Activity 3: Responses to Finlay's (2008) article

"Reflecting on reflective practice"  by Lynda Finlay (2008)

What is/are the points in the article that you can relate to your reflective practice?

The main point of the article that I relate to my reflective practice was the discussion around 'reflection for action', 'reflection in action' and 'reflective on action' as I agree there are various ways and times in which we reflect on our teaching.  These can occur frequently or very seldom; they can occur privately or in discussion with others; there may be some ways that are more natural to ourselves and some methods that take us out of our comfort zone.

Further to this were the five different levels at which reflection can take place during our teaching as explained by Zeichner and Liston (1996):
1.  Rapid reflection which occurs as an instant, immediate, ongoing action while teaching
2.  Repair reflection in which a teacher changes what is happening in the lesson in response to students' cues
3.  Review reflection wherein a teacher thinks about, discusses or writes about an aspect of their teaching
4.  Research reflection is when a teacher takes more time to reflect and think about a situation, often gathering data or reading up on it
5.  Retheorizing and reformulating reflections whereby a teacher reflects on their practice in light of academic theories.


Are you using any model of reflection? If yes, evaluate the model you are using, is it effective?  Is there any room for improvement?

I would say that I use the five levels as explained above in my teaching.  I rapidly reflect during a lesson and repair the situation as it warrants.  I write comments on my lesson plan to change, alter, prepare for future lessons in response to how a lesson went or the needs of the students.  I often reflect on situations by sharing with others to seek their feedback and discover different ways to handle something.  I have found these steps of reflection to be very beneficial, even though I didn't know they were formally steps to reflect.

The one area that I would see as room for improvement would be the retheorizing and reformulating reflections wherein I would explore professional readings to gain insight into situations.  With the busyness of teaching, this is the area that I tend to put to the bottom of my priorities.  Becoming aware of this is a step in the right direction, a benefit of reflecting through this reading and blog post.