degrees/ would like to engage in the following reflective activities:-
Group Discussions:
This is an excellent way to tap on the experiences of more experienced staff. By exchanging notes with other lecturers/ tutors on class activities/ how to deal with certain types of students, I have gained immense insight.
Classroom Observations:
Having sat in another lecturer's class (in the perspective of a student) to observe/ feel the reactions/ energy/ distractions of the students informs me on how I can better improve the delivery of a lesson to capture the attention of the students.
Potential Pitfalls: It is a privilege to sit in at another lecturer's lesson as some lecturers may not be comfortable with it. To seek permission from other lecturers before sitting in their lesson.
Teaching Journal/Teaching Portfolio:
Writing down my reflections after lessons in a journal/ keeping a record will be a good way to chart out my teaching journey/ reflect on how I have developed in my teaching delivery/ pedagogy. I will start on it soon.
Potential Pitfalls: Finding time to do that in our busy schedule is a real challenge.
I do blog, so teaching journals should be quite straightforward for me.
I also believe in direct approach of getting feedback straight from my students (discussion). Of course for this to work effectively, I will have to build up good relationship with my class.
The pitfalls:
How well to control the class?
To much topics to cover in the class?
At such teaching portfolio can help to preapre and plan our class.
the great thing about a video journal is that you get to see with your own eyes what you thought that you had done and how your actions and words actually look and sound like. this takes the self awareness to the nth level and forces you to consider your own apprehensions and comfort level at really seeing yourself in the flesh and action - so Mark bring on that video cameraman (just make sure that he angles it from your better side - which one, i will let you know soon ;-))
i had my first class observation a couple weeks ago and it was great to see it from a colleague's (really he was my RO) perspective of what works and what doesn't. and ultimately the best observation is the look of incredulity being replaced by those "aha" moments when they are replaced by clarity from your students!
Given that i started my own journal when i was still in kindergarten, i think that i would supplement it by hitting the pen to paper or in this case, on a qwerty keyboard and transfer those self reflections to words and force myself to be a lot more critical when i see the words translate my own perceptions of what i thought was going on in the preceding 2 hours in a media room in block 21 or 22 in SP!
Probably discussions, observations and will attempt a teaching journal of sorts - perhaps a few liners for anything that strikes me.
I would start with classroom observation. Try to figure out their "language" and speak it; get them interested. Problem is, even amongst students, it's hard to find a "common tongue". And so the quest for the search begins...
Agnes Tan said....
Personally I like to journal. Teaching journal sounds like a good idea. It allows me to collect my thought, evaluate my teaching and reflect on the classes that I have conducted.
However, it does require quite an amount of time and discipline to pen down the thoughts.
I just had teaching observation with my RO. It didn't turn out what I wanted the class to be. As usual, some are late, some others are sleeping or playing hp games. My RO was pretty furious and he shared his experience with me, and after much reflection of what he said and what I've gone through in today online lecture.
Personally, group discussion is pretty amazing as I've done it before with the kids and after that they are pretty hyper to present their discussion. Of course class observation which I've been doing all these while should continue and I like to try out something new that I've learnt today, a teaching journal.
Sometimes, I find it hard to engage with the kids. Perhaps it's the topic (History of Landscape Architecture zzzz), perhaps it's the class room setup (it's in a studio full of computers that distract them and they can hide behind the computers). So for next semester, I've been trying to secure a better place to deliver my lecture materials and this time with more engagement and discussion instead of just boring topics. Of coz more relation back to our current time frame and their current project.
Get attention from students is always the first thing for lecturers. However, it is not easy for engineering subjects. Always be reflecting from observation,feedback and discussions.
Ye Wei said:
I think I would like to spend some time talking to the students, understand their expectations of the module that they are taking and what do they wish to take home at the end of it. However, these activities would consume valuable time and engineering has traditionally been the tougher of the subjects to teach.
I guess that my strength lies in being able to express myself by engaging the students. However just as much I believe that I do easily get demotivated if at some time I don't manage to get their attention. Hence I should probably be more persistent and strive harder to achieve my objective of getting the attention of my students before I actually impart knowledge. Teaching journal also sounds a good idea.
I think classroom observation was very useful for me. I got another lecturer to sit in my class and observe how i teach. She gave very useful comment. Like she notice that i use the board a lot to clarify thing. I remembered this comment and i use it more, knowing that it help to slow me down and helps the student to see a clearer picture.
Fayth
I think as a starter I can use reflection journals and group discussions. I might also consider video-recording some of my classes to see how I can improve.
I think one of the challenges is that, although necessary, it is a time-consuming process. Video-recording might also affect the way students react in the class i.e. they more be more self-conscious and portray a more guarded demeanour. Nevertheless, I would consider using all the tools available just to give it a shot.
- Julian Kwok
As with many others above, I think using classroom observation and adjusting to individual classes and learning rhythm might be the most easy platform for me currently. I should aim to get more group discussion with fellow lecturers to learn about their approach, successes or not so as to incorporate some of those to the relevant classes. A Teacher's journal might be something to look at in the near future when I have more classes so as to act a cross reference as well as to encourage oneself when the going gets tougher. It is always exhilarating to come out from a good class which I hope to achieve for many classes to come.
Group discussions and classroom observations are useful forms of reflective activities that I can begin with. Having many classroom observations with different observers would lead to more detailed group discussions, thus giving a broader perspective of the lesson. The downfall of this is time-restrictions. Thus, the lesson can be video recorded and posted online; and can be observed by anyone anytime, thus enabling feedback and comments.
I think classroom observation is good. Other experienced teachers or lecturers can provide a useful feedback on how we can improve.
At the same time discussion and feedback form the students is also important as they are the ones we need to be able to communicate and share the knowledge with.
I will start off with classroom observation. In that way I get a closer look about what my students are really into, what they don't like, etc. Then I can change my way of teaching so that I can always have their attention or at least do not lost them so easily. Group discussions are also helpful. I always learn new things from my colleagues here
To start off, I think teaching observations, teaching journals and group discussions are useful in building up the experiences in teaching and for reflective purposes too. One of the potential pitfalls is that it may take some time before we identify our mistake in the teaching method, and implement the correction. One of the ways to overcome this is to share opinions with experienced lecturers more often and learn from them.
I can use classroom observation (videos of myself) as well as a teaching journal for my reflective practice.
Nothing beats seeing yourself through the eyes of the students than videos. Factors such as body language, hand gestures, tone of voice, speed of delivery as well as facial expressions can be self-observed through self-videoing. By gathering feedback from the students and observing the videos, reflections can be recorded in a teaching journal. The journal can also include ways of improving teaching and whether the methods are effective.
The main challenge in keeping a teaching journal is the discipline to maintain it. If real learning can happen through it and a habit is instilled in regularly maintaining it, a teaching journal will be most helpful.
I'm currently into Group Discussions as there is this Active Learning Community (ALC) in the School of ABE where we meet once a month to share new pedagogy or own teaching experiences. This is useful as we're all dealing with the current generation of students and from other courses as well.
Also, Classroom Obeservations is mandatory for all teaching staff and feedback provided by RO. Apart from being part of the PMP, I thought the added "pressure" will spur us to do a better job in lesson delivery. That's what we are paid for anyway.
Lastly, Action Research is useful to apply what we'd gathered from the above 2 methods. Test them out and refine the teaching method along the way.
I would consider maintaining and reviewing a teaching journal to serve as a tool for reflection. I would also participate in the Active Learning Community of my school to have group discussions.
Class observation is a good way for identifying my blind spots. Though it is stressful, I’ll try to treat it as a way to improve the way I teach.
Joe Ong;
Going through the hard and mean way by class observation will be a good start on how i can improve my teaching.
Action Research is also a good platform to start off as it allow you to reflect what have wrong/ it should been better, allowing you to sit back and have a deep thought of it and react to the situation or problem agin by any method or approach.
Having my one-to-one tutor/tutee consultation session with my students is the most obvious one. Their response to my comments/instruction come the next consult will reveal to me if I have hit home the course material.
RO's comments to me after the video-down session was useful to me too.
Perhaps i need to invite my fellow colleagues to sit in my lectures/tut to give insight.
i don't quite see the value of a teaching journal as of now.... i am certain it can't be a individual exercise though. it has to involve peers and students' feedback.
I would like a teaching journal but would like different sorts of inputs to evaluate myself.
The teaching observers could be observing different things.. such as one could evaluate my technical knowledge, one could look into my teaching style and another person could just sit in class and try to actually see whether they could learn something from my class and see if the class is enjoyable from a student's point of view.
Gail Goh says:
The reflective activity that I would choose to start off my journey as a reflective practitioner is to use teaching journal. The pitfalls that might hinder me from doing this activity is time. Given that time is a precious resource and we are already busy with our daily work, we may not be discipline enough to engage in this activity.
However, since it is a good practice, I suggest that I will spend about 30min away on a Friday to perform this task. Once this has become a habit, it will become easier going forward.
I think I would prefer Teaching Journal. Video journal actually gives me a lot of inspiration and motivation but I am not good in producing video stuff, so I would not want the technicalities to take the joy out. Teaching Journal main pitfalls is likely to be that we are too caught up in daily activities to work on the journal.
Essentially, coming together and bouncing off ideas and comments among other tutors would be a good form of reflective practice upon which to begin with. Such group discussions allows for honest and direct feedback upon which one can take as a guiding element towards the lessons ahead.
On the other hand, personal teaching journals would be a good tool for individual tutors to have too as a guiding reference.
I will keep a journal to write down thoughts and ideas for class activities and results.
The biggest potential pitfall is to keep the habit of journalling when workload starts to build up.
Teaching journal would probably be the easiest to start but it takes motivation to keep it going, especially when work get more busy.
Shawn Lim (SMA)
most likely should be the teaching portfolio. the main hinder will be letting go the gas pedal in maintaning the portfolio.
Must be discipline in meeting the dateline.
I think I have to start with to understand my students' expectations and interest. I need to prepare to adjust/modify my teaching methods accordingly. Classroom observations( one of my senior lecturer sit in comment during my lecture), group discussion and students' feedback will be useful.
Pitfall- I agreed with my colleague Shawn, that is time constraint , tracking and customizing on each class needs and then updating portfolio.
The platform which I will want to engage to start my reflective practice is the teaching journal. This is a more convenient approach as it allows flexibility and less hassle to conduct.
Pitfalls I might face when using this platform are as follows
a) Non-compliant in recording. Self motivation to allocate 30 minutes a day to take down the findings.
b) Lacking of valuable feedback from others. Hence, having a group discussion will help to overcome this pitfall
Just this morning I was reading this article about keeping a commonplace book, and wondering if perhaps I should start one. I'm inclined towards a teaching portfolio for much the same reason, as a collection of inspiring materials, teaching examples, and a place to situate my own reflection on the subject.
I always start the class with a lot of energy, trying to get them warmed up before moving on to group discussions. The barriers I often face is that students are simply not focussed. They like to chit chat amongst their groups, and it's really time-consuming for me especially since I am given very dense materials to teach. So I am constantly worried I can't cover all the learning outcomes after going through all the activities
I will start off with classroom observations. This is because, before I start on journals and action research, I need to understand myself better and fundamentally too. For instance, what are the common bad habits that I will make in class, what do students feel about me etc. I will video record my lesson down and observe myself making mistakes. From then on, I will improve from there and integrate teaching plans into the lesson. In this way, I hope to improve myself in the behavior wise, followed by pedagogical wise.
I would use group discussions, classroom observations, and maybe teaching journals for my reflective practise.
Some students do share with me verbally their feedback on the module and on my teaching. I am thankful to the students for being outspoken. I am open to discussions after classroom observation, I do ask students for feedback and what they've learned after an assignment.
Pitfall: keeping a journal takes time. Our effort spent in improving teaching could be too private and overly time-consuming that we lose on other projects by more than an edge in this competitive age.
I would start with a teaching journal to record my reflections and to participate in group discussions. To ensure I don't forget, I will set a daily reminder to write at least a few lines in the journal at the end of the day. For group discussions, I can share my challenges in class with colleagues when appropriate. Currently, the new lecturers in my department already do this when we meet for lunch.
*my school MS already provided new lecturers a good platform for teaching reflection. Each one of us has a assigned teaching mentor that we can learn from. We observed each other's lesson and provided reflections and feedback. I also recorded down the teaching reflection in a form. But the pitfall is that sometimes we do not have the luxury to observe the lesson/module we want due to the overlapping lesson schedules and we normally observe one lesson only since we do not have much time to arrange more lesson observation.
*I will also start with reflection journal as a constant reminder of what to improve.
I've been assigned a teaching mentor who gives me constructive feedback after sitting in my lessons. My RO also go through the students feedback with me to highlight my strengths and weaknesses. A teaching journal sounds like a good idea, maybe I'll start working on it in the next sem.
I would consider teaching journals and group discussion for the start. After reflecting, analyzing and applying the improved methods in the class, classroom observation will come into picture.
Group Discussions and Teaching Observations might be great tools for adoption. They probably take less time and can be quite quick to execute.
In the longer run - as part of a refinement process, portfolio and action research will be good.
I will use classroom observation. I could learn from other teachers. It will also give me chances to reflect my teaching practices.
The possible setbacks I foresee is:
1) Regular Maintenance due to timing matter.
2) Arrangement for classroom observation with other teachers
Jeffrey xu
I guess the best way for me is to start the class room observation. As i think that is the best way for me to reflect whats going.
To me Hearing from the observers mouth beats any form of self reflection and video taping hands down. As we become more self aware when in front of the camera and might affect the overall teaching apprisal.
I will start by keeping a teaching journal, in which I record the sequence of activities and flow of the lesson, and my observations of students' varying ability to keep up with the pace. After 1 term, I could go through the journal and pick out patterns and relations between nature of activity (lecture vs hands-on activities) and students' responses (their ability to flow through/ to switch modes between activities). This should help me in improving the same set of lessons in the following year.
Pitfall: this requires immediate documentation. It's likely that I will forget my observations if I don't write them down straight after class. An incomplete set of observations may be a lot less effective.
I would probably start off with Action Research because teachings sometime requires us to identify areas of improvement needed to improve our teaching method first.
However, Action Research would need sometime to get all the necessary information before we can implement it. It took me some time in the first few classes to get the input I needed to alter my teaching materials. The results at the end of course it's quite satisfying at this stage.
For the moment action research and lesson study for CT course is a good start for reflective practice together with lessons I observe as part of our department mentor program. These things will likely be the only more “formal” reflective practice I undertake for the moment due to time constraints.
Less formal reflective practice takes place naturally when in discussion with colleagues about our teaching methods, and also by paying attention to the reaction I get in my own class.
I think one pitfall will be that what works well with one class may not work with another class. We have to remember not to make assumptions.
I will probably start with the teaching journal. The journal works best when you pen your thoughts daily, so my greatest potential pitfall would be procrastination!
One way of overcoming this pitfall is to think of extrinsic motivations for myself (e.g a chocolate treat every week if I was a good girl and filled up my journal everyday).
I believe I will start off from action research as it enables me to gain the necessary experiences and fundamentals to become a good teacher which I aspire to be one.
One possible pitfall or challenge to overcome will be always to remind ourselves not to form any pre-perception or doubts on the potential of our students. Sometimes it could be our own perceptions that limit the growth or stop our students from realising their full potential .
I will probably start with teaching journal to record my thoughts after the lecture. Also pairs with other lecturer to form a group and have class room observation. From there gather feedback for reflection on what has been done right, what needs further improvement.
I will start off using Action Research (AR) as it is more systematic with minimal biaseness. Teaching journal can be incorporated into the AR as part of the research activity to collect qualitative data.
Some potential pitfalls include:
1) Takes up more time than most activities
2) Sample size of class may be too small to draw conclusions
The AR could be done in way that it takes into account different possible senerios based on experience of other lecturers as well so that there are more considerations when arriving at a solution or conclusion. To manage time, the AR can be spreaded out over a longer period of time.
I think all the reflective activities definitely have their merits. However, for a day-to-day reflection, I would pick the teaching journal as a tracker of how the class went (student's learning performance and their energy level) and of what I have done differently that may have affected the change.
I think its potential pitfall is that there isn't a third party to provide a form of objectivity. I believe that I could aim to resolve that by simply holding an informal but honest feedback exchange with the students. Ultimately, it is their learning that I am interested in, and since the horse can speak in this case, why not?
Following that, I believe that the group discussions would be very useful, as I could listen to other ideas on how to improve on the teaching and learning.
I would like to know the students and build rapport with them during the 1st 30minutes for a new class. This will help me to build rapport between the students. In this way, I can relate the lectures better to them.
Start off with Classroom Observations.
1. Pitfall - time and coordination of schedules for observer
2. Plan and schedule early
Follow up with Teaching Journal.
1. Pitfall - need to be disciplined and motivated to keep the journal current
2. Set aside time daily to write/type in the journal
i would talk to them and understand them better by chatting and bringing myself down to their level and see from their point of view.
from there i will craft my teaching methodology to suit their learning styles and do adjustments along the way.
As now, classroom observations, teaching journals and teaching portfolios are more feasible ones.
Group discussion is good too. But if we can operate it like an interest group where there is a theme of it, it will be better.
In selecting the appropriate approach to reflective practice, we have to be aware of the school system in place and the available resources.
If the system and resources permit, I prefer to engage in group discussions followed by observations.
Group discussions are favourable in Singapore's context as students feel inhibited in addressing a large audience, and would interact and participate in dialogue in small groups. Recording of observations is a good feedback for the students as they can now view themselves from the perspective of "others".
May Lim
Classroom observations work for me. Instant feedback and reflection from another's point of view can be refreshing.
Group discussions are good too, like a support/interest group type. Listening and sharing do wonders for one's reflections and learning.
I will use self observation and survey data research to start off my journey as a reflective practiciner. For self observation, I will use a camera or voice recorder to record my lecture and replay it after class, so I can think critically upon my experiences, actions and decisions during my teaching processes.
The potential pitfalls which might hinder me and the solutions to get around the pitfalls are as followings:
First, to recording the lecture by myself will distract the students and make me a little nervous as well. In order to get around, I will tell students this recording is for teaching research purpose.
Second, the survey feedback may not represent the actual teaching effectiveness. The solution is to try to design a good questionnaire with the help of educational staff.
The greatest challenge is and will always be procrastination. We always think that we have more time than we actually do. Do not begin tomorrow what we can start today.
To begin our journey as a reflective teacher, we can consider keeping a daily journal where we keep track of the things we have done well and not so well, and think about how to make it better the next time.
From this very simple record, we can gradually move on to making hypotheses about teaching and then going about testing them. Lesson observations, surveys, and interviews are just three simple ways to get started.
We can go on to examine our findings and information collated. This is also where challenges like not being able to get timely and accurate feedback may affect the results. We should also be mindful to be objective when collecting information. We should not be taking information from students/classes which we like or where students like us a lot more than another class where students are indifferent to us.
All these considerations will have an impact on the sort of discoveries we make from our reflective exercises.
Lina:
Perhaps writing down the thoughts at the end of the day/class would be helpful. Classroom observations by experienced educators would definitely be useful as well.
Potential pitfall could be keeping up with writing down the thoughts on a regular basis..
Su Huiping:
I would consider group discussions with colleagues and peers from other schools. Also, keeping a journal might help in my process.
within the class, I would consider obtaining student feedback directly .
The Teaching Journal sounds interesting, and allows you to re-examine various insights in the future, allowing for a more iterative reflection practice.
The pitfalls are that jotting down your thoughts quite soon after an event can be extremely bias, and only becomes more "blurry" as time goes on.
One way to overcome this pitfall is to employ various types of reflective practice for the same event or discovery, so that you can gather multiple data points, via several different methods, and cross-check them against each other.
Keeping a journal would be helpful. It encourages regular reflections by me honestly penning down personal thoughts and emotions pertaining to teaching. It shall be an open platform to capture all good, neutral, and bad responses, which later allow me to be clear with what to improve and what to appreciate. A potential pitfall for this kind of reflection activity is that, after a while, one may feel the responses are getting similar to those previously mentioned. One good way to overcome this could be to constantly keep in touch with other new lecturers, which leads to discussion beyond just our own's experience.
I would say through sharing with peers about our teaching experiences will help most. Through this process, we discuss and evaluate the effectiveness of certain teaching methodologies. Hearing from how my colleagues carry out their lessons, it causes me to reflect on my lecture delivery and encourages me to adopt new and interesting teaching and learning methodologies along the way.
I think making a teaching journal is a great idea. It helps to track the progress and reflect through the process. The main challenge is to make it very objective. I think sharing and discussing the teaching journals between the colleagues may help to avoid bias opinions and keep the mind open.
Keeping a teaching journal is a great way for one to return at a later time to reflect on the process.
The key point of writing a teaching journal is to be objective throughout the writing process.
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