The Value of a Reflective Journal

Many teacher education and training courses include assignments based on developing a reflective journal as a means of encouraging the trainee to reflect on their own teaching and learning practice. This is aimed at developing a reflective practitioner that learns and improves through analysing their own practice in the classroom, workshop, studio, sports field, salon and so on.

Why keep a journal you may ask, I don't have time! Well, it is the act of reflecting soon after the event that allows you to truly look at what went well, what could have been better and analysing why your practice was successful or not.

Zulfikar & Mujiburrahman (2018) found that in service teachers believed that keeping a reflective journal enhanced their understanding of reflective practice and was a useful tool that helped to improve their teaching skills.

Of course for a reflective journal to be successfully utilised, a teacher must take time to look back at the journal entries from time to time, however, the act of writing the journal entries is in fact the reflection itself, instilling it into the teacher's memory and as literature suggests, the pre service teacher can be taught how to reflect with purpose, and create a meaningful teaching experience. (Beeth & Adadan. 2006: 103-120)

According to Marie Doyle (1997), the pre-service teacher benefits through observing teaching practice and honestly reflecting on what was seen and heard through writing a reflective entry. Reflecting on their own experiences, preservice teachers are able to "think about their attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions...to promote self-evaluation and change (pp. 519-532)."

The honesty of reflection, in order for it to have best value and influence positive change, is essential and as a teacher I have often thought, "Oh, I shouldn't have said it like that", or "That was not the right thing to do". Acknowledging what did not go very well, the teacher can begin to build up experiences where learning through practice encourages immediate improvement.

Personally, I have kept lots of notes rather than specific journals, however, I am beginning to use this blog as my reflective space and in time it will grow and hopefully receive others opinions and feedback.

I have found creating these blog entries less time consuming than I had assumed and it has also improved my EdTech and creative digital skills, so, yes it is a positive exercise with value and purpose.

Think of it as part of your learning journey and another skill you are mastering, and you can then share your findings with the next group of learners you can inspire and empower on their adventures in education.

References

Beeth, M.E. and Adadan, E., 2006. The influences of university-based coursework on field experience. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 17, pp.103-120.

Doyle, M. (1997). "Beyond life history as a student: Pre-service teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning." College Student Journal, 31,519-532.

Teuku Zulfikar & Mujiburrahman(2018)Understanding own teaching: becoming reflective teachers through reflective journals,Reflective Practice,19:1,1-13,DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2017.1295933

Reflections on self

Reflection is often a difficult and unwanted activity for many of us yet it is often expected to be continuous, professional and unbiased as teaching practitioners. I do ask myself the question, is it really possible to achieve this as human beings, who have feelings and firm opinions about everything that happens in our professional and personal lives?

For example, can I reflect and learn from my experiences with other staff members in my assurance quality role, when I may feel conflicted about the policies and processes that we are all meant to adhere to?

Can I really give my all at home to look after my family, keep the house clean and feel safe, warm and fed?

Can I give my students the best quality of education and a positive experience on their teacher training journey?

Reflecting on ones self is more difficult than can initially be imagined and fundamentally requires you to really ask the relevant questions that can enable you to seek out the truthful answers.

Why am I here? Why am I dong this job? Who benefits and how? What have I really learned today? How am I going to use that to effect changes in my behaviour, practice or judgements?

Is this the correct line of work for me? What does my family think? What do my peers think of me? How can I be better at what I do? How can I share my knowledge? Am I good enough?

So many relevant questions, but where do you start and how do you break the analysis of self down so that it is not overwhelming and can make sense? Again, another question.

Is self reflection therefore just a matter of asking lots of questions of yourself or is it, asking the right questions and finding answers and solutions to those?

By asking the right questions you begin to think about how you as a person, both professionally and personally behaves. How you look at the world around you and form opinions. How you respond to situations and solve problems and how you manage the issues in your professional versus personal life.

Responding in the best possible manner, that is subjective and fair is how I strive to behave, but being human dictates that this is flawed, as I will inevitably still make mistakes. This is what I have always been aware of in myself, but I am happy to acknowledge that.

Over time I am no longer worried about making mistakes, as I know I learn from this and I am no longer concerned about being judged when I make mistakes. It makes me part of who I am and how I grow better personally and professionally.

Motivation

One key area that keeps popping up in my everyday teaching practice, is motivation. Motivating students and motivating teachers. But, what does this really mean? Are we concerned with motivations to learn and the display of good learning behaviours, gaining good grades and graduating with top grades? Or are we concerned with the feeling of motivation to learn within the classroom environment on a daily basis?

If a student has enrolled on to a college course, straight after gaining their GCSE results, what is behind their decision to choose that college and that particular course?

Often we find that students turn up with no clear plan or idea of what they would like to study and they wander from the construction desk, to the media desk, to catering and then to sport, and very often there are students who enrol on a course, just because there was nothing else that took their fancy.

Their motivation to study a subject from which they can progress, often doesn't exist. The resulting consequence of this, is realised by the course tutors in those first few weeks of term.

The students are not interested in the class content, they appear bored and can be disruptive, however, those students who had clear plans to enrol on the course have a real motivation within the classroom. They are interested in the vocational area, they have future plans and they have high personal expectations, that can be clearly seen by observers.

Identifying the right course for the right student is key to having a motivated class who participate, want to learn and have enthusiasm for their learning.

Keeping motivation levels high in teaching and learning can be difficult for teachers and students, however, bringing into the classroom an enthusiastic attitude and ethos for high achievements, if encouraged from the beginning and followed through continuously, will begin to become automatic and expected learning behaviour.

Motivated teachers will be mirrored by motivated students and a vibrant, fun classroom atmosphere, encouraging high achievements, will become the norm.

According to Hattie (2017), teacher credibility scores highly at 0,90 for motivating students to strive for high achievements and possibly even improve results by up to two grades.

Reference

J. Hattie (December 2017) visiblelearningplus.com