Excellence in Education:
Reflective and Transformative Teaching
The expert teacher does not simply deliver a script. Like
the best actors, they have the ability to improvise when things are not going
well or simply to take a lesson from good to great.
How do you diagnose
student confusion?
How do you make
corrections before misunderstandings become engrained and learned?
Great teachers create
assignments and activities that enable them to monitor student progress and
provide feedback. When the students aren’t understanding the content through
the careful examination of in class activities and assessments, a teacher can
guide all students to succeed. Part of the in-class reflective
process, involves the gathering and analysis of evidence to determine what
students know and where adjustments are necessary to ensure each student
masters the content.
Revising your lesson in midstream, takes courage,
flexibility, expertise,
Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers
or students use assessment-based evidence to adjust what they are doing.
Reflective teachers not only constantly ask questions of
themselves and their students, but they also use the answers to the questions
to guide and change their instruction to become more effective.
- 1. Are my students engaged?
- 2. Is the success temporary or is it connected to the essential question/understandings?
- 3. Are my students mastering the content?
Some recent examples of immediate instructional adjustments:
- 1. Ms. Harper, recognizing her students were not understanding the more complex content, simplified and extended her lesson.
- 2. Ms. Campbell adjusting her lesson by adding a more
- 3. Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Patteson providing additional support to a group of students who were struggling to meet the lesson’s objectives
While reflective practices appear to occur on the fly,
advanced planning by the teacher in regards to identifying potential student
struggles and appropriate instructional responses makes it more possible. While
judging/measuring student understanding by the looks on the students’ eyes is
possible, true feedback can only be garnered by carefully crafted formative
assessment strategies. Additionally, it requires the teacher to actively engage
and measure all students’ level of understanding.
The greatest reward in becoming a reflective teacher is that
you become aware of how capable your students are. Teaching becomes a rewarding
experience from which you and your students learn every day.
Administrative Notes
Positive Referral Link: http://goo.gl/cZIXm7
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