Reflect Upon Your Own Practice
Reflection on Current Practice
What do you currently do to reflect upon your practice? Have you ever considered using video to reflect? Knight (2014) has found that using video for reflective analysis is the best way to improve instruction. Watch the video, Video 4.1 Teachers Using Video to Learn to see a teacher describe the process. It is not a requirement to record yourself teaching but it is highly recommended in this course! By watching yourself teach, you are seeing the reality of your practice and you can easily reflect.
References:
Knight, J. (2014). Focus on teaching: Using video for high-impact instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin-Sage.
Knight, J. (2014). Video 4.1 teachers using video to learn. From http://www.corwin.com/focusonteaching/chapter.htm. ;
Reflection Prompts
Use the question prompts below to begin your reflection of your current practices. Recording your response is not necessary but will aid in preparation for the discussion prompt.
Three Overarching Questions for Reflection:
- What instructional strategies, learning tasks, and assessments do you design to support your students’ learning and language use?
- How is your teaching supported by research and theory about how students learn?
- How is your teaching informed by your knowledge of students?
Engagement: How do you introduce learning in order to capture attention to help learners focus on the intended objective?
Development of lesson: What steps do you use to present the lesson? What do you expect learners to do at different points in the presentation? What higher level questions do you ask or encourage students to ask during learning?
Closure of the lesson: How do you bring the learning to closure and help learners demonstrate what was learned?
Extension Activity/Homework Assignment (if appropriate): Is there a follow-up activity that will occur to maintaining engagement in learning the objectives?
Modifications: What do you do to accommodate and differentiate for all learners?