Running head: EDUC 612 Reflection Point 1

EDUC 612 reflection point

Tracey C. Brown Rice

George Mason University

July 29, 2016

In EDUC 612, I have evolved in my practice and thinking. At the start of the

course, I associated critical reflection with being just another buzzword that was mounted
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on my countys word wall of countless terms, as critical reflection was often heard

being spewed out at professional developments and throughout the school setting. It was

as if it was a sight word, a word we should all know how to say and spell (and

understand) fluently. When hearing critical reflection, a certain reaction arose along

with the following mental response: Yea, I think hard about my thinking and what I do

to help my students grow. Whats next on the agenda? At the Technical level (Taggart,

2005), I was actually making a half-hearted assumption. Yes, reflection is thinking back

on an event or moment in time to see what salient points or lessons can be drawn from

the situation; however, Reflection becomes critical when it has two distinctive

purposesTo understand how considerations of power undergird, frame, and distort

educational processes and interactions [and] the second is to question assumptions and

practices that seem to make our teaching lives easier but actually work against our own

best long-term interests (Brookfield, 1995, p. 8). After understanding true critical

reflection and its components, I then understood why this reasoning process is more than

just thinking about ones thinking and instructional delivery to help students evolve- it

entails thinking about things that add on to or differ from ones own practice and beliefs,

questioning them to make sense of what transpired.

In learning about critical reflection, I have also learned about inquiry.

Stemming from Brookfields definition of critical thinking, I have created a working

definition of inquiry: applying ones knowledge of theories and practice to view student

learning through an autobiographical lens; the students eyes, our colleagues experiences

and theoretical literature (Brookfield) in efforts to provide opportunities for a continuous

increase in student achievement that extends beyond their classroom years. As

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highlighted in my Teacher Beliefs Statement, I believe all students can learn when

provided the opportunities to soar. These opportunities come from me implementing

critical reflection in my practice and conducting inquiry about my environment and

students.

When spiraling back to Brookfields lenses, I see growth in my initial thinking.

When in previous leadership roles, specifically when being my schools summer

programs coordinator in 2015, I paired my understanding of lenses with communication.

I thought intently about the communication order and how things need to be conveyed to

others, to include: 1) How will programs look from beginning to end?, 2) What final and

pending information needs to be shared with my regional director, principal(s), classroom

teachers, attending students, parents and guardians, self, or a combination of stakeholders

to make the programs successful?, and 3) How do I craft my language to limit confusion?

It was then that my vision was only clear, as Brookfields cited autobiographical lens,

the students eyes, and a part of my colleagues experiences (at the surface level) were

being utilized. I thought about my colleagues and how to provide flexibility and teacher-

choice options within the summer programs (i.e. teachers could departmentalize and

teach their area of expertise), but failed to bounce ideas off of them and directly listen to

summer school schema per past experiences. I also needed to add the theoretical literature

lens, but when critically reflecting about the following year, I made sure that I left my

templates and structural roadmap behind, as a sample guide. Still being in my early stages

of developing my lenses, I can see how I am thinking more systematically about my

practice and learning from my experience (ASTL Learning Outcome 4), as I now

understand that lenses are more than nouns- they are also events and moments in time
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that influence and shape my thinking.

As a way to highlight my sharpened beliefs, theories and practice, my

Autobiographical Study serves as my encapsulated evidence. This study afforded me the

opportunity to see common threads within my beliefs, theories, and practice, which are

common educational topics that serve as conversation pieces within my Small Learning

Community (Fecho, 2004). I was able to see the high importance of having a core

foundation of Trust, Commitment, and Belief (TCB) along with an understanding of

the ever-changing culture and the power of taking each cultural lens, the

autobiographical, students eyes, our colleagues experiences, and theoretical

literature (Brookfield), into account when reflecting on-, in-, and for-action (Schn,

1983). My Autobiographical Study validated my experiences and helped bring clarity to

why each school year differs and why the work of a teacher is never done. I also learned

the importance of language and its ripple effect on how it can be adjusted to help students

add on to their thinking and content understanding. Along with TCB, building self-

efficacy is essential in helping students gain a deeper sense of self, which in turn, helps

students to make and maintain strong and meaningful connections to academic concepts.

Students must be provided with opportunities to challenge their status quo and build upon

their various entry points, allowing true learning to take place and rote memorization to

decrease.

References:

Brookfield, S. (1995). What it means to be a critically reflective teacher. Becoming a

critically reflective teacher (pp. 1-27). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Fecho, B. (2004). Is this English? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Schn, D. (1983). Professional knowledge and reflection-in-action. The reflective

practitioner (pp. 49-69). New York, NY: Basic Books.

Taggart, G. (2005). Promoting reflective thinking in teachers: 50 action

strategies (p. 36-39). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.