Is reflective thoughts useful for lecturers? What do you think? If only King Xerxes did some reflection?! Hit the comment link below and leave your thoughts. Real names only please! Thank you!
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This blog was created for SP lecturers participating in the "Reflective Practice in Action" workshop as part of the CT programme. Feel free to share your thoughts and knowledge with your fellow course mates!
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395 comments:
1 – 200 of 395 Newer› Newest»this is wang baoshuang, I think the reflective thoughts are necessary for our lecturers. if he did some reflection, he will not continue the war.
Of course! reflective thoughts is still very useful. If King Xerxes did some reflection he will be able to understand better what are the values that really matter to King Leonaids and his country, thus come out with better proposal for peace talks instead of war.
Well Xerxes is obviously power mad and I think such people would just think big and superficially. Reflective thinking requires refinement in thinking and also a certain amount of EQ I would think because the aim in to have the best in terms of achievement and morale
Another comment - I think Reflective Practice employes an intuitive process which is more subtle than just a linear way of problem solving. If Xerxes were to be more intuitive and 'sensitive' to the needs of individuals and to details, a major war could have been avoided
Level 1 - reflect on body language while teaching and what kind of effect it has to the class
Level 2 - Reflect on the relevance/current trends of the content of the lecture
Level 3 - Reflect on how well students are coping with the module
I think I will be mostly working at Level 1 and a bit on Level 2 as I will be adapting a module and include my own angle to it
I think a lecturer should reflect at all levels at any point in time, relative to the amount of involvement the person has in effecting change at that level eg. a course coordinator would have more opportunities to effect change at Level 2 and 3 than a new lecturer.
Putting what we saw in the movie back to our every day lives, I agree that as lecturers, reflective thought is useful. By not reflecting, we may make a wrong decision as in the video clip (sorry, I am not sure who is who).
Test Test
no comment
I feel that reflective thoughts are useful for lecturers to progress when they meet with similiar future incidents inotherwards grow with experience eg you experienced an incident on falling boxes, on reflection with colleagues, you realise you left out some preventive measures ...when you see boxes without preventive measures, you will know what to do.
WRT the clip: King Xerxes, i believe, have not reflected on a person like the spartan king and dealt with him as best as his experience warrants... moreover King Xerxes only intentions is to rule the world with the million of soldier at his back (why would he care for a mere 300)... he should be reflecting on tactics to win than to just throw his army to their death or for that matter to reflect on what to say to the spartan leader.
ha ha
We want sound!!!!
too busy!!! no time to reflect.
hello
this is Mark
Hello,no comment
It is too slow! Everyone is accessing at the same time!
Reflective thoughts are useful for lectures as it can avoid a fatal climax (result) as like the one King Xerxes faced.
this is a very simple comment
can't really say much as I wasn't able to follow the exchange between the kings
Testing ... I am giving my comments now.
Xerxes should reflect not to assume all the time.Strength alone isn't always the solution.
...how can any one teach without reflection? It's like saying that students are all the same, everything we say or do is exactly the same, and that everylesson plan is the same!! Education in essence is reflective. It has to be.
Thanks you reminded me to watch this movie on dvd.Thanks Mark!
After every lesson session with my students I will either discuss with my colleagues and think through on how the lesson went, students understanding and comprehension on the topic.
The other important task is to gather feedback from students, formative or summative on their understanding.
I think lecturers should be continually reflecting: on the lessons they teach and whether the important points are getting through to the students. Without reflection we wont be improving our teaching.
Reflection is one of the key elements to progression. Reflective thoughts is an essential and a useful tool for Lecturers to improve their teaching skills and a prevention against any classroom crisis.
Hi, this is Ram.
I definitely think that reflections are very important.
By only reflecting we would be able to figure out the problems faced by us/students in the class.
Personally I find it beneficial to dicuss my thoughts with other lecturers and share experiences.
Reflection is useful in all area's. We strive for perfection, not being able to reach it, but still aiming for it.
If we do not learn from history then we will make the same mistakes (I'm sure its a quote, but I won't bother to look it up).
In teaching we teach the same topic regularly, so we have the ability to refine our technique and try again in a slightly different way.
SP also forces us to reflect if we do badly (Explain why you have such a high failure rate...), but that's not so much reflection, more appropriating blame.
No comment on the film clip as I failed to see the link between that and reflection.
Reflection is important for lecturers. You will only know your problems when you have done the activity (lecture, etc). It will not be the only lecture you are going to do. So you can reflect on your performance and improve on your future lectures.
Ah... how I love his "carrot & stick" conversational approach, however, like Xerxes, we not divines, speak harshly towards others to impose our thoughts (however good the intention is) will not draw out the best from others.
I recalled an approach of my previous boss: I was slacking in my work; she brought a muffin to me one morning & casually made small talk, she spoke of my previous projects & how happy the clients were; she mentioned that those were very proud moments for her, as her staff she personally nurtured had performed beyond expectations.
That woke me up immediately...
Quek SY
Reflection is useful in all area's. The issues surface only when it is done. This of course give an opportunity to improve!
Yes, reflective thought is useful and important for lecturers as it helps lecturers to review their teaching skills and learn from successes and mistakes.
It will be great if there is more sharing among lecturers about their teaching journey as they could learn from each others.
Oh-so-many conversations at the watering holes have started with "My students arh..." with contents that oscillate between grumbles, amusement, the odd pride and joy, back to sheer horror and dwindles back to nostalgia ... "last time we all where got...."
For lack of better expression, me as the "reflectee" am constsntly reminded of the unpredictable situations and some of the dire consequences of what might have started out unsuspectingly innocent.
As a "reflector", at this point, verbaly recounting the chain of events often triggers recounts of what happened to a more unfortunate colleague. It is always comforting to know that things could have gone more pear-shaped.
I suspect these sessions set reflective thoughts in motion, as I am prompted to identify the issues as I chat and draw parallel conclusions to how I can better react should a similar variation of the situation arise.
Re: the demi-god and the Spartan case... Enlighten me, but I thought the Spartans were still wiped out in the end. However, it is interesting how the notion of being immortalised as heros surpasses the need to win. That the Spartans left a legacy, perhaps the media then did celebrate the heroic over the powerful.
Reflective thought is definitely an important and essential for everyone who wants to improve themselves, their personality, their work and everythhing.I always believe that everyone is able to improve and achieve a better outcome if they reflect on their own action. As lecturer, this will definitely help in our teaching and educating the young.
Reflective thought is important not only for lecturers but all works of life. It enables us, as lecturers, to think and look back on what we have done to and for the students and allow us to ponder on how we have done it rightly or wrong. If we didnt do it well the first time, we can do it better upon reflecting.
Lecturers should always use reflective thoughts through their daily lives in their line of work. As different classes have different environment and challenges,reflective thoughts will definitely optimise our skills/knowledge to the benefit of the students.By having an proper reflective thoughts,lecturers can only improve themselves and will definitely obtain great desired results and outcome.
Andrew Lee says ..
Yes, reflective thoughts are certainly helful for lecturers. It allows us to "review" on what can be done better, given the same situations.
Althea here. yes, reflective thoughts help to challenge reconceived idea/methods of learning.
yes, reflective thoughts help to challenge preconceived ideas/methods of learning.
I think contemporary learning engages in facilitator-student communication than authoritative/ instructional methods. From my observation, students tend to learn better when facilitators acquaint to them and reflective thought would be a good practice for a start.
Reflective thought is a very important tool and learning process. Lecturers need to have reflective thought to continuously improve on the teaching methods and the style of teaching, especially now with the improvements in technology.
Reflective thought is important for lecturers as it enables them to review and improve their teaching methods. What once worked may not work equally well now. Only with reflection will lecturers be able to keep up with time.
I think reflective thoughts is a crucial part of being a lecturer or a human walking this earth. Confucious had said that doing without thinking is dangerous. In addition, education in Socratic era means to "draw from within". It is part of education to ask ourselves and to reflect upon ourselves in order to connect knowledge and learnings. Hence, if lecturers cannot reflect, how can we try to encourage our students to think?
It is thru reflection that one sees his/her own actions and plan on the next move - to correct what is incorrect and to improve on what is correct.
I think it is good to reflect on how we delivered our lecture and also at the same time, reflect on what the students said and how we responded under different circumstances and "anger level".
Somehow, everytime after I reflect I feel like I should was perhaps too harsh on my students. So I am not sure where I am doing it correctly.
Subconsciously, in life whenever we do something or hear something from others, many of us would start the thinking processes and reflect on what happened and come up with conclusion(s). For every problem or obstacle that we meet, there are actually more than 1 solution (if we think harder :)). It is up to the individual to reflect upon and come up with the answers. A mistake that we commit is an experience, but a mistake committed again is a MISTAKE. The experience is for us to perform reflective practice, but committing a mistake twice shows only a mere reflection, and no reflective.
Chris here, INdeed reflection is important, esp on thelearning points that are being taught. No reflection = no improvement
Faith said
Reflective thoughts allow lecturers to ponder over our teaching practices and improve on it.
Reflective thoughts are important.
But the willingness to change is equally important. Many times, I felt that our reflective thoughts are restricted by our "unwillingness" to change from the norm or from our conventional thinking or
When I look back, I count the number of important points I missed in my lectures;
When I look back, I realised that the essential parts of the topic was not well prepared;
When I look back, I realised that I did not pay attention to a question that a student asked during my lecture.....So, should I keep looking back to remind me to improve?
emm, I think I should
In my opinion, reflective thought is important for lectures to look back and see is there is any corrective action needed to improve the teaching and handling the situations.
Chee How Terry
Reflective thought is definitely one of many ways to refine one's understanding in pedagogy, beyond what books sometimes can offer. There are thousand and one approaches to educate students from all walks of life. In my perspective, reflective thought is a form of self-assessment and self-improvement approach.
Trudy says:
Reflective thought is important. In the fast-paced life of a poly lecturer, we are always thinking about the next lesson. In order to plan the next lesson well, we need to reflect on the last lesson andhow we can improveand on what went wrong. If we don't learn from history, history will repeat itself.
Reflective thought is important.
Reflective thoughts can be useful for lecturers. But again, thoughts is just thoughts and if there is no conscious effort to put the thoughts into action will forever remains as thoughts.
A quote from Confucius: He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
Reflective thought is required for any kind of learning. Even a mere knowledge out of a sensory perception is a result of reflection - that's what epistemology says. When a knower observes knowable it is not a 'one time look' - multiple reflection gives a shape. Once the shape is formed an object gets it subject. A subject is open ended. An OBJECT objects the subject to be specific. So the subject initiates the process of the reflection, which eventually, after multiple reflection on an object, gets concretized. [ Not my original idea :-) the idea is borrowed from the book Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre ]. However, in "deepest" learning, knower and knowable becomes one. That is why, experience is one of the most important thing. Knowledge gets solidified with experience due to reflection alone.
Self-reflection is good but we must know how to 'LET GO' after we have 'LEARNED'.
It is important.
I would use my students as my mirror. Because they would reflect to me what they have learned, from what i have teached.
At times, you would observe that your students will start to speak like you, imitating your thoughts etc, reinfornce the +ve behaviour and eliminate the -ve ones.
Reflective thought for me is an instinct. I think in every person, there is this certain degree of reflection in anything they do, reflecting on the past experiences, reflecting at the present, and reflecting for the future. But are these thoughts useful or are these thoughts made for a purpose?
Reflective thinking should be refined with a degree of sensitivity to the needs of the people around us and hence improve our role as well as our relationship with them.
firstly
thanks for the assignment dateline extension
about reflective thought being useful for lecturers?
definitely useful
its actually useful in all forms of profession and everyday life. from the slides so far, i see reflective thought as some form of "self" feedback.
this allows further improvement by implementing the appropriate change as the person already understands all the internal processes/materials.
reflective thought would then also be a fast form of improvement. as it can be done anywhere/anytime by oneself.
Yes, reflective thoughts is useful for personal development.
As lecturer, reflective thought allowed us to improve our teaching methodologies and review the nitty gritty issues in education industry.
Shirlynn says..
I agree that reflective thoughts is useful as it helps me to reflect one the "mistake" i had make. And not improve them and not make the smae mistake again.
yes i think it is, but feel it is the action taken after that that's more important. dioni
I think reflective thought is useful for lecturers. We're not perfect after all, and we shall continually improve our teaching skill by having reflective thought. But, what's more important is the action taken after certain degree of reflective thought has been taken.
Truth is.. reflective is necessary not just for improvement in our teaching skills, but in life as well. All said, it's impossible to survive in SP without it as each class not only has its unique character but it also morphs each day depending on their mood swings, weather, and who knows what else. They keep you reflecting and ultimately still not able to figure out!! :)
Choon Lee
Reflective thought is important.
Reflection is necessary not only for lecturers, but for anyone.
It is good to reflect to better see the mistakes we make as well as anything we did right as well.
It helps us relook at the mistakes and how to correct them as well as refine and improve on any of our successes.
Reflective thought is useful for lecturers to plan for lessons. If the King has done some reflective thinking he wouldnt have avoided having the war.
Definitely yes! Allows me to look at any omissions or amendments; to ask if the students learnt or understood what I wanted to deliver.
Kit Peng
Reflection is always important for any meaningful improvement to take place. Only by pausing and processing what has happened can one decide what action to take next.
This, I feel is applicable in everything. Even in one's career for example- You do not want to have 5...10 years pass and not realise how you got stuck in a job you hate. Similarly in our teaching methods - you don't want many years to pass before realising why all your students fail and hate you (in an extreme case...hopefully).
Conscious decisions (through reflection) need to be made for meaningful changes or even no change to take place.
Hi,
i believe reflective thoughts are certainly important to us. It can help me reflect on how i have taught the students and from there it can help me improve the way i lecture and teach the students.
Zheng Rongyan
Yap. agreed with all above that its important. In fact, if we don't self examine ourselves once in a while, we might be heading into disaster.
Hello this Ryan Qin Ji Ming
I totally agree that the Reflection thought is super important,In Ancient China,the Confucius said every day we should make reflective thoughts three times {每日三省吾身） ,and actually necessary not only for lecturers, but for anyone.
BTW , why the king Xerxes looks so gigant? I really hope I can have similar stature as him
Ryan Qin Ji Ming
Yes reflective though is important as it's rewind the lesson which enable me to see if there any corrective measures needed for the coming lesson. It helps in discussion of any event after it has occurred. It will also help to determine or evaluate any point or changes in your lesson planning.
Reflective thinking is surely important to us as educators, not only in our tasks in the transmitting of knowledge and the inculcating of values to the learners, but in the effectiveness of carrying out the above. I suppose in a broad perspective this would enhance the learners' experience and knowledge retention.
Reflective thinking is essential for lecturers.This will allow us to know our shortcomings in delivering the lecture and also an idea of the student understanding of the topic taught.So by reflective thinking we can improve our teaching for easier understanding by the students.
Yes, reflective thought is essential because it allows us to think back on what was done effectively in class, and more importantly, on what could be done better to engage the students at a deeper level. I think it has helped me to discover certain things as a new teacher, such as how one thing might work for one class and not another, and how I can tweak lessons from class to class to better suit the different students I encounter. It's tough-going so probably the trick is to do something after reflecting on it!
Capt Mohit Mehrotra (41855)
Reflective thoughts can go a long way in improving the way we teach or conduct our lesons. They help us understand our students better. Reflective can be done between lecturer over a cup of coffe. Students are a important ingredient of Reflective thought. Our assessments give a reflective thought but at a very late stage. Talking to our colleagues with a open mind & willingness to apply good practices/good strategies can be achived only by reflective thoughts. This is very well understood & applied by our children who learn quite a lot from friends. A course on this lines titled " Crew resources & management " was conducted by my previous employers. It worked on the same concept of reflective thought. It has enabled me to become a better professional. I will apply this in my classrooms as well.
If Xerxes = teachers
& Leonidas = students,
it goes to show that teachers don't understand students enough to ask them to do something that they do not wish to do , (at that point of time).
Reflecting on students' behaviour and their interests can sometimes bring about surprising results to use to your advantage, akin to saying, Asking Xerses to not invade Rome, but to do a cultural exchange to boost progress between the 2 civilisations (if you can call the Barbarians 'civilised' - what an oxymoron)
I constantly try to monitor and understand in my classes, what are the things that might spark their plugs in a moment and how to get them motivated. Then I try to talk to colleagues about it too and exchange opinions.
Wesley Wong (S41856)
This exercise proves one thing. School internet connection is SLLOOOOWWW.... But the good news is I watched the film.
Most people do not like change. Change
1) means admitting we were wrong
2) Having to device new ways of thinking or doing things
I dunno, it kinda delves into socio human behaviours. They either don't see the need to, or they block it out to avoid the 2 abovemention reasons.
I guess the point I am trying to make is ego and laziness do not go mix that well with teaching.
Mei Pheng said..
Reflection is good. It helps to examines our performance (what we did well and what was not as good as what we wanted to) and others. Hopefully through this understanding, we can prevent the same problems and in fact excel and improve.
Zhou Wei Said..
Reflective thought is definitely important for a lecturer to imporve his teaching and obtain a better learning outcome.
That was really bad acting and those were corny lines! The cuts were not too great. But I digress. Apologies, job hazard as an editor.
I think it's useful to reflect and ponder. If you think in terms of tv/movie scenes, you actually picture what you think will happen and this is a good tool for me. It encourages imagination and works out the different scenarios.
This is the basis of dramedies (drama + comedy) like Ally McBeal.
Seriously though, I think you get creative when you go "Hmm...what if...how come...why isn't it..."
The connection is indeed monumentally slow. Anyway, was hoping for a scene with Leonidas's wife, Toga's should so make a comeback!! Who's with me!? but oh well...
Yes, indeed reflective thought is important in anything we do in life. I guess it helps us 'judge' our methods and behaviour as a 3rd person and hopefully change for the better. If you were trying to liken us(lecturers)to Xerxes, i guess there is some truth in it, we're 'experts' with huge egos and superior knowledge (or at least we think we do), imparting wisdom (Leonidas to surrender) to our students. So if that really is the case, I guess we should start reflecting more.... bring on the mirrors!
Being able to reflect upon our mistakes AND acknowledge that we need to change, that will make the whole journey more meaningful rt?
Effective reflection is only applicable when one is willing to change upon realising his/her mistakes.
There's a thin line between holding on to principles and being obstinate.
Reflection is indeed the basic evaluation of oneself. We always trust that what we have done is the best course of action; however with a moment of reflective thoughts thereafter, we can see that there are indeed more alternative routes to choose from.
yes, it is an important tool for lecturer to do self improvement. if a person doesn't want to accept changes like King Xerxes it will be difficult for him to lead the students
Chiam Tow Ming said...
Reflective thought is surely important. But sometime things move too fast and not much room was left to have a good and constructive reflect.
Reflective thoughts are important otherwise there can be no progress. It is easy to go with the flow and not try to innovate. But the price of an unexamined existence is a futile existence.
Julian Ong
Reflective practice is crucial in teaching, esp for lecturers teaching in polytechnic. This is due to the fact that we need to pass on our knowledge to our students. Hence we need to reflect the problems we faced when we are learning the same subjects, and formulate a better way to deliver our lectures so that our students can learn and perform better.
Sze Sze
Reflective thoughts are mandatory for lecturer, at least to me:-) In our line of job, we need to be constantly doing reflective and reviewing thoughts on our teaching so as to benefit the students.
I am sure most, if not all, already agree that reflective thoughts are useful for people in general and not just lecturers. As teachers, reflective thoughts are the basic steps towards improving our engagement and hence effectiveness with our students.
Vincent Goh Here:
Love the Show by the way.
King Xeres is too full of himself. He is not open to the others input nor is too aware of the situation. Doing things by force is not the best way as we witness in history.
The Pride of Life is surely also our downfall if we are not in touch with students. If we know the problems why the students could not understand the topic, we would have been a better mentor to guide. Perhaps it is our fault for making the concept too difficult to understand, or we are to easy on them for not paying attention.
Talking to others to get a different perspective will alway reinforce a good idea or to correct a method. So there is also something to gain.
Us psychology types can certainly agree that there is a need for reflection!
It is almost never a waste of time to take some moments to engage in reflective thought.
-Hans Lee
Hi, this Yeow Heng here. We do things the best "we thought" to be the best and most appropriate way, that is why we do it. The ultimate question is the outcome of the action taken? Or is there any other ways it could be done better? If we have these questions, I believe reflective thinking kicks-in. I find it is not only important, especially the way our student learn has changed over time. Thus, how we lecturers teach will need to change/improve via reflective thoughts.
Hi, This is Natarajan Balaji
Yeah it is very useful as it would help us think through what we have done
Hi, this is HE Yingjie. I fully believe that reflective thoughts are necessary for us as lecturers. As a matter of fact, it is necessary for anyone who would like to develop himself/herself to his/her full potential. Thoughts eventually exhibit outwardly leading to growth of ourselves. But thoughts alone don't necessarily lead to change or growth. It takes actions!
Hi, this is Joanne. Sorry Mark for this long over-due entry. I agree with most entries about the importance of reflection practice. However, I must also cautioned against the excessive use of reflection. As a lecturer, we must be able to handle feedbacks and critisim in an objective and constructive manner. Failure to do that may dampened our self-esteem and act as a hurdle instead. We must understand that we cant please everyone and the more important thing is to accomplish our mission. And we must use reflective practice so that it helps us and not mislead us.
Hi Mark, this is Adrian Chan. Here's my overdue entry :P
I think reflective thought process is important. It is when we visualize in our mind's "eye" the entire process and evaluate or take calculated risk that we push ourselves to strive for excellence in what we do. If there is no reflection, then there is no gauge to a point of origin of what is good or bad, then how do we excel?
gopal venkat said,
think before u act.
reflect if the consequence of your actions turn out contrary to your expectation and then improve on the past methods ,to increase your probability of success.
life is a process of continued learning and reflection is a key step in self learning.
Hi Mark,
This is Philip Tan, apologies for my late entry.
I agree that reflective thoughts are useful for lecturers as it is an exercise of self assessment on whether we have done the right thing.
This is Ro Ann.
I agree to all the comments above.
For me, reflecting on every aspect of what you do (in teaching or in any other activity) can help you improve the next time you perform such activity. I agree with the statement above that "reflection is a key step in self learning".
In my opinion, by reflecting on things, (e.g. teaching) the experience itself will teach you what should be and should not be. Although sometimes you need to be flexible in applying your actions, depending on the situation.
Capt. Kyaw Thet Aung from SMA said
Excellent review from all, totally I agree with all the comments given above.
Yes, “Reflective practice “is essential element needs to be developed to fine tune your teaching skills,
Bear in mind, one without passion and self ego in what ever profession the elements and virtue is worthless, no matter how well the practice prevail.
I think we all intuitively use reflective practice in our lives-- it's just a matter of how often we reflect, how deeply we reflect and what we do after reflecting.
It's just too easy to get lost in the hussle and bussle of life and work, but true, deep reflecting helps us re-order what is really important both personally and professionally. I should do it more often!
Jacqueline Chua said...
Being able to reflect in a conversation is a very unique attribute of a human.
Apart from lecturers, students actively reflect during conversation with us.
It is without a doubt that reflection should be used if you are keen to know what the other party is truly thinking... It is a form of feedback.
One may not be interested in reflection if one just wants to get their views across... (without bothering how the other person feels)
Lingtzi says,
Reflection is important for lecturers to improve on our skills as facilitators.There are always un-forseen hiccups during lectures and pracs that can be rectified if we reflect after that session. And planning of lesson for the next batch of students can improve.
I do believe it helps, a lot. Among the lecturers in my section, we do share our experiences in what works and what works better. This enables us to communicate better with the students in getting them to "absorb" the required knowledge and getting them to enagae in their work proactively.
Anyone who wishes to improve themselves and the things that they do, will certainly make the effort to reflect. Of course, reflect w/o action is fruitless..
I realised this especially when I'm teaching the same module for 3 classes i.e. teaching the same thing 3 times a week. For the lessons where I made the effort to reflect and revise the method of teaching after teaching the 1st/2nd class, I realised that the students can grasp the concept much better..
Imaging that a Transport Minister is trying to impose a new rule on traffic control. The new rule would not work or benefit the public if there is no channel of feedbacks.
This is where reflection would play a critical role.
Reflection is definitely a good channel to gain better insights and inputs on certain matter. Some people may argue that reflection is a subjective form of feedbacks from different individuals, but it does represent a pool of inputs or opinions from a group of 'sampled population'. For lecturers, this would provide "guidelines" for us to finetune our teaching approach, our perceptions on certain individual students, and the course content in response to the market needs.
Yeah it is very useful as it would help us think through what we have done.
Yes. Reflective thoughts would be useful as it enables us to take stock of the progress and plan for improvements in future lessons.
Always good to have reflective thought about anything that is of importance and means something to you. Enables one to take stock, realign, refocus, center down. Definitely beneficial in the context of teaching -
1. What did I do right that can be repeated.
2. What did I do that can be improved.
This is Chris Goh:
Think reflection in all aspects of life is needed, not just lecturing. It develops self awareness and intrinsically puts one in a position to want to improve. Think Xerxes was blinded by past victories which overinflated his confidence in his numerical superiority to overcome the smaller Spartan force.
Yes, it is definitely useful. I think it is something like taking time to think before we act, which I have always find it helpful.
-Erik
Reflective thought is important for a lecturer to improve his teaching and obtain a better learning outcome of the students. It can also help to understand whant was wrong and what can be better.
Leon Lim rambles:
Reflective thought is not only important it is one of the few abilities that distinguish humans from animals. As teachers, we should not only teaching content, but really how to be a good human. Therefore, we must employ this gift of being able to reflect... how else can we achieve harmony in thought, speech & action? And if we do not have harmony in thought, speech & action we cannot really teach!
Withoug reflection, nodody can be improved with whatever we do.
Reflective teaching is very useful for teaching(for everything actually) and important method to anticipate the future.
Agree that constant reflection is neccessary for teaching as 1) one will not get it right the first time; 2) students change every year; 3) world changes every second
Reflection is important for oneself. It is especially so for teaching. One needs to reflect on what is done, what is good and bad. From there, one will find improvement and motivation to go on.
Reflection is always good as it allows us to learn from our mistakes and to solidify our strengths.
As for the clip, Xerxes probably doesn't feel the need for being reflective and in some way, rightly so. He is where is his through his own power and ability.
Unlike him, we don't have absolute power. We do have to becareful of this when dealing with students that we don't get too complacent.
Reflective thought is important for lecturer and help lecturer solve the problem with student in the pieceful way. and in some situation, also depends on experience of lecturer to choose the right answer. Lecturer must not be arrogant and respect student aswell, even though sometimes student didn't respect their lecturer. In this day, lecturer always have to compromise with student to have good relationship with student.
HI, reflective thought is a good practice.... because this allows us to think about how we can improve on our lectures... Sometimes we will find certain mistakes that we make in class, by having some time for reflective thinking.. we can avoid them next time.
Through reflection, one can then identify the areas that one did well in; and more importantly, the areas that one can improve upon. By taking action to improve those areas, the next lesson can then be a better lesson.
Reflective thought is important. Whenever I hit ' a rock' during my lesson, I'll go back and strategise how I can do it better next time. In the movie, King Xerxes should reflect on why a mere 300 men can hold up against 1 million of his soldiers. He should not just 'bulldose' his way through his enemy. As Sun Tze said, it is better to win a war without any bloodshed.
While the material to be taught to each student is the same, the ways to get the material across effectively sometimes require us to step back, "reflect", and see how else to interest students to new ways of looking at things.
I believe no matter how well you have prepared for a particular lecture, there will still be room for improvement. Only by reflecting back, allows you to improve further in your teaching.
I think reflective learning is important as it allows us to rationalize our thoughts and improve on the next time. There is always room for improvment and people learn from mistakes
I think reflection is essential and it is good if we learn from our mistakes. However, I think apart from reflection, self awareness plays a part in identifying the mistakes that we made.
I seriously belief that reflective thoughts is important not just as a lecture but as human being in itself. I mean.. thru reflective thought.. we get to see and understand what we may have done wrong and how to make it work the next time and improve ourselves.
- Muhammad HALIM Bin Ab WAHAB
Reflective thought is something we must live with. Everything you do, everything you say must followed by an evelolution, and by doing so, you will always be in control of your jobs and your life.
Reflection... to move forward, sometimes we have to look back to see where we have come from. To know where we are going, it pays to know where we have already been....
Xerxes was not wrong to have ambition. Alexander the Great, Emperor Qin and Genghis Khan all had ambition, and achieved great things.
The thing that Xerxes should have reflected on was how the way he fought the battle. He had millions of soldiers at his disposal, so he took the most obvious route and threw soldier after soldier at the Spartans. No doubt he won in the end, but at a sacrifice 10 times that of the Greeks'.
Some times, having an abundance of resources and taking the most obvious route is not the best way. He should also relect on his pride, which got in the way.
I believe reflective thought is the way forward. One should cultivate that as a habit - so it helps us take stock of how things went for the day, where we fell short of our goals, where we have achieved or over achieved. Thus we will know how to continue - do the right things again and correct or improve what was "wrong". That way we will do well and make the most of all our limited resources. In the video Xerxes would done well if he had done so.
Handojo said
Thanks a lot Mark for giving me more time. I do appreciate your help as important as what the reflective thoughts is.
Reflective thoughts are definitely important fro lecturers. It will give us a room to reframe ourselves in continuous improvement in teaching and learning activities.
My perspective is that lecturers should be continually reflecting on the lessons they teach and most importantly the important points are understood and memorised by the students. Without reflection, threr is no room for improvement.
enhance the learners' experience and knowledge retention.
If King Xerxes had some reflection he would values the realy matter to King Leonaids and his country. He would come out with peace talks instead of war.
Reflection do serves as a kind of soul searching by oneself. Be it for an egoistic and dominant person like King Xerxes or as a lecturer like us, reflection is a great ‘stock check’, identifying a better way to look and perceived a matter in circumstances. There are no definite answers in things sometimes.
I think King Xerxes probably got too much of himself. i.e. he had too big a head..literally. lol. anyway if he did think it through, he'd probably only need to rethink his own strategy of getting rid of the spartans. he stuck to his own action plan he used to defeat all other kings and thought he could kill the spartans easily, boy was he wrong. basically, he went through so much pain in he end just to get what he wanted. if he reflected on how the spartans were operating, he might think of something else...if he had a brain to begin with. lol
In essense, lecturers all do carry out reflective practice as we adjust and adapt according to the classes we teach. we have to! if not, we'll get devoured by the kids.... :P
Reflective thought is useful in many situations. Especially for lecturers we need to always be aware of our teaching practices. There is a constant need to self audit and challenge conventions (personal or otherwise) to ensure that what we believe about the effectiveness of our teaching is not actually an illusion.
The reflective thoughts is useful for lecturers, but it maybe not useful for a king. There are too many different thoughts among the people, how a organization heads toward a defined direction?
That's good to have reflective thoughts in the class after the lecturer has put a well defined boundary of a specific topic.
Yes to have reflective mind is very important to everyone not only lecturers as by doing so only we can improve ourselves from time to time.
It is good to think back what we have done or how we behave in our class in front of students as we what do really sometimes can have some effects in youngsters' mind unconsciously. it is also good to have talks or chats with other lecturers in sharing experience.
To King Xerxes, he might need to think back the effect of talking against the Persian King could be a nasty war ahead ? correct me if i am wrong ;)
Reflecting upon your lesson is important in assessing how your students received it. Many a times, you have certain expectations of responses from students when you plan your lesson, but the reality may be far from it.
Self reflection help us mitigate our expectations, weigh the pros and cons of the actions we took and definitely serves to help us improve the next time we do it.
Probably one link to this movie would be that King Xerxes should have reflected upon how he fought this war, instead of letting his pride get into the way. Likewise, if as a teacher we feel that we are "divine" and any lesson that goes badly is the fault of the students, then we would be behaving like how King Xerxes did in the film clip.
entering this again. For some funny reasons, what I entered earlier did not come out.
Yes, reflective thoughts is important for lecturers and in fact for any profession. With reflective thoughts, one is taking a pause to do "stock take', access the situation and consequences etc. It will enable one to strategise and thus carry out a task better. Doing reflective thoughts will enable one to do leading better and thus for lecturers, the students will be able to benefit from the lessons better.
Similarly for King Xerxes who has to do some reflective thoughts and strategise for his men.
Chai Lin said...
Definitely reflection is a vital part for lecturers. Not only for lecturers but for everyone. Its been found that 1 of the 3 things old people hoped they have done more often is 'reflection' of their lives - to improve themselves continually.
I feel that while reflective thoughts is useful, decisions (and actions to be made are still determined by the situation. As our students are lively, active and unpredictable, our reactions should relate to that situation. While reflective thoughts can only give an (or extra) idea on how to deal with such a situation.
Kelly
Reflective thoughts are useful so that we as lecturers learn to acknowlegde our strengths and also discover our weaknesses.
It also gives us the opportunity to learn more about the students we are dealing with and how to better prepare ourselves for lessons to come.
Reflective thoughts i guess probably is like looking at ourselves in the mirror ,think how to improve our looks and if something goes wrong, try to salvage it. And we do it quite frequently as well.
As a lecturer, we should always try to deepen our understanding on our students through reflective thoughts. Understand their needs, fears, joy etc
King Xerxes is a failure because he didn't even notice how "special" he is in the mirror haha..
Kong Yuen Ho:
Reflective thought is a good way of evaluating what we have done correctly and what we could have done better and allows us to consider the implication of our action before we act.
Reflective thoughts are definitely useful for everyone, not only for lecturers, as aptly demonstrated in the clip. Many a things can be resolved or made better if time is taken to reflect upon them.
fangyen here...
yes, reflection is important, not only in teaching but in all matters really. :-)
sorry, i'm late - but do mark my attendence as i didnt get online soon enough to register. sorry about it!!
Linda Liew....
Reflection is something that should be done by everyone in our daily lives. How else do we know whether we are good, bad, pretty or ugly?
Unless we reflect, things may then be "taken for granted" and may persists without any further improvement.
True progress requires Reflection: to review on what went wrong so as to correct it, to review on what went right so as to enhance it.
I think this is an essential tool, or skill even, for Lecturers in the process of leading/nurturing cohorts of students, constant reflection to steer better.
Reflection is essential for learning and improvement. We should allocate some time for reflective thoughts and plan for the next lesson/term.
I think reflective thoughts is very important for the lecturers. It can help us to improve our teaching skills so that the students can benifit from us more. In fact, the reflective thoughts is also useful for research purpose. we can correct our mistakes as soon as possible.
Reflective thinking play an important role no matter who we are. I personally feel that reflective thinking comes only when we want to do better, have better relationship and have place for others. To me, the King is obviously self-centre. If we as lecturer want to do better, reflective thinking will comes naturally. With the aid of course, we can of course learn to do better. :)
Patrick Gan:
Reflect, upon oneself, and through others. As a daily exercise, one can constantly improve.
Yep. Definitely. It can be a constant reminder to improve oneself.
But, we have to do this with constant effort to see results.
Yup, I certainly think that reflective thoughts are important. Classroom scenario is sort of similar to the situation in the video. Lecturer is like the king and students are his army. However, even king cannot be right all the time. It is always good to slow down little and think back.
Gabrielle Koh.
Yes, Reflective thought is important to everyone to improve oneself, especially for a lecturer. Without reflective thought, there will be no improvement on better teaching skills.
Yina Chua feels that....
Reflective thought is definitely very important. There are times where we are too subjective and too obstinated.
We need to chill a little and reflect back on what we have been doing and the things/principles we have insist on, if it is really good for the students or if it is just one-sided and because we are adults/lecturers its hard for us to admit that we do make the wrong decision/judgement.
Constant reflections allows us to learn and progress.
Yina Chua feels that....
Reflective thought is definitely very important. There are times where we are too subjective and too obstinated.
We need to chill a little and reflect back on what we have been doing and the things/principles we have insist on, if it is really good for the students or if it is just one-sided and because we are adults/lecturers its hard for us to admit that we do make the wrong decision/judgement.
Constant reflections allows us to learn and progress.
I am helping Pearl do this now
Reflective of thoughts is definitely a must for me. It help me to relook into my teaching approach and other method of delivery which can enhance and simplify the student understanding.
Yes, 100% agree! Reflective thought is not only useful, but is very important for a lecturer! It is just like an invisible "sensor" to constantly check the works that have been done are met the objectives.
Frankly speaking, I can see the differences in term of teaching methods between the 2 classes that I have thought this sem. Definitely, the 2nd class will have better efficiency and result! Thus, this is really a big reflect for myself!
Fully agree, reflective thought is important for lecturers. It is just like a mirror or play back video of our life. Nothing is perfect in this world and there is always improvement to everything that we do.
Sometimes, it is good to reflect back your own lecture, what you had shared with students and see if additional information or better way of sharing for the next lesson is needed. It will be even better if we do video recording on ourselves occasionally to see how is our expression and body language while lecturing.
Last but not least, reflecting must always come with improvement in such a way that at least the negative action in the previous lecture is eliminated.
Yes,agreed that reflective thought is important to us, lecturers. It helps us to understand ourselves and the students better. Also, reflective thought helps to 'do better' the next time.
The audio for the video is not that happening & I have not seen this movie. Thus, this is my humble comment. The highlight for me is that motivating the students can also be negative reinforcement ie: using threats.
Definitely agreed. Reflective thought is very essential for a lecturer! It consistently review on my work performance and approach in meeting the constructive learning outcomes. Strongly believes that Reflective Practice would serve as a 'mirror' to reflect my ownself.
Reflective thinking helps to identify strengths and weaknesses. What works & what needs improvements?
Activity 1: Reflective thought
Reflective thought is indeed useful for lecturers. The main duty of a lecturer is to transfer the knowledge to the students. If this task is not carried out successfully, learning will not be able to take place. Reflective thought should provide an avenue for the lecturer to discover his strength and weaknesses in teaching. This could then lead to proper planning to implement strategies to enhance on the strength and to improve on the weaknesses in order to achieve a better performance in teaching
King Xerxes should practise ‘reflective thought’ and try to boost the morale of his army. He should not be arrogant and over-confident that his army will defeat the enemy. It is the mind over heart concept.. or think wisely and not based on feeling when making a decision, especially a critical one…
Ok, we all agree that reflective thought is important. The issue now is how honest are we in our reflection? If our students are distracted and not engaged during a class do we know why? And more importantly do we know how to fix it?
Yes, it is definately useful for teaching, and many other areas as well. Reflective thoughts allow review of a lecturer’s teaching methods & experiences, weaknesses etc. It also encourages critical thinking, and attitude analysis, and I believe teaching can be improved a lot if it arises out of the process of reflection.
Yes! Reflective thought is useful for lecturers. Why? Because it helps lecturers to evaluate their teaching. Through reflective thought we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of our teaching. With the strenghts we keep using or modifying them to be even better. With the weaknesses, we can change for the better. Ultimately, the students benefit and we too as we reap the benefits of it like seeing students learn and appreciate both the subject and us, the lecturers!
Yes, reflective thoughts are useful. As lecturers, we want to know what we have done wrong and right and what we can do to improve in the areas that we are currently doing. In short, it helps us to identify our weaknesses and strengths and provide critical learning and thinking.
I agree that lecturers should reflect, primarily because the lecturer-student relations is dynamic. People change and react differently in different circumstances / communities too. Yet, just like a severely depressed patient has a chain of reflective thoughts taht goes downward spiral, reflection has to be guided and applied appropriately.
Sorry, i left out my name. The comment posted [August 3, 2010 3:59 PM] on was put up by me.
Reflection is very useful to a lecturer. For one to change his teaching style to suit his students or to teach better, one has to take note of how he teaches and the student's reaction of learning when he uses the teaching style unique to him. Reflecting on his lectures will him him a tool for progress.
Reflective thought is most definitely necessary. I think that this is one of the most useful and important tools to help us improve as lecturers, and this also help us learn more about our students.
The answer is certainly yes, especially for someone who has no teaching experiences before. Talking to our colleagues, sharing experiences in teaching is probably the quickest and most effective ways to improve our teaching skills and also help to understand our students better. I believe all of us are already practising reflective thoughts in some way or others.
Yes.Seeing yourself as you want to be is the key to personal growth.
Yes. Reflective thoughts allow us to learn from our own experiences, like realizing how our reactions to certain classroom situations may or may not be appropriate and hopefully be able to improve subsequently.
Yes, I do think reflective thoughts are critical and useful.
We need to reflect on what had happened in order to identify the gaps and come up with solutions and methods to meet the gaps.
Reflective thoughts are not only important but they are a necessity for lecturers to evaluate themselves. I personally think that no lectures are perfect, there are always loop holes in delivering them. Learning to improve the classroom experience and continually fixing our strategy in teaching are critical.
Reflection is very important especially in teaching because without reflection, we will never find room from improvement and without it we will stuck and never learn how to be better.
Reflection is good practice, and I feel it's good to record your thoughts, firstly to crystalize it, and then to chart and monitor progress as one follows up by some sort of application.
Reflection is good practice, and I feel it's good to record your thoughts, firstly to crystalize it, and then to chart and monitor progress as one follows up by some sort of application.
Reflection is very important and useful for lecturers to improve. If there's no reflection that means lecturers are just staying put instead of moving forward to be better lecturers.
Reflective thoughts are important for lecturers to evaulate themselves, creating room for improvement....ultimately to be better lecturers!
Reflection is really important as it provides us a mechanism on how to improve oneself based on what has being done.
Reflective thinking is definitely important for lecturer...i feel that it's highly intrinsic. I intepret it as one's willingness to slow down or stop to see relook at certain concept/methodology/theories. It give opportunity for things to be further improved...sometime a totally different convention may arise... :)
Xerxes thought himself as God, that was why he didn't bother to reflect.
However, as a human being as well as a lecturer, I think reflection is critical. It is an useful tool to make myself a better person and educator.
Yes, reflective thinking is definitely useful for lecturers,
Learning (especially in a School context) is a binary/two way interaction and reflective thinking allows us to take in the feedbacks from our students (be it explicit or implicit feedbacks).
Reflection also allows us to reconsider our own actions/methods and allow for revaluation and improvement.
If only Xerxes did some reflection and pick up the signs that reflecting Leonaids had no intention to give in to his great Persian empire. That would have some considerable amount of screen time!
Well King Zerxes is full of himself and obviously couldn't engage in reflective thoughts!
Reflective thought is absolutely useful and in fact necessary for a lecture to enhance himself or herself in teaching. It is a continuous learning conduct and if its being engaged wisely, it will be a very powerful invisible tool and "guardian angle" for a lecturer!
Hi, this is David Tan,
Reflective thinking is important indeed to keep us in check with ourselves. As human we aren't perfect hence through reflective thinking, we could review or even make improvement to an idea or belief.
Reflective thought is important as it helps us to evaluate our teaching practice so that we can become better teachers.
Reflective thought is essential for continuous evaluating our lecture. It helps to improve or refine our teaching objectives.
Reflective thought is important as it allows us to ponder over our teaching practices and continuously improve on it. :)
I believe that reflective thinking is practiced every moment in our daily lives, especially when we are making decisions on how to face possibly difficult situations. Some just think more deeply than others.
Actually both Xerxes and Leonidus are not very good at RT. Just watching that small clip puts things out of context. At the beginning of the show, Leonidus did not think much of kicking Xerxes' ambassador down the pit. Both are proud and agressive leaders.
As lecturers, RT is more necessary as no single teaching method is suitable for all students of different generations.
Dawn Foo - I remember the first time I heard the term 'reflective practice' was during the first week of CT and at a micro teaching segment.
I can't say it's a process I subscribe to for all classes but it is definitely taking place whenever we meet with colleagues and share on responses yielded among students. It's useful to keep in mind when one is sometimes more focused on the that the educator has vs the student's .
Have you heard this "All muscle no brain". Well I agree reflective practice is useful for improvement, to the humble of course, but to the ego inflated history has many stories of them.
Reflective thought is definitely useful for teaching.
Think most of us do it both consciously and sub-consciously. What matters is that we go further and identify how we can improve through reflective though.
I think that reflective thought is useful, as it allows lecturers to think back on what has transpired in the classroom, e.g. what has worked well and what hasn't. But lecturers then need to take one step further, that is, how to improve on what didn't work well, whether it's the lesson plan or teaching method.
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