Results tagged “closure” from PEDABLOGUE

I stopped at a Half-Priced Books store in Monroeville this past October and found myself burrowing around in their really great section in the back of the store, for "Teaching." In it, I picked up some really great titles cheap, including a book I want to call attention to in this review, called Reflective Practice in Action: 80 Reflection Breaks for Busy Teachers by Thomas S.C. Farrell. But before I get to it, I wanted to first say that spontaneously browsing around in the "Teaching" or "Education" section of a bookstore is a really good idea once in awhile -- especially if you're not a pedagogy specialist or teacher trainer by profession -- and I encourage you to take a moment to do this if you're shopping in a bookstore for the holidays. You might be surprised by what gifts you might find for yourself.

It's also the case that those bookstore sections for Teaching and Education are rarely well-organized and become a catch-all for any title that smacks of school. Thus, you often find exercises for kindergarteners and home-schooler workbooks placed side by side with philosophical books and guitar instructional manuals. It's a mess. That's both good and bad (and perhaps says something about the coherency of our industry): you'll have to dig to find what you need, but you might find a hidden treasure.

Of course, that's true of all bookstore shelves to some degree. And the ENTIRE bookstore is really about learning, is it not?

In any case, one of those hidden treasures I recently found was Reflective Practice in Action by Thomas S.C. Farrell (Corwin Press, 2004). It seems like just the sort of book any teacher who blogs or keeps a journal would find of interest, because it is filled with questions, worksheets and discussions intended to prompt thinking and writing about one's mission and career as an instructor. Through reflective teaching, Farrell claims, "teachers can begin to locate themselves within their profession and start to take more responsibility for shaping their practice" (6).

I know a lot of teachers who struggle over writing their annual self-reports, development plans, and teaching portfolios. Sometimes this struggle is located in one's relationship to writing itself. At other times, these documents that we have to write in the name of development sometimes are seen as empty exercises in paper shuffling, bureaucratical nonsense, and just one more thing to do on top of a million others. One sometimes wonders what the point of it all is, when only one person or committee often reads it closely before it's filed away in some infinitely-receding drawer of bureaucratic paperwork, never to be seen again.

But I have always refused to see any project that involves writing as a waste of time. It makes me a better writer and often my writing leads me to new ways of seeing a topic, inspiring me to change my relationship to it. So rather than treating those "official" forms of reflection as dehumanizing forms of busy work, I have tried to use those documents as moments to write reflectively about my career (sometimes to the consternation of those who have to read them, because I write a lot). This book reminds me that reflection -- taking stock about where one has gone and where one is going -- is entirely the point of those documents to begin with.

Moreover, this slim, 100 page book makes reflecting on one's work easier, more pleasurable and, ultimately, more significant. Grounded in the principles of reflective practice, it aims at helping teachers see their work in a less technical and more organic fashion. While not every "guided reflection break" offered in the book is equally of value, the book does an excellent job identifying the diverse areas where one might direct their attention in thinking reflectively, and it utilizes research in a refreshingly clear and practical manner, by emphasizing activity and application of the principles it outlines in a systematic (but not overly formal) way.

The book opens by exploring the theories behind "reflective practice" by immediately engaging the reader in thinking that reexamines one's assumptions about teaching and how they have played out in our practical work. It is a transformative process founded on heightened self-awareness. "...Reflective practice is a systematic and structured process in which we look at concrete aspects of teaching and learning with the overall goal of personal change and more effective practice...we change as a result of the awareness brought about by engaging in reflection." (27).

Farrell seems to draw the bulk of his research from the work of Kenneth Zeichner and Daniel Liston, authors of Reflective Teaching: An Introduction, which delves into the pedagogical theory behind reflective practice in depth. The book brings more critics into the picture -- like Daniel Schon and Max Van Manen -- and the bibliography covers all the primary sources in this field of pedagogy. I think Farrell's book can be seen as a sort of practical workbook to go along with Zeichner and Liston's title, so the two could work hand in hand if assigned in a teacher development course. Some of Farrell's "prompts" would occur naturally to a reader of Reflective Teaching: An Introduction, but what makes Farrell's book useful is the systematic and proactive way in which he guides the application of its concepts.

The first four chapters of the book provide an array of models for reflective practice and explore methods for any teacher or group to put theory into action. It's a great concise overview, while being inspirational (covering the first 24 prompts of the 80 in the book). In the book's fifth chapter, the author outlines the "Farrell Model of Reflective Practice," which identifies a wide range of different ways in which the prompts in the book can be utilized, whether in isolation or in groups, while covering the principle modalities of reflection (37). This section opens up the numerous arenas in which reflection can occur -- from journals to teacher development workshops -- and readers might be surprised by the number of reflective practices happening all around us on campus all the time, and the myriad ways one can approach reflective thinking.

The latter chapters of Farrell's book are focused on specific means toward enhancing one's reflective practice. These processes are: group discussions, classroom observations, journal writing, and the teaching portfolio. The book ends by encouraging one to be a "reflective practitioner" and is the most involved and personal chapter for helping teachers come up with their own prompts for reflection. Here he draws upon and expands Zeichner and Liston's five principle elements of the reflective practitioner in a way worthy of citing fully:

A reflective teacher:

• Examines, frames, and attempts to solve dilemmas in classroom practice.
• Is aware of and questions the assumptions and values he or she brings to teaching
• Is attentive to the institutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches
• Takes part in curriculum development and is involved in school change efforts
• Takes responsibility for his or her own professional development

Farrell's book is a great assistant in making one a more reflective teacher, in general. But there are other things he brings to the table that got my interest. For example, he talks about using a method called the SCORE (Seating Chart Observation Record) to analyze how teachers interact with groups that seems very useful for, say, analyzing a videotape of one's class or observing a colleague's class. This would involve drawing a seating chart,and drawing lines between teacher and students when questions are asked or addressed, which I imagine could be revelatory of unconscious habits like favoring one side of the room or calling on the same set of students over and over again.

Overall, I'm glad I stumbled upon this book and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to prompt their writing about teaching (like bloggers) or help in writing their own self-assessments. I think administrators and faculty development coordinators who are looking for practical ways to help faculty energize their growth in an autonomous-yet-connected fashion would benefit greatly from this title.

See ItsLife's coverage of more issues in reflective practice.

I have always believed in running some kind of "closure" activity on the last day of my classes, as a way of reflecting on learning from the term and thinking about its applicability and/or importance in the future. It's a lot more rewarding than just collecting papers or tests (though they're usually doing that on their way out the door). For a closure activity, I typically just ask questions or host a dialogue of some kind. Sometimes I'll go over the learning objectives on the syllabus, or return to some topic/activity/text we did on the first day of the class. But this year I planned something new, and I think it was successful.

I had the students write haiku about the class.

I gave a quick mini-lesson in the haiku. Nothing too complicated. Using the overhead document projector, I showed the class a few samples (which I had stealthily written while they were doing their in class work at the beginning of the hour), counted out the syllable structure (three lines; 5-7-5) and then asked them to write their own haiku which encapsulated a lesson or experience from the course in a "pithy" way. I gave them about ten minutes, asking them to write as many as they possibly could in that time. "Counting on your fingers allowed and encouraged!"

Then, one by one, they each went to the front of the room and read their haiku -- or "STWaiku" as I called it, poorly punning on the acronym for the course (Seminar in Thinking and Writing) -- to the room. In retrospect, I probably should have called it "CompKu" or something of that ilk.

Here are two quick examples from my own (if I do this again, I'm going to collect them, because I don't have any student samples handy!):

A thesis statement:
Rereading America
needs to be re-read.

Peer critique helps me
to make a good enthymeme --
because, just because.

Those aren't very good (made 'em up off the cuff shortly before we did the exercise). But the activity itself was a blast. Lots of laughter, punctuated by "oh yeah" moments. Students enjoyed the chance to be creative; lots took the opportunity to make jokes about me ("Dr. Arnzen's Beard" -- yes a recurring theme!) or the content of the class. It was a good way to tie things up: a writing activity, almost entirely student-driven, and fun.

[postscript: Any students from the class reading this: please delurk and post your haiku in a comment, if you have it handy!]

The "Munch Piñata" pictured above was created by my wife, Renate Müller, as one of the "prizes" students could win in a live "writing contest" held in the final session of my fun "Horror & Suspense Writing" course this semester. She did a knockout job emulating Edvard Munch's "The Scream" -- a subject which we had discussed often in this particular class. Other prizes included a few of my horror books and fun little things I bought at a thrift store -- like vintage Halloween decorations and (my personal favorite find) an antique sausage grinder. It was very kind of my wife to hand paint the "Munch Piñata," which she built by modifying a strange decoration of what was supposed to be a referee shouting a touchdown call. She modeled the colors and lines off the expressionist's painting, but really crafted an amazing piece of sculpture on her own. I'm so very lucky to have such a supportive spouse and a great artist in my life. Everyone who saw this sculpture (which I had to share with my colleagues up and down the hall prior to class) was impressed, and I have to congratulate student Kevin Hinton on winning it -- and I hope he won't destroy the thing with a bat just for the cheap candy that I shoved inside its guts. (It's more fun to scoop that out with your fingers, Kevin!)

The writing contest today involved a 2 column list of "scary" adjectives (dark, bloody, etc.) down one side of a handout, and "scary" nouns (blood, obsession, etc.) down the other. Students had to make their favorite match and then use that as a fictional book title (like "Bloody Obsession"). Then they had to write the back cover copy -- the book description in all its hyperbole. This they read to the class, while a handful of studnt judges (who also won prizes for being the top of the class, as voted by their classmates) decided the criteria and then picked the winner. The process for making this 'game show' sequence of events work is rather complex, but it was a fun time for all. After the winners were chosen (who all got to pick their favorite prizes from the prize table), I spit out trivia questions to give away the remaining gifts to the first person to get the answer right. These were all based on class readings over the semester. The class had a fun end of term, I think. And though everyone didn't win a prize, everyone got candy.

Here's a photo of the class that I asked them to take before we got started on the contest. No, this isn't how they always received me when I walked into the room, and no, they're not all screaming from the stress of the end of term. They're all emulating the character, who you can see on the table in the center. They were a great group of students -- very induldgent of my whims all term -- and very open with their creativity and willingness to take creative and imaginative risks. This is how fun teaching can and should be. I'm proud to have shared the experience with them. And I like to see them scream....