Reflective practice

Reflective practice in teaching is more than a self-awareness process in which we pause and think back after something has happened. The moment we start reflecting upon a teaching situation, we naturally begin to raise questions on ‘how that happened?’, ‘Why it happened that way?’, ‘Could it be different?’

Reflective practice in teaching shifts from thinking about a sequence of chronological events to purposeful thinking in order to identify how to improve specific learning situations. It can enable teachers to think systematically about the learning experience of students whose lives they influence in many visible and invisible ways.

If you are interested to know about reflective practice, please see the booklet Reflective Practice (2015), which summarizes key principles and tools in this area.

You are also very welcome to contact CeTTL staff at any time if you want to discuss ideas about reflective practice, or already have clear ideas and would like some support implementing them.

Selected books and articles on reflective practice

Brookfield, S. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Moon, J. (1999). Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice. London, England: Kogan Page. [This is a great reading]

Sellars, M. (2017). Reflective practice for teachers. London, England: SAGE.

McGregor, D., and Cartwright, L. (2011). Developing reflective practice : A guide for beginning teachers. Berkshire, England: McGraw-Hill Education.

McCow, D., Reibel, D. K. and Micozzi, M.S. (Eds.). (2016). Resources for teaching mindfulness 2016: An international handbook. New York, NY: International Springer Publishing AG. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30100-6

Bruster, B. G. & Peterson, B. R. (2013). Using critical incidents in teaching to promote reflective practice, Reflective practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 14(2): 170-182.

Hains-Wesson, R. & Young, K. (2016). A collaborative autoethnography study to inform the teaching of reflective practice in STEM. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(2), 297-310.

Useful websites