Monday, March 17, 2008

affirmations or denials--what part of reflection is that?

Part of Karen's comment is:

"some teachers don't allow themselves to truly reflect, simply because they resist change--their reflections consist only of affirmations." 

I believe they may also consist of denials, too.  I know that when things get hard--low scores on significant tests, too many initiatives, too much to do in too little time, etc., that I hear a lot of excuses. . . . it's human nature in some measure, but it sure defeats/slows down/stops growth and change.  

Sunday, March 16, 2008

for me,

Reflection often has two components. . . me thinking about what I am doing and a conversation with another who may ask questions, seek clarification or express their own opinion. Reflection involves growth or change for me--even if that is simply an affirmation as I think over what happened.

For example,  I often happen upon a workable strategy  "in the moment"  and I have found others do too. . . 

Recently I read on the British Columbia Math teachers forum a link to a site that explained another way of doing long division, using only the multiples of 100, 10, 5, 2 and 1.  When I showed it to my teammates (5th grade teachers) one of them said, "Oh, I created that in my differentiation class" and then proceeded to pull up an explanation that was very similar. So, for her, as we talked about how this would work in a classroom it was an affirmation of her earlier work, while for me, the conversation afforded an opportunity to think through with a trusted colleague, the steps and procedures we would use as we team taught.  (She, by the way, is the Special Ed resource teacher and I am the Gifted Resource Teacher--and we combine our math classes three times weekly to differentiate and share strategies. . .  talk about action research!)

Check out this link and share your opinion:  http://mindfull:wordpress.com  (about halfway down where it begins "Division is about sharing.")

Enjoy!
Paula
  

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Teach and Reflect

teaching--good, best-practices teaching cannot happen without reflection.