Our planning (or worrying about) what’s happening next gives us little opportunity or inclination to examine what has just passed” Wallace (2005)
Writing from the prospective of a trainee Physical Education teacher I thought the quote above was a relevant way to start this paper. I believe I, and many other student teachers, spend the majority of our working life worrying about what we have to do next, that sometimes we forget to sit down for 10 minutes and need a gentle reminder that this is just as important as planning the next lesson. At the start of the year, if a lesson didn’t quite go to plan there was always a danger for me to brush it under the table and just say I was having a ‘bad day’. However, this was an easy option and I soon realised I wouldn’t have the same attitude if something similar happened away from school. So regardless of how painful the experience, it is vital that I critically reflect on everything I do as a teacher. After all, we naturally reflect on events that occur in our personal lives, because we don’t want them to be repeated, so why should our professional lives be any different?
I believe that reflection has been the main contributing factor to my professional development in my training year and has helped my teaching evolve. Reflection was first introduced back in the time of Socrates who suggested that unexamined life was not worth living. However, in more recent times the idea of reflection in education and learning was essential in the times of traditional educational institutions. John Dewey wrote and encouraged the need for reflection in learning, as early as the 1930’s. Dewey, the godfather of experiential learning was the first to suggest that education was concerned with experiences rather that abstract knowledge. As I have gone through my first year in teaching, this theory has become increasingly apparent. Fawbert (2003) discusses Dewey’s early work in conflicting routine action with reflective action. Routine daily action was seen as reflectively static and ultimately unresponsive to adapting priorities and situations, whereas reflective action contains a willingness to engage in constant self-appraisal and development. Dewey felt that the importance in any experience lay in the relationships and connections within the experience ‘It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn because without reflection it may be forgotten and its learning potential lost’ Fawbert (2003).
Not only does reflective practice encourage me to reflect upon the values and practice of my lessons but also to be ready to adapt my teaching in response to the feedback I am given, or that I give myself (Mitchel, 1997). Coming from a sport (cricket and football) and coaching background, I often find myself reflecting on my performance. Whether it be analysing the shot I played leading to the fall of my wicket or finding solutions to challenges that arise during a game. I agree with Mitchel’s point that feedback is invaluable in our development and not just the feedback we give ourselves. I receive constant feedback on my performance from teammates, spectators and newspaper reports, which enables me to identify what I am doing well and what I could be doing better. However, I have found that this kind of feedback doesn’t always fall at your feet in teaching, mainly due to the pace of school life. Although, the feedback which I have received about my reflective skills has been fantastic and I feel this is one element that has helped me develop my skills and ultimately the pupil learning in my lessons throughout the year.
I have been pleased with my planning since starting the course in September. Coming from a sports coaching background, I haven’t always been the best at planning my sessions but I soon realised it was going to be required, if I was going to have a successful year and ultimately a career in teaching. On the whole, I have spent a lot of time getting prepared for my lessons and have criticised my own lesson planning as an area I wanted to continue to improve.
This was supported in the early months by my mentor giving ‘areas for development’ in my Professional Development Plan (PDP), based on my planning before and during lessons. Not necessarily the lesson content, this has generally be a strength of mine, but positioning and voice projection has been an area requiring the planning. Where to stand during activities to give me the best opportunity of assessing the group and the most effective ways to use the tone of my voice to have an impact on the learning taking place. My appreciation of lesson planning has decreased over the first year but I still make notes for every lesson before the start of the day/ week, mainly on the open-ended questions I’m going to ask the pupils and a rough outline of the practices I’m going to use.
I am extremely honest and critical of my own performance as a teacher and the feedback I have received in my observations and from other teachers suggests that it is a strength, and wanting to ‘perfect’ something is only going to help me develop as a teacher.
I think during the year I have used Schon’s (1987) model of reflection, Schon believes that professionals can ‘reflect in action’. Reflecting in action requires practitioners to think on their feet, be able to work intrinsically by drawing on similar experiences to solve problems or make necessary decisions. One particular occasion where I had to use the ‘reflect in action’ model (aka ‘think on your feet’) was during this final term. We were due to take 40 U9 boys on an away cricket fixture. However, the matches were cancelled 10 minutes prior to departure, due to the unexpected inclement weather. Instead of sending the children back to their classroom teachers and having the afternoon off ourselves, I thought it was far more beneficial to take them into the sports hall. Where I asked the support staff to set up a series of cricket masterclasses, ran by myself and the other PE and Games staff, and I used the dance studio to show cricket videos, to ensure maximum learning took place on the day. Although, the next two hours were challenging at times, the pupils certainly had a great time and there was significant progress made. This particular incident was a huge learning curve for me and one that will stick with me for the future.
Boud (1996) theory of reflection that occurs after the event that is what has or hasn’t been learned, is a major element in the learning process itself. Here is an example of how I generally reflect on my lessons, I will use this as a basis of comparison as to how well I followed Boud’s model. One Friday morning in the first term I was put on the spot by my mentor, who said he would like to observe my Year 6 PE lesson. At first, I was slightly nervous, but I went into the lesson with a positive attitude. I was delivering a basketball lesson, of which my subject knowledge at the time was below average. To add to this, it was fancy dress day and according to a colleague this is known as ‘non-learning’ day, due to the mental state of the pupils. A lot of pupils had forgotten their PE kit but I decided to let them take part in my lesson, this was manageable, until a pupil arrived in a chef’s outfit. The lesson proceeded to be one of the worse lesson I had taught and still is to date. My class management was poor and pupils were allowed to misbehave, due to the static nature of my practices. After the lesson, I sat down with my mentor for the feedback session. I was close to tearing my hair out and giving up teaching in the first term. However, I calmed down and started to think rationally about the situation. I excepted that I was being very critical, as it was the first time I had experienced a fancy dress day, in the future I will know what to expect and I can plan my lesson and practices to cater for the pupils needs.
The three aspects to Boud’s model involve firstly the experience itself and its description. Then, returning to the experience and attending to or connecting with my feelings. I had done this, no matter how difficult it was to critique one of the worse lessons I thought I’d delivered, I did it and had been quite descriptive and negative. Brookfield (1995) suggests that “we think that resistance to learning displayed by students is caused by our own insensitivity or unpreparedness…and by taking a critically reflective stance towards our teaching helps us avoid these traps of demoralisation and self-laceration”.
I had fallen into both of these traps, I wasn’t being ‘critically reflective’ in what had happened during the lesson, I was just disappointed with the fact the lesson didn’t go the way I wanted it to. Boud (1996) also implies that in reflection we are sometimes blinkered by one perspective of what’s unfolded, that we often forget to recollect the events clearly. This could have resulted in me giving up reflecting all together, as I thought I understood or accepted what has occurred. I believe this could have been the case on this occasion, as I put myself under a lot of pressure after the lesson and I couldn’t focus on anything other than feeling sorry for myself.
The first section of this paper has been how I have used my experiences to develop my teaching. I would now like to delve into the practice side of my development and the theories I have followed. PE and Games often allows teachers to integrate group work into lessons and I have found it to be a fantastic tool to get the best out of the pupils I am working with. Mitchell (1997) encourages group work as a means of teaching through social interaction. Working collaboratively and collectively, especially in sport, can help promote interpersonal relationships and team work. Although I have found this to be extremely effective, Brookfield (1995) gets practitioners to look at all sides and downfalls. On one side of group work Brookfield (1995) explains the teachers’ role in group work as “it’s common sense to visit small groups after you have set them a task, since this demonstrates your commitment to helping them learn. Visiting groups is an example of respectful, attentive, student centred teaching”. I would agree with this statement and I try to practice this in my own group work. Conversely, Brookfield (1995) explains that this teaching method can seem like an assessment to students and they may they simply being ‘checked up’ on or they may behave differently when they know you are being watched and when you approach their group.
The nature of most sports I have taught this year require some form of group work, to encourage taught skills to integrated into practice. Therefore, I can’t say I agree the pupils would feel there are simply being ‘checked’ on. However, I would tend to agree with the final point, there are never enough eyes in one lesson and from my experience pupils do act differently when they know they know they’re being observed.
At the start of the year, questioning was always something that appeared on my weekly PDP and I am still working extremely hard to perfect this skill. However, I have been informed that this is a skill that can take several years of experience. Professor in Education and Director of Development at the University of Bristol Guy Claxton states that “Good learning starts with questions, not answers”. As I have progressed through the year, it has become more and more apparent that questioning enables teachers to check learners' understanding. It also benefits pupils as it encourages engagement and focuses their thoughts on key ideas. According to Claxton, this questioning needs to inspire gifted and talented learners, embrace cognitive thoughts and is easier to attain when using open questions. These questions are often organised according to their level of difficulty; this is called taxonomy. Bloom's Taxonomy is one approach that I have used when it has come to planning my questioning sessions. This approach has allowed me to use the six different questioning styles; Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation to plan my questions depending on the situation and type of learners in my lesson.
Throughout my first year as a teacher I have been supported and help an awful lot by my colleagues and specifically my mentor. The communication between the two of us has been a fundamental part of my growth as a teacher. Our constant honesty has allowed us to share the fun and fear of teaching and ultimately he has provided me with the unconditional encouragement I have needed. It has been the conversations with my colleagues and mentor which has given me the confidence to encouraged me to be a critically reflect on my teaching and to be willing to receive appraisals and to learn from my mistakes. Crosfields School have been fantastic in accommodating me during my training year, such as giving me certain periods off to attend to my PGCE paperwork. The headmaster was extremely supportive on one occasion in the first term, when I had to deal with an aggressive email from a parent.
An incident occurred during a school football watch, which resulted in my taking off one of my players due to his behaviour. To say his parents didn’t agree with my decision would be a huge understatement. However, I sent my draft response to the head teacher and he was extremely supportive and agreed with my decisions. As this was the first, and certainly not the last, parental conversation, having the backing of the head teacher certainly increased my confidence.
As a teacher, I hope I’ve managed to have a positive impact on the pupils and I would love to think that they have appreciated my lessons and the success that has come their way as a result. I would say that, although it’s not always recommended, that the children see me as a friend and someone they can come and talk to at any point. I always aim to encourage self-esteem within my pupils and to be the motivating teacher described by Wlodkowski (in Armitage et al 1999). I want to offer my expertise, have empathy, show enthusiasm and display clarity and by doing this I want to motivate all pupils to learn. Most importantly I want to start next year as an effective and successful teacher, I want to be able to continue to be able to reflect on my abilities honestly, regardless of how painful it may be.
“Research shows that there is no personality type that makes a good teacher. Whether you are a shy introvert or an enthusiastic extrovert you can teach effectively, but only if you know how to learn from your mistakes and your successes” Petty (2004)
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