Most of us are aware of the term reflective teaching and its benefits to teachers and students. It uses reflective teaching methods to convey, evaluate, and deliver information to the target students. It is a continuous cycle, mainly to strive for positive results.
However, reflective teaching gives way to improvement for both teachers and students in more than one way.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Reflective Teaching on Teachers and Students
Teachers can use this method to improve their teaching process, including better ways to instruct, conduct self-assessment sessions, and focus on improvement and problem-solving. It should also focus on developing the analytical skills of a student. Over time, the technique will help teachers develop a critical eye for every problem.
Advantages of Reflective Teaching
1. Professional Growth
Teaching promotes personal growth, and you can know your strengths and weaknesses. Reflective practices promote professional development.
Prepare and analyze the class sessions. Note the goals, and evaluate the results. Start with a reflective journal and write your thoughts after every session.
2. Give Scope for Innovation
It is not a complicated practice, rather helps an organized teacher keep track of their lessons or the way they prepare them. After you teach a session, assess the teaching.
Note down the positive experience and challenges that came along from the session. Take time to work on the problems by using different teaching methods. This is what leads to innovation, and so, both are complementary.
3. Facilitates Ways for Teaching
The practice should ensure that the learning experience is good for every student. Teachers should try to create an interactive learning environment, and motivation is the key to success.
The reflecting method helps understand what interests the student and how to change your delivery of the message to make it easy for them.
4. Boost the Student-Teacher Relationship
Teachers value their bonding with students, and it helps them understand things better. The practice helps cultivate relationships. The technique focuses on the individual learner, understanding their needs, and helping them.
Use strategy to analyze performance, behavior, and needs. Students are likely to perform better if they are in an enjoyable classroom environment.
5. Instill Interest in Lessons
Make lessons interesting, and retain the attention of every student in a class. Implement new reflective strategies to solve problems and liven up every classroom session.
This encourages every student to participate in class actively. Start class with a refresher session and review the last session. Try to do it in a fun and engaging way to include every student. Ask questions and feedback to understand the problem areas and improve them.
6. Make Problem Solving Easy
Experienced teachers develop ways of troubleshooting and facing challenges effectively. The practice help teacher devises the latest strategies and offers personalized help to struggling students.
This helps a student cope with problems and learn techniques, and it is beneficial for both teacher and student to improve intellectual stability.
Ask any teacher, and they will certainly tell you how they are always looking for ways to improve their craft.
If you are one of them, in this book titled “Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher,” author Stephen D. Brookfield provides a proven framework for teachers to follow so that they can reflect on their way of teaching the students and identify required areas for growth.
Here are some ways this book can help you to identify areas for growth and make the necessary changes to become the best teacher you can be:
- Brookfield provides teachers with tools and strategies for reflection in each section of this book. He also shares his experiences as a teacher and how he has used reflection to improve his practice.
- Another most beneficial aspect of Brookfield’s book is how he breaks down the process of reflection. He provides specific questions for teachers to ask themselves when reflecting on a critical incident.
- He also offers guidance on journaling about your reflections and using those reflections to inform your practice.
Disadvantages of Reflective Teaching
Students and teachers often feel ill-equipped to go through the assessment. Both new and experienced teachers can perceive it differently.
- Not all teachers can under the process easily.
- Some teachers may be uncomfortable evaluating their performance.
- The teaching practice is time taking.
- The teachers confuse about which aspects to reflect on.
- The strategies may include reasoning and thinking, which is critical for reflective teaching.
Teachers with heavy workloads will not pay attention to these latest techniques. However, when the teacher finds a problem addressed by a student and doesn’t know how to resolve it, this can become challenging for teachers. Trying any reflective technique can be time-consuming if they aren’t aware of it from the beginning.
If teachers are convinced to introduce the practices in teaching. It will benefit both students and teachers immensely. Set measurable benchmarks and focus on self-reflection that depends on subjective feelings. With better self-understanding, one can improve performance and perception of capacity and traits.
Reflective Learning be Advantageous for Students – Let’s See How
This form of teaching is an essential concept, with the main goal of analyzing the teaching method with reflection. It helps one become a good teacher who can help students ensure they have their best minds in their studies. Include the reflective techniques can benefit students in the following ways:
1. Improve a Student’s Performance
Individual students will reflect in every class season and identify and improve their problems betters. Students following reflective practice can work on metacognitive skills. A student can have a deeper understanding of a topic, stimulate their ability, and formulate solutions wisely.
2. Help Students Engage More in Class
If a lesson sounds dull or uninspiring, students can give feedback and use their ideas to make a lesson interesting. They can learn difficult topics easily as they interact in a learning process.
As they give feedback, it shows how well they are learning. So, teachers should encourage every student group to develop ideas, raise queries and be active in-class sessions. Try creative activity sessions to retain students’ attention more for the classroom activities.
3. Develop Critical Thinking and Skills to Cope up
Reflective learning helps improve skills to solve problems and face challenges wisely. Students may face difficulties when learning new things and reflection helps improve their ability to solve the issues and stimulate their cognitive and analytical skills.
Ask students to develop creative solutions in which they have to use the critical thing. As they focus on troubles more, they will learn to cope with them by maintaining calm during difficult situations.
4. Motivate a Student More
The latest learning practices should help motivate students and help them overcome their learning problems. The teacher should improve their relationships with students and empower them to control and motivate them.
Motivation can help students learn successfully and perform better in class. It is reflective learning that fosters a productive learning environment for the good of an individual learner.
5. Impacts on Overall Effectiveness
Teachers should encourage group learning to focus on overall effectiveness. In this, students share thoughts, process new ideas, and encourage reflection among each other.
These practices improve assimilation, boost motivation levels, and group tasks become interesting, engaging, and rewarding for students.
