Personal Awareness, Critically Reflective Practice and Professional Development

Author(s):  
Robert Adams
Relay Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 100-109
Author(s):  
Phillip A. Bennett ◽  
Maria Giovanna Tassinari ◽  
Ena Hollinshead ◽  
Fergal Bradley

This paper is a reflection on our experiences as managing editors and layout editors of volume 2, issue 2 of Relay Journal. In accordance with the developmental aims of Relay Journal, via this reflective practice, our motivations are not only to foster each others’ learner autonomy and grow our professional development, but additionally to encourage others to also share reflections of their editing responsibilities, practices, and realisations. We also believe this will provide insight into the process for those who do not have the experience in such roles, yet wish to pursue them. With that in mind, we will briefly detail the journal-editing process and our roles in such; then follow with our individual reflections upon our experiences. Our reflections will focus on our responsibilities and roles, our feelings, and what we learned through the experience.


Relay Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 293-295

Welcome to the second reflective practice column where we are pleased to share another series of active advisors’ voices with our professional community. The first column of Reflective Practice in Advising in Volume 1(1) became a prelude for creating a global community of learning advisors with the aim of building a platform to share our professional development experiences and further seek opportunities for growth. As in Issue 1, in this issue of Relay Journal, all the contributors are engaged in a different advising context with various sociocultural backgrounds, but each of the case studies illustrates how their reflective practice enables learning advisors to continue exploring potential growth at any point in their career. In other words, the journey of becoming a learning advisor is ever-lasting, as long as the learning advisor is willingly seeking an opportunity for transformative learning. The post-publication reflective dialogues in Issue 1, although experimental, were a great success. They triggered active discussions among learning advisors, which lead to further reflection-on-action and reflection-for-action (Farrell, 2015) among the contributors. These open and collaborative dialogues across the sociocultural boundaries exemplify professional development for learning advisors.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
Imriyas Kamardeen

University lecturers who aspire to provide an improved learning experience for their students continually, and be recognised for high quality teaching should embrace a critically reflective practice. Nonetheless, developing as a reflective lecturer is challenging, although there are pedagogical literatures as general guidelines. This study introduces a new pedagogical model of critically reflective practice to simplify the efforts for lecturers and to shorten their journey to becoming effective teachers. A two-phased action research strategy was adopted for the development and validation of the new model. The first phase operationalised the Brookfield’s four-lens framework to create a reflective teaching practice model, which was then validated with a case study in the second phase. The model offers a pragmatic blueprint for lecturers to build a career with sustained quality of teaching, which in turn translates into improved learning experiences for students.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
Zuraimi Zakaria ◽  

While there is a significant amount of research and literature to explain the role of reflective practice in teaching, there is little research that reported the extent of such practice on classroom instructions and its spill effects on student learning outcomes. For this reason, this paper looks at the magnitude of reflective practice in shaping classroom instructions and how it facilitates for better student performance within the context of teachers’ professional development (PD) programs. Hence, the focus of the paper is two-fold: examining teachers’ PD programs that promoted reflective practice; and the relationship between reflective practice and student performance. The discussion on teachers’ reflective practice is timely. In particular, with the growing educational research and increasing body of evidence that pointed towards PD as having a significant influence on student achievement (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006; Fullan, 1990; Little, 2001). In addition, most PD efforts focused on teacher collaboration as a strategy for teaching improvement and eventually better academic performance of the students (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006). Many educators (Fendler, 2003; Loughran, 2002; Schon, 1983; Walkington, 2005) viewed reflective practice as situated at the heart of PD programs that sought teachers to examine their practice for improvement. This paper assists policy makers and education reformists in re-examining their PD efforts in targeting for variables that matter.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Berdine Gordon-Littréan

<div>This study explored the observed impact of the professional development training on agency employees and disposition toward sustained change in prejudice reduction in their applied practice over a period time.</div>


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Danyah Fahad Alsayeud ◽  
Anas Hamed Almuhammadi

This study explores the perceptions of EFL instructors about their reflective practice and its effect on their professional development in a Saudi Arabian university. This study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Two study instruments were used; a survey questionnaire with a study sample of 100 male and female participants and semi-structured interviews with a study sample of seven female instructors. The findings show that some instructors in general have a positive perception of reflective practices and they utilize a diversity of reflective tools. Female instructors show a greater degree of involvement in a reflective practice than male instructors in three of the four examined dimensions (cognitive and meta-cognitive, moral and learner and reflective teaching in general). However, no significant difference is reported between males’ and females’ perceptions in terms of the fourth dimension (practical). Based on the findings, recommendations have been made to encourage reflective practices in the Saudi EFL context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-58
Author(s):  
Julie Flett ◽  
Mary Tyler

This paper follows 3 cohorts of students 2012 -2015  and maps their perceptions of professional development using Action Learning sets as a pedagogical tool . It looks at learning immediately after the Sets have taken place and builds on this up to 3 years after graduating.  The research  found that Action Learning Sets as a pedagogical tool make a valuable contribution to professional formation of youth and community workers by enabling participants to:Consolidate learning  from the courseBecome more confident and assertive about their professionalizationReflect together on practice as a learning community and learn about themselves within the group process  Understand how and when to use appropriate questions to enable reflection by othersUnderstand different ways people perceive issues, their different thought processesCritically understand the importance and benefits of opening up people's thinking/gaining new perspectivesBe open and willing to listen, best for developing relationships Learn to listen in order to understand others and in so doing developing self-knowledge and problem solving skills.Practise some educator / facilitator skills Action Learning Sets outcomes appears especially important where they  helped students develop confidence in their professional identity and in their ability to challenge to achieve recognition and change. However some participants discussed how an organisational culture that is not based on critically reflecting or even discussing professional approaches has impacted negatively on them as developing youth work professionals, echoing Stark’s (2006) similar findings from research on the impact of Sets used with nurses and educators. Many students  commented that there was no supervision in the workplace and no mechanism for group reflective learning so individuals were left to self-reflect without the benefit of alternative perspectives which they had come to value as a result of taking part within the Sets. This implied  a desire on the graduates’ part for continuing professional development . Further research into  critically reflective practice using action learning sets in the workplace could be explored within organisations and any demand developed within HE programmes .   


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