becoming a critically reflective teacher: to face the...

International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(11): 416 - 437 (2010)

CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org

Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher: To Face the Challenge of Education Reform in Hong Kong Tammy Kwan, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR Rosemary Simpson, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR Abstract: In recent decades teachers have been constantly encouraged to engage in reflective practice. However, without clear guidelines, this can easily become rather superficial. This paper describes a MEd elective module of two phases which offered concrete practical advice to help teachers reflect effectively, based on their own choice of a critical significant incident. In Phase One the teachers engaged in unstructured, intuitive reflection. After group sharing/discussion, the tutors introduced several theoretical frameworks providing a more structured approach. This was implemented in Phase Two where each teacher had to use one or more models to structure their reflection. Again this was supplemented by collaborative group reflection. A teacher case is reported here illustrating the operation of the two phases. The paper concludes by discussing how the use of significant incidents with a structured reflective model can help teachers become genuinely effective reflective practitioners resulting in meaningful outcomes. Key words: Critically reflective teacher, critical and significant incidents, models of reflection, collaborative group reflection Introduction Since the announcement of the 2000 Education Reform process by the Education and Manpower Bureau1

(EMB) of Hong Kong, education has taken centre stage in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) when advocating conditions and resources for schools, teachers, parents and society to prepare for the next learning generation. Pupils are expected to develop critical minds and open attitudes and to engage in lifelong meaningful learning to prepare them to cope with an expanding knowledge society. With this background in mind, the Education Reform advocates a fundamentally different philosophy of teaching and learning to meet the new challenge. This is particularly the case for the New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum first implemented in September 2009. While pupils are expected to live up to the motto of ‘learning to learn’ (Curriculum Development Council, 2000), teachers are also charged with the responsibility to teach with innovative ideas, pedagogies and approaches. This involves teachers committing themselves to continuous professional development as classroom action researchers (McKernan 1996) and reflective practitioners (Schön 1983). To perform these roles effectively, teachers are encouraged to engage in on-going reflective practice. This is also emphasized by the Advisory Committee of Teacher Education and Qualifications (ACTEQ) of Hong Kong in 2003 which describes teaching as a ‘learning profession’.

1 The Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) of Hong Kong was subsequently renamed to become Education Bureau (EDB) of Hong Kong in September 2007.



ACTEQ (2003) proposed a teaching competencies framework to enable teachers to demonstrate their achievement of continuous professional development. Within the framework, there are four domains; namely teaching and learning; student development; school development; and professional relationship & services; which form the basis of meaningful evaluation of teaching performance. In order to actualize the expectation of professional development upon them, teachers need to constantly engage in purposeful self- and group-reflection with the aim of becoming a critically reflective teacher (Brookfield 1995). However, many teachers do not fully appreciate or understand what is meant by reflective practice and how they can engage effectively in critical reflection. This is particularly the case when most of the teachers in Hong Kong were brought up and trained by the traditional mode of teacher-centred way of teaching. While it is challenging to ask teachers to be reflective (Sumsion, 2000), there is no one particular way or structure that works best for enhancing reflection (Spalding & Wilson, 2002). Though working with the pre-service teachers, Ramsey asked a very fundamental question “How can pre-service teachers’ reflection be enhanced?” which is applicable to all teachers concerned (Ramsey 2010, 206). Without clear guidelines, teachers in general tend to fall into the habit of simply thinking in a rather superficial way about what they have done in their teaching (Zuber-Skerritt 1989, vii). Such superficial ‘reflection’ does not help teachers to address genuine concerns that arise from their teaching environment and hence does not bring about any meaningful action to rectify or improve teaching at all. To address the call from teachers to get practical insight and advice on learning to become critically reflective and to demonstrate meaningful achievement of continuous professional development, an elective module on ‘Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher’ was offered to the M.Ed. programme run by the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, to prepare committed teachers to participate in genuine and meaningful critical reflection. Reflective Practice: meaning and definitions

Donald Schön (1983) introduced ‘reflective practice’ in education studies as a continuous process involving the teacher referring to critical incidents in his/her life's experiences. However, such reflective practice often begins with an unstructured approach and appears more as a self directed process which may not enable the teacher to move from a mere ‘thinking’ process to a higher level of reflection and action. To enable the teacher to make sense of the educational implications of significant incidents arising from teaching, he/she has to use relevant knowledge and theories to justify related action and decision taking.

According to Zuber-Skerritt (1989), three situations representing different levels of reflective practice should supersede the mere thinking level of reflection. They are:

1. the teacher improves and develops his/her own work and his/her own teaching situation by some justified action;

2. the teacher interlinks tightly his/her reflection and action; and 3. the teacher makes his/her experiences (reflection) public not only to other

teaching colleagues but also to other people interested in and concerned about the



work and the situation, i.e. the public theories and practices of the work and the situation

Santandreu and Cheung (2008) suggest that teachers engaging in reflective practice should also be involved in a process of solving problems encountered during a critical teaching incident. Teachers are encouraged to do their best to reconstruct meaning from such problems or incidents to bring about improvements in their own teaching and ideally in the learning among their students. They echo Schön’s (1983) reference to the process of the individual teacher studying his/her own teaching methods and determining what works best for his/her students. Such reflective practice begins from the personal self (similar to the first situation proposed by Zuber-Skerritt) and is then subsequently taken to the public arena by sharing with a collegial group.

Schön (1987) calls for a new epistemology of practice and a rethinking of education for reflective practice (p.1) which he refers to ‘knowing-in-action’, ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflection-on-action’. While reflection-in-action may be undertaken without the practitioner being able to say what he/she is doing, it is the reflection on the past reflection-in-action, often based on the happening of a significant or perhaps critical incident, that helps the teacher to consider and shape his/her future actions (p.31). Killion and Todnem (1991) expand Schön’s typology to include ‘reflection-for-action’ whereby teachers look into the future and become proactive in making commitments to improve their teaching. This type of reflection forms the desired outcome of the previous two processes as advocated by Schön and the three levels perceived by Zuber-Skerritt.

In fact, even in the early days of discussions on reflective teaching, John Dewey (1933) made it clear that teachers do not just learn from experience but from reflecting on their experience. This prompts the teachers to inquire into such an experience until relevant knowledge and meaning is found to substantiate their beliefs and justify their actions. Such reflections on experience and the chosen incident do not only bring about new understanding, but also help them to critique, challenge and ultimately transform practice. Brookfield (1987) sees reflection as involving the process of integrating theory and practice to help practitioners to construct new knowledge and develop new behaviours and insights. Boud, Keogh and Walker (1984) describe reflective practice as an activity which leads to the recognition of new perspectives and assumptions with a corresponding change in behaviours and relationships. Hall (1997) uses the term “pedagogical reflective practice” to address a deliberate action undertaken by a teacher with the intention to sustain reflection and action for the purpose to make better improvement to subsequent teaching. Moon (1999, 55) describes reflective practice as “… teachers’ abilities to discuss their own practice, appraise ethical and moral issues in teaching, take greater responsibility for their own development, and develop personal theories of educational practice”. It may seem that teaching with reflection is what well prepared and effective teachers have always done. Many teachers regularly examine their beliefs and practices and perhaps even reveal underlying assumptions in order to improve their teaching. However, reflective teaching is more than merely good preparation and effectiveness. According to Bailey (1997) it is different or distinctive in two major areas:



• the collection of primary and secondary data about teaching; and • the use of the information gained as a basis for critical reflection about teaching.

This concept of professional knowledge reminds teachers that teaching is no longer seen as simply a skillful job of merely transmission of knowledge to the learners. Instead, it requires inputs from various sources to help the teacher concerned to make meaning out of his/her everyday teaching experience. This often involves the conscious act of journal writing as descriptive data on which subsequent reflection can take place. Thus, teachers examine their own teaching and their students’ learning from various perspectives and combine this with pedagogical theories in order to improve current practices, then leading to develop new practices, behaviours and relationships. It is an emancipatory process that frees teachers from existing patterns of teaching, assumptions and restrictive theories and pedagogies and allows individualised constructions and reconstructions to make meaning for teaching and learning. Such constructions are then re-examined through reflection and the cycle continues with enhanced student learning outcome and teacher satisfaction and professional development as the ultimate expectations. As with any new practice, it is important to identify the benefits in order to encourage practitioners to engage in persistent reflection. The very definition shows that reflective teaching starts, and indeed mostly operates, at a very individualistic level. It is not something that can be forced on teachers as an add-on. Instead they must be made to understand and appreciate the benefits to them, to their students and to other stakeholders in education. Engaging in reflective practice does not mean a teacher being incompetent and hence is in need of reflection to improve his/her practice. Indeed, some benefits of reflective teaching can be identified from the various definitions – it should become a habit for committed teachers, student learning is enhanced, new practices behaviours and relationships are developed and teachers begin to construct their own knowledge of teaching in a more formal manner allowing genuine professional growth. However, York-Barr, et al. (2001) lists other benefits of reflective practice whether it is undertaken at the individual level, with a partner or in a group. Individual reflection is likely to allow the teacher to develop a greater awareness of professional performance and different ways of thinking when problems arise, as well as a clearer vision of personal and professional purpose. When one reflects with a partner there would be benefits such as greater insight and increased professional and social support. If reflection is undertaken within a group, there would be more resources available and collegial support. The collegiality developed during the process of group reflection could possibly improve the efficiency of the collaborative climate within the school. Over riding all three levels of reflection, are likely the benefits of enhanced student learning and the development of a foundation for continuous professional learning among the teachers involved in the process of both individual and group reflection. Reflective Practice: Models and Processes Returning to Schön’s main processes of reflection, in-action occurs when something does not meet with our expectations and when we are surprised. The unexpected consequences of one action influence the next action. When we reflect on our reflection-in-action and are able to produce a good account of it and then reflect on that account, we are reflecting-for-action. When combined with professional knowledge, this enables us to



develop personal theories of educational practice and so enhance student learning. These different types of reflection form a cycle of reflection and action. Teachers can use or adapt them as a tool to help them to embark on their initial individual reflection and then progress to subsequent group reflection and so reveal underlying hidden assumptions on action not only from a personal intuitive manner but also from a systematic hierarchical reflection. According to Brookfield (1995) assumptions are the taken-for-granted beliefs and suppositions about the world and our place within it. In many ways we are our own assumptions. Assumptions give meaning and purpose to who we are and what we do. Becoming aware of these implicit assumptions that frame how we think and act is a puzzling intellectual challenge. It is perhaps also something that we instinctively resist, for fear of what we might eventually discover. Assumptions often influence and even govern actions. Cranton (in Stein 2000, 3) argues that critical reflection not only allows us to identify our assumptions but helps us to “locate the historical and cultural origins of the assumptions, question the meaning of the assumptions, and develop alternative ways of acting.” Cranton in fact has echoed Brookfield that with critical reflection we can challenge prevailing ways of acting and, by blending this with theoretical knowledge; we can construct new knowledge, embark on new behaviours and possess new insights. Brookfield (1988) in his earlier work, identified four processes required for critical reflection - assumption analysis, contextual awareness, imaginative speculation and reflective skepticism. Reflective skepticism is the outcome of the first three processes. Contextual awareness equates to Cranton’s locating of historical and cultural origins of assumptions. Imaginative speculation calls for a challenge to our ways of knowing and acting and looking for alternatives. But it is Brookfield’s focus on assumptions in the process of critical reflection that we would like to highlight and share with a wider audience. Brookfield (1995) proposed a model for the process of critical reflection that centres on identifying and questioning three different categories of assumption related to practice. They are:

• causal which concern the implications that an action taken will result in certain outcome.

• prescriptive which concern our behaviours and our needs to do things that we think ‘should’ be happening, and

• paradigmatic which concern our most deep-seated beliefs and things that we ‘know’ to be ‘true’ and is considered to be the most difficult to uncover.

Among the three categories, causal is considered to be the easiest assumption to identify among the three. Brookfield (2008) later identifies four characteristics of assumptions. Assumptions are:

1. often seen as causal understandings that we use to explain the workings of the world;

2. often underscored by reference to direct evidence in the form of personal experience;

3. distinguished from beliefs by their emphasis on empirical evidence; and 4. often framed in predictive terms, i.e. certain conditions will result certain

consequences.



Brookfield (1995) also noted earlier the questioning and analysis of the characteristics and categories of assumptions can be done via four different perspectives or ‘critically reflective lenses’ to help reflecting and understanding our practices. These lenses are:

• the teacher’s autobiographies as a learner him or herself; • through students’ eyes; • the experiences of our colleagues; and • the insight provided by the theoretical literature.

Henderson (1992) provides a process which can help teachers identify their assumptions and any biases they may hold. It is a process of ‘personal-professional enquiry’ by which the following questions are asked:

• What beliefs do I hold about teaching? • What teaching format do I choose and why? • Why do I want to be a teacher? What excites me about education? • How do I view control? How do I respond to students who are passive /

withdrawn / aggressive / rebellious / disruptive? • What factors might promote or hinder my development as a reflective teacher?

Among others, Ghaye & Ghaye (1998) emphasize the holistic integration of reflective practice through four key foci, namely, reflection-on-values (being a professional); reflection-on-practices (resolving teaching concerns in the classroom); reflection-on-improvement (the validation of practice) and reflection-on-context (partnership in practice). Van Manen (1977) identifies three hierarchical levels of critical reflection, namely:

• technical reflection which is concerned with the effectiveness of means to achieve given ends in practice;

• practical reflection which is of concern in examining assumptions of means and goals of practice; and

• critical reflection which is concerned with issues involving ethical and moral criteria

Virtually all models and discussions of reflective practice start with individual reflection. Some take this idea forward to include reflection with others. The model by York-Barr and others (2001) looks at individual reflection and then spirals this out to reflection with a partner, in small groups or even school wide. It is this idea of reflecting with a partner or small group that we advocate in the Elective course. York-Barr et al (2001, 12) provide a cogent explanation for incorporating reflection with others:

“…reflective practice must extend beyond the individual teacher. Lived experiences are a powerful influence on the formation of beliefs and values and these are the driving forces behind our actions. As we better develop our reflective practice capacities we can better influence reflection with others and this in turn helps us to become better reflective practitioners”.

As more people become involved in the reflective process there are certainly risks of diverging conflicts but there is also greater potential to improve educational practice and therefore greater potential to enhance student learning significantly. Reflecting with others may help us to identify assumptions and biases we hold. If we only use our own



view of the world and ignore the perspectives of others, we are at risk that our reflection will lead to us justifying and validating our own existing behaviours and perhaps indulging into those behaviours. A collaborative relationship which focuses on researching teachers’ work is a useful tool for enhanced professional development (Goodson 1997). Eventually through the use of one or more models as tools for reflection really relies on teacher’s self consciousness and his/her self open mindedness to make such reflection purposeful, meaningful and effective. To assess a teacher’s levels of reflection, Larrivee (2008) has recently developed an instrument which discusses “the need for a commonly shared language to categorize the various levels involved in becoming a critically reflective teacher. … The aim of this assessment tool is to provide a way to gauge how a prospective or practicing teacher is progressing as a reflective practitioner to serve as a vehicle for facilitating the development of structures to mediate higher order reflection.” (2008, 341). However, it has to be cautious that we should not view reflection as strictly an intellectual process (Boud &Walker, 1998) and the practice of reflection cannot be mandated as it is really a matter of teacher self ownership and commitment (Helterbran 2008). Critical and Significant Incidents While we have clarified the purpose and meaning of reflection and the need for teachers to undertake reflective in the era of education reform, we have also turned to models and theories to use as tools to guide teachers on how to undertake reflection systematically. Next we must try to identify what it is that teachers are expected to reflect upon. Reflection requires us to refer to an ‘incident’ or ‘episode’ (Tripp 1993, 1994) or ‘scenario’ (Santoro & Allard, 2008) that happens during teaching. It is an integral part of the teacher’s classroom experiences. An incident that happens or is created within a lesson is later referred to as ‘critical’ or ‘significant’ because it means something specific to the teacher concerned. Critical incidents are not at all dramatic or obvious (Tripp 1994) and often they can be straightforward accounts of very common place events that occur in routine professional practice. Such an incident could be of very short duration and yet still be highly significant to the teacher. The incident can last a few minutes or a segment of the lesson. It can span a whole lesson or even a sequence of lessons. Often there are critical moments characterized by an element of unpredictability which can be problematic for the teacher, calling for an on-the-spot adjustment (reflection-in-action) or professional reassessment of the planned course of the lesson. They are critical in the sense that they represent a point at which the lesson may take quite different directions depending on the teacher’s response to them. Not only are these moments critical but they are also of significance to the teachers in the sense that the eventual action taken to handle and address these incidents will certainly affect the teacher’s future actions of planning and teaching. As a result, the incident is both critical and significant and thus forms valuable data for reflection. The MEd Elective ‘Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher’ It was with the theoretical and historical background of reflective practice, and also the belief and commitment to best teaching practice, and recognition of societal needs in



helping teachers to learn to become critically reflective teachers, that a new M.Ed. Elective module was first taught in February 2007 in the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. The synopsis of this Elective, comprising 10 sessions of 150 minutes (a total of 25 hours) face-to-face delivery mode, states:

Since Donald Schön first introduced the concept of the reflective practitioner in 1983, his ideas have been taken up in a variety of professions, particularly the teaching profession. But how, in practice, does one become a truly reflective teacher in order that one’s professional development will be effectively enhanced? The Elective guides the teachers through a range of processes that will help them become critically reflective about their own teaching and their students’ learning. It will examine issues such as journal writing, reflecting with a critical friend, group collaboration, mentoring and teacher autonomy. An important feature of this elective is that the participants will draw upon and share their own classroom and professional experiences through their own identification of critical incidents (Master of Education Student Handbook 2007-2008, 80).

The objectives of the Elective module are to:

• develop a thorough understanding of the nature of reflective practice and of the range of models described in the literature;

• apply this understanding to one’s own experiences, particularly in relation to critically analyzing classroom events; and

• share reflective analyses of each others’ experiences in a collaborative mode;

Part / Session

Topic

Part 1 / Sessions 1-2

Session 1: Introduction: the nature of reflection and reflective practices. Session 2: Classroom Incidents: description and analysis of critical / significant incidents.


Sessions 3-5: Phase One reflection. Using an intuitive approach, each participating teacher will do a 10-minute presentation of his/her chosen classroom incident followed by 15 to 20 minutes of whole class critical discussion.

Part 3 / Session 6

Session 6: Theoretical frameworks and models used for critical reflection (e.g. Ghaye & Ghaye, Brookfield, Taggart & Wilson, York-Barr et al etc.)


Sessions 7-9: Phase Two reflection. Using a structured approach of a preferred framework / model of critical reflection, each participating teacher will do a 10-minute presentation of another chosen classroom incident followed by 15 to 20 minutes of whole class critical discussion to enhance collaborative meta-reflection and critical analysis.

Part 5 / Session 10

Session 10: Extending / Broadening the foci and the practice of critical reflection

Figure 1 : The module structure and content of the MEd Elective This MEd Elective module has course content in five parts (See Figure 1) which include two phases (parts 2 and 4) of reflection of critical/significant classroom incidents. The first part of two sessions is an introductory overview of reflective practice as discussed in the key literature in terms of its meaning, purposes, foci, types and processes to help



participating teachers to acquire a general idea about reflection. The meaning of critical and significant incidents was introduced to reveal how possible meaningful reflection could take place. The second part of three sessions of the Elective required each participating teacher take a turn to go through a simple 3-stage structure or process of “intuitive” reflection on a self chosen critical incident. The 3-stage intuitive process of reflection of the incident includes: 1. Description (by individual teacher) 2. Analysis (with all group members of the elective), and 3. Pro-active Reflection (by the whole group). In this second part or Phase One reflection, each participating teacher had to describe and share a critical significant incident of their own choice with all the other teachers in the Elective group. They were asked to share their description by providing brief details of the background and context of the chosen incident and at the end of each description, a brief reason giving some indication of why they thought the incident was one that merited reflection. In each session, there were four to five incidents to be shared. Each teacher was asked to present their chosen incident on the ‘Interactive Learning Network’ platform so that others in the Elective group could read before attending the face-to-face session. Each teacher after presenting his/her incident would go through the other two-stage intuitive process of ‘analysis’ and the ‘pro-active reflection’ with the other group members by addressing questions raised by them. These questions were essentially aim to help with better and clearer understanding of what happened, why it happened, and what could be learned from the incident if it happened again and would the teacher opted for alternative action to address the incident. In this first phase of reflection, the teachers were not asked to refer to any particular model but were expected to ‘reflect’ in a more or less intuitive manner. Nevertheless, four questions based on Smyth (1989) were provided to offer some systematic initial guidance:

1. What did I do? (description) 2. What does this mean? (information) 3. How did I come to think or act like this? (confrontation) 4. How might I do things differently? (reconstruction)

In other words, the purpose of preparing for the second part of the Elective course (phase one reflection) was to get each teacher to describe and analyze their own chosen significant incident before they attended the face-to-face session. During the session, the presenting teacher had to answer questions raised by the group about the incident to gain a better understanding of why the incident has been chosen as critical. The group dynamic was further developed into a discussion and evaluation of the effects of the incident on the different players involved including the teacher, the pupils and others. There was the chance to discuss possible alternatives and to identify broader issues that could arise from the incident. In brief, this part of the first phase of intuitive reflection of a significant incident rests on three key steps, namely, individual description, group analysis and group pro-active reflection.



Part three of the Elective course introduces a number of common models of collaborative reflection, each with a distinctive characteristic, as a basis for understanding and reflecting on any chosen incident. The common models addressed are:

1. Ghaye and Ghaye model which emphasizes on holistic integration of practices; 2. Brookfield model which emphasizes on questioning assumptions and looking

through different ‘lenses’; 3. York-Barr and others’ model has emphasis on the connection between individual,

partners, small-group or team and school wide levels of reflective practice; and the

4. Van Manen model is mainly reflection to reveal the hierarchical levels of practice. There is the emphasis to ask the presenting teachers to adopt an appreciation that:

• no matter which model is used to reflect on their teaching, the notions of ongoing action research and joint collaborative reflection are critical and important; and

• using any model is only a way of helping teachers to focus on specific aspects of our reflection and there is no reason why teachers can not use a combination of models to make their reflections more meaningful.

Part four represents a second phase of reflection on self-identified critical / significant incidents. However, this time, each presenting teacher was asked to refer to a particular model of reflection of their own choice as a guide for their reflection when they went through the 3-stage process of reflection as they had gone through in their first phase of reflection. The last part of the Elective addresses the significance and importance of establishing a collaborative reflective culture and identifying important foci of reflection of critical / significant incidents within each school. To demonstrate their ability to reflect critically, apart from the two incidents they had already reflected upon during the two phases of reflection in the Elective course, each participant also had to choose one other incident presented by a peer on which to evaluate the quality of the critical reflection using one of the models of reflection to provide criteria. This final activity forms the assessment task of the course. Critical Reflection on Classroom Significant Incidents In this section, Rosemary (a high school English novice teacher who was in her first year of teaching after the completion of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme and invited co-author of this paper as one of the participating teachers of the Elective course) presents her two classroom incidents to illustrate how she moved from individual to group critical reflection and also from an ‘unstructured’ to a model–based format to enhance her systematic and critical reflection.



Rosemary’s Phase One Classroom Incident

The school where I teach is a Band Three2 CMI school3

. Classes in Hong Kong schools are often streamed by ability based on tests in several core subjects including English. This means that there can be a wide variety of abilities in the classes. One of the Secondary Four (S4) classes that I teach has a few students from 4A, several from 4B and the majority from 4C which makes up a total of 21 students.

The students generally have trouble with writing coherent essays and so I decided to try using mind maps with them. We looked at a story we had already read and did the process in reverse. We then studied a scenario and discussed what we would need to write a story using mind mapping. The students were very familiar with “wh” questions and seemed to understand this concept well. They wrote a short story in class from the mind map we had brainstormed and seemed to do reasonably well. “Success” I thought. “Here I have a useful strategy.” The following week the students had a picnic day and S4 went to Ocean Park (a very popular theme park in Hong Kong). In the next lesson the students told me about their trip. We constructed a mind map using their information and recollections. I retold the story, orally from the mind map. The students personalized the mind map and started a writing task about their trip to Ocean Park. This task was to be completed for homework. Over the next couple of lessons most of the compositions were returned – all at least a page. Again I thought “Success!” Then I started reading them. Regardless of the fact that the students had had varying experiences and most of their mind maps were slightly different, virtually all their compositions were a rendition of the story I created from the mind map we discussed in class together. I was extremely disappointed and down hearted that something that seemed so promising had failed so dismally.

Questions raised by the group members during the Elective session: After Rosemary presented and highlighted the essence of her incident to all the group members of the Elective course, the following questions were put to Rosemary to get a better idea to help them to understand her incident. This also enabled Rosemary to consider aspects that she may not have considered before. The questions are:

• Did the writing have a particular focus on linguistic structure or on a particular style of writing?

• Rosemary has spotted ‘successes among the students. But were there any sign of ‘success’ or ‘learning’ as according to the students?

• Were students aware of writing their own story of the picnic to Ocean Park or writing up the teacher’s story of picnic according to the mind map that she built up on the blackboard? If the latter, did they have the assumption that their homework writing had to be based on the construction of the teacher’s mind map which represented the various information as given by various students in the class?

2 Hong Kong Schools are generally classified into three bandings with Band 1 schools usually accepting pupils of highest academic ability while Band 3 schools usually accepting pupils of lower academic performance. 3 Hong Kong schools have to apply the use the medium of instruction being either English (EMI), or Chinese (CMI) or Putonghua (PTH) according to the principle that the pupils will benefit their learning most under that particular medium of instruction.



• Did the teacher specify word length, use of vocabulary to the students? Were the students asked to use adjectives to describe feeling? Did the student know to use past tense to describe an event that had already happened?

We can see that most of the questions asked by the peers of the Elective course moved from the teacher side to the students’ perspective which also prompted Rosemary to further reflect by herself moving away from mere concern of self-centeredness. Rosemary’s Reflection on Her Phase One Classroom Incident Apparently for most of the novice teachers, they tend to put focus on themselves as a teacher to consider what to teach and how to teach well. They may not be able to ask themselves ‘why’ they have to teach certain topic to the students. However, after writing up the incident and beginning to think more deeply into why she considered that incident should worth her reflection, together listening to the questions raised by her peers, Rosemary had the following questions asked to herself:

• What were the students' expectations of what I wanted? After speaking to a colleague I came to realize that the students were concerned about giving the answer I wanted - My answer! The teacher’s answer!

• Should I separate grammatically correct writing from creative writing and merge the two later?

• Did I underestimate how new this style of writing (i.e. mind-mapping) was to the students?

After the Elective session, Rosemary had a few more ideas to reflect on and she put them up onto the interactive learning platform to share with all her peers:

• Maybe personalizing a learning product is too threatening for the students at this stage.

• What were my expectations that led to me being so disappointed? • Did the students adapt their own mind maps during my retelling of the story? • The students all produced a coherent piece of writing. Maybe I should have focused on

the positive a bit more. Implications of Rosemary’s Phase One Reflection Rosemary has given a very detailed but concise descriptive account of what the classes and students are like in her school. Being a first year novice teacher, she is obviously concerned that she teaches something useful to her students. However, she is also concerned about which method and strategy will best produce the desired outcome. She was aware of authentic teaching based on students’ direct personal experience, hence the use of the picnic experience that most of the students had enjoyed to build a mind map to illustrate how to write a coherent essay (based on ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ and ‘Why’ etc). With these thoughts in mind, Rosemary assumed the students could each write a ‘successful’ essay to describe their picnic. Yet the outcome was not to her expectations because her students all produced more or less identical essays which resembled the mind map that she had constructed with them in the class. Realizing that this was in fact an ‘unsuccessful’ outcome, Rosemary began to think from the perspective of the students.



She began consulting her colleagues to find out where she might have missed out in the planning stage and how students learn writing in a second language. She began to see she might have made some undue assumptions that students would learn well if teacher had presented and taught well. She began to be aware that her expectations might need readjustment and also that she had to make the writing objectives clear to the students. From the students’ point of view, they might have assumed writing down every thing the teacher had written on the blackboard to form their essay was a sign of a good student showing attentive learning. But from Rosemary’s point of view, receiving almost identical essays from all students showed no differentiation in learning at all. So in this first round of reflection, Rosemary learned how to focus more on how students learn rather than how teachers teach, a move from her own personal teacher perspective to a students’ learning perspective. She also learned from her reflections that she cannot assume learning takes place merely by role demonstration but requires explicit communication of expectations and clarification of focus. She began sharing her concern with another colleague who provided advice and suggestions to enable her to reconsider her next move. The other questions raised by the group further helped Rosemary to reconsider her own teaching expectations and to appreciate what her students had achieved. Rosemary’s Phase Two Classroom Incident Rosemary’s individual reflection on ‘What happened’? (Description of the Incident)

This is 3A class of 30 students doing literature in a double lesson of 80 minutes. The students study a number of fairy tales by Oscar Wilde throughout the year and this was the first introduction to the topic. The format that had been used in previous years was to discuss the story for a double period once a fortnight in four sections. I thought this made the story too disjointed and so I elected to use only two double periods and remove some of the non assessable tasks and just leave in the assessable tasks. The first assessable task was to write a letter of complaint to the local paper about the main character “The Selfish Giant”. The lesson started well. I used pictures of Oscar Wilde, a timeline to place the author and the story and was able to elicit lots of suggestions about how the time period for the story and the author would differ from modern times. The students really enjoyed this. We moved on to reading the first section and understanding antonyms and synonyms. Next we looked at the giant’s behaviour asking questions like ‘Why was the behaviour of the giant selfish?’, ‘What quotes supported this belief?’, and ‘What behaviour would we like the giant to display?’ Then we moved into a section to discuss the format of a letter and how the format of a letter of complaint would be different to a formal or informal letter. I began to notice in this section of the lesson that many students were engaging in off-task behaviour although some were becoming very actively engaged in the discussion. I then set the class task – a 150 word letter of complaint to the newspaper about the giant’s behaviour including suggestions for what could be done or how he should



complain. This would be a first draft and students were to do a final version or revision for homework. Except for the few engaged students, very few students had completed enough of the task to do a final version for homework. In fact many students required “one to one” elaboration just to get started. I then had to spend more time on this story than I really thought was warranted.

Rosemary’s spontaneous individual reflection on ‘Why’? (Analysis/Interpretation) In justifying why she chose to share and report on this incident, Rosemary did her simultaneous analysis to consider the following points crucial and deserving of her reflection for future improvement of her teaching and enhance better learning among her students. The reasons were:

• Although there was a lot of teaching happening, there was not a lot of learning. • This topic had been taught successfully in previous years using this format. Why it did

not work this time? • I felt well prepared and motivated but was unable to infect the students with my

enthusiasm. • Did I start teaching only to those students who seemed to want to learn and ignoring

the others? • Literature is a major, examinable component of the English curriculum.

Following these questions that she asked to herself, Rosemary tentatively had some initial suggestions to a number of factors that could have contributed to the occurrence of this incident. She wrote on the Interactive Learning Network and later elaborated further during the sharing time in the Elective session with her peers:

• I relied too heavily on what had been done before; • I assumed a level of interest in the topic that may have been too high for most students. • As I love literature, I thought this would influence the students. I was ready to really

enjoy the lesson and assumed the students would be too. • Was the task too free and unstructured for these students? Had I overestimated both

their interest level and their capabilities? • Should I have provided some letters of complaint from the newspapers? Students often

respond well to realia and this may have made the task more relevant for them. • Should I have provided an outline for the students to follow if they wished? • Do non assessable tasks give the students an opportunity to work more freely in a safe

environment? • Should I have revised the task completely? Perhaps undertaking a character study or

using a language arts focus would be more useful. Rosemary’s subsequent individual reflection on ‘So What’? (Overall meaning and application)

This seemed like a good incident to reflect upon because, while there was a lot of teaching going on, there wasn’t a lot of learning going. Also, I felt I had slipped into teaching only those students who seemed to want to learn. Literature is a major



component of the English curriculum (and something I love) so why didn’t I do better here? I need to fix this now and move forward. So I could see several areas where I could improve. There were practical issues to consider such as revising the task; the scaffolding for the task; giving examples; providing an outline etc. Other issues included assumptions that my love of an enthusiasm for the topic would be contagious and that if the students could be engaged from the outset they would stay engaged. These ideas gave me plenty of food for thought but I wasn’t sure I had resolved all the issues. I felt I didn’t have enough information to move forward and enhance student learning by my own consideration and reflection. I needed to continue my reflection with a partner. I can see my subsequent reflection is based on a framework that incorporates Brookfield into York-Barr to form my individual reflection and reflection with a partner.

Rosemary’s further reflection with a school-partner As mentioned briefly before, Rosemary was our full time student teacher doing the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme majoring in English Major methods. She did her 13 weeks of teaching practicum in a local mainstream school in Hong Kong. Because of her excellent performance, she was recruited by the principal to become a half-time teaching staff member teaching English since September 2008. Rosemary also applied to do a part time two-year Masters of Education programme with our Faculty and she enrolled to do this new Elective course in the second semester of her first year of part time Med study. Rosemary had a particular close working relationship with her mentor teacher in the school where she initially did her practicum. This mentor later became Rosemary’s colleague when her status changed from a student teacher to a novice beginning teacher in the school. This mentor-colleague was an experience ex-teacher educator from one of the Hong Kong tertiary education institutes before joining the school to take up a senior role. She has rich experience in teaching and also in teacher education. Rosemary developed a habit to share and discuss with this special ‘school partner’. This time after reporting her Phase two incident, she also turned to seek views from her teaching partner in the school. This is what Rosemary got from talking to her school-partner and shared with the peers in the Elective session.

Without being aware of it, the reflection with my partner highlighted many assumptions I had made that I was not fully aware of them myself. I see that these assumptions can be broken down into paradigmatic and prescriptive elements according to Brookfield’s model of reflection and they had made become apparent in our discussion. They were:

Paradigmatic Assumptions: • Students who participate in the task want to learn; and • Only students who participate in the task want to learn.

Prescriptive Assumptions:



• If this is where the students are up to in the curriculum most should be able to do the task;

• Students would be interested in the different format literature lessons offered from usual English classes;

• What worked before should work again – but should it and, in fact, did it work before?

There were other causal assumptions which I had already uncovered for myself, such as, engaged students will stay engaged; my enthusiasm will naturally make the students enthusiastic; removal of non assessable tasks would allow students to focus on assessable tasks.

Now I was ready to make the changes that might lead to enhanced and better student learning. Reflection-for-action will possibly lead to several changes in my future teaching. They include: • a more structured approach to tasks; • shorter tasks to keep students engaged; • use of realia; • pair or group work for the draft; • task revision; and • introduction of a language arts approach.

Post peer-group discussion on further reflection by Rosemary Upon reading and listening to Rosemary’s quick summary of her incident and supplemented the dialogue outcome with her mentor-colleague, her peers in the group also raised a number of questions which prompted her to explain further her underlying assumptions. These questions were:

• Why were you happy with your teaching? • How did you know your students have also enjoyed your teaching and learned

to write the letter of complaint? • How did you judge your students have learned? • To what extent that you were sure the students are familiar with Oscar Wilde? • Were quiet students also learning?

Rosemary reflected further on these questions posed to her:

The class group discussion can be placed in the small group or team reflection in the model as outlined in Appendix 1. This reflection-on-action should lead to changes that result in enhanced student learning. Much of the group discussion focused on two major areas – the assumptions I had made and the action that could follow. The assumptions emerged during my reflection with a colleague were mainly paradigmatic relating to student participation. • Students who participate want to learn; and • Only students who participate want to learn.

In reference to my second assumption, did this mean that I felt that students who don’t participate don’t want to learn? It was interesting to me that such a simple change of phrasing could change the meaning so dramatically. Perhaps I was equating non-participation with a lack of interest in learning and so started teaching only those students who were engaged (by my definition).



How did I define participation? This was not something I had considered as I assumed that the majority of teachers would share a common definition. The proposition was raised that appropriate participation may vary from subject to subject and teacher to teacher. What may be appropriate in English may not be in Science. What Teacher A deems appropriate may be very different to that of Teacher B. Have I considered that there can be both active and passive participation? Students who listen attentively, take notes, explain to others and similar, may be participating just as much as those giving responses and examples, but in a more passive manner Is passive participation more familiar to these students? Although I try to be aware of cultural differences, it is one area that I need to focus on. Many classmates commented that I was looking for a style of participation that was not familiar to the students. It was also suggested that I more explicitly make the students aware of my expectations and ensure an affective learning environment that would encourage this. Does their non-participation reflect that the style of teaching I had adopted was not suited to these students? Although this question was raised the discussion seemed to conclude that this was not the case but more that the style was unfamiliar to the students and that they were also unsure of my expectations of them. Using the combined model of Brookfield and York-Barr (see Figure 2); I can see that I have now uncovered some of the causal, prescriptive and paradigmatic assumptions taken from Brookfield’s model. I had gone through individual reflection and considered what happened, why I think it happened and the significance of the incident. I had also identified some causal assumptions I held. Reflection with a partner/colleague helped me to identify some paradigmatic and prescriptive assumptions and more had been revealed through the group reflection in class. Now I can combine these through reflection-for-action and develop a strategy to enhance student learning. Reflection-for-action had already helped me to identify some possible changes. After the group discussion I still feel these changes are valid. There is a wider issue for me to address though and that is the issue of participation. The questions and discussions around participation and cultural differences made me think further on possible teaching strategies. Teaching and learning involves a lot of interaction in the classroom and obviously I cannot assume that my approach is right for all classes or that there even is a “one size fits all solution”. For me participation is an active exercise in which students look attentive, offer answers and interact. The idea of passive participation had not occurred to me yet I must agree that this is a valid form. It is more common for students in Hong Kong to try to identify what it is the teacher wants before answering rather than “think out loud”. Perhaps a good strategy would be to teach in smaller increments and then brainstorm around these ideas, encouraging all answers no matter how wild or absurd, in order to encourage the students. By creating an environment where all answers are accepted, more students may be willing to offer ideas and answers. Also, I need to identify whether students are off task. By being more aware of different types of on task behaviour as identified in the class discussion, I can positively



encourage these students to also participate in other ways and target those students who really are off task. This may help me overcome the problem I identified in myself where I was teaching only those who were participating - according to my definition. Another point that struck me forcefully was that if I was believed that only students who participate want to learn, why did I not believe the corollary that students who don’t participate don’t want to learn. If, as was pointed out in the group discussion, students non participation reflects more that my style of teaching doesn’t suit these students, then it is up to me to find a solution. In summary then, I need to go back to the literature to look at creating a more affective learning environment for these students. Even if I make all the changes I earlier identified student learning will not be enhanced until the students feel safe to try something new and different and the onus for this is entirely with me.

Concluding Remarks on The Two Phases of Reflection Critical reflection has been introduced to teaching from other disciplines. There are different models for teachers to adopt in their efforts to enhance both student learning and the teacher’s own professional development. Rosemary’s two phases of reflection demonstrate significant differences. In Phase One when there was no deliberate introduction of models or theories to help, the reflection though very genuine and sincere, focused strongly at the descriptive level and sharing was superficial and mainly from Rosemary’s own perspective as a teacher. However, her reflective writing and the in-class group discussion all fell short of a real in-depth structural systematic dissection in which reflection could not lead to meaningful subsequent actions to improve subsequent teaching. With the introduction of a number of major models of reflective practice before the Phase Two of the Elective course, the reflections we get from the teachers clearly show the difference in depth, scope, structure and hindsight. In the Phase Two of reflection, Rosemary has adopted Brookfield and York-Barr et al models to help with her reflection. Rosemary combined the two to bring forward a ‘model’ of her own creation (See Figure 2) to explain, understand, reflect and improve on her second incident. Not only were different implicit assumptions examined and challenged but the complexity of reflection was structurally more systematic and critical, developing from private personal reflection to public group discussion. Rosemary went another step to use Schön’s process to reflect-on-action and then leading to reflection-for-action to enhance students learning. The interaction between external members such as colleague in the school and team members in the Elective course certainly helped Rosemary to be more confident in taking her reflection forward to future action. Thus Rosemary acted at all the three levels that were advocated by Zuber-Skerritt (1989). It also echoes Ramsey’s (2010) call to make it a goal to encourage teachers to reflect at a higher level and from as many levels as possible to strive for critical reflection. With regard to the nature of critical incidents that Rosemary had chosen to reflect on, both incidents showed a strong focus on the effective use of teaching strategies or approaches to bring about meaningful learning to the students. Other common categories of incidents as shared and reflected by the other members of the Elective course included:



dealing with conflict, discipline, assessment, school policy and using the spur of a moment as an opportunity to enhance learning etc. All these are important incidents that urge the teachers to make immediate responses during the moment of occurrence and further prompt them to keep questioning as to whether appropriate action has been taken and would they do the same if a similar incident happened again in the future. Overall, the incident forms an anchorage point for teacher involved to make his/her first step of reflection and learn from the whole process to judge if a rightful professional decision has been made in relation to the incident. While going through a thorough individual ‘think’ level, the use of relevant models help and enable the teacher to make systematic investigation to unfold hidden assumptions and learn to look at the incident from multiple perspectives and levels. This helps to give a fair view as to what appropriate action will be needed in the future. Even more so, the reflection on critical incidents also takes the teacher to leave his/her nutshell classroom and share the occurrence, thinking and action with other members in public (Ramsey, 2010). Hence the reflection is no longer seen as merely private indulgence but is seeking views and opinions from other sources to back up and justify any subsequent action taken. On the whole, teachers are much better prepared and sharpened from such kind of reflection-for-action in teaching. This is also the intention of this M.Ed. Elective course - to help teachers to become critically reflective practitioners who are able to live up to the expectations and meet the challenges of the Education Reform so that teachers are committed to voluntary lifelong reflection that sustains their professional quality. It is by no means to say this Elective course is a perfect ideal one for all teachers. But through the experience of two rounds of reflecting on different incidents, the teachers themselves could tell the difference between intuitive unstructured ‘thinking’ level of reflection with the structured systematic basing on one or more appropriate models of reflection that will help and guide the teachers to expose and charter more meaningful action for future improvement of teaching and learning. In this regards, we have been able to gauge teachers’ professional development through a sound level of critical reflection. Rosemary as a beginning teacher had the clear demonstration of achieving this. Acknowledgement This is our privilege to express our very special thanks and appreciation to Francis Lopez-Real, co-teaching partner of this Elective course, who retired on 30 June 2008. It was a great joy and a wonderful experience to be able to teach with Francis and learn from him.



References Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications. 2003. Towards a Learning Profession: The teacher competencies framework and the continuing professional development of teachers. Hong Kong: ACTEQ. Bailey, K.M. (1997). Reflective Teaching: Situating our stories. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching 7, 1-9 Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (eds.) (1984). Reflection: Turning experience into learning. New York: Routledge. Boud, D. & Walker, D. (1998). Promoting Reflection in Professional Courses: the challenge of context. Studies in Higher Education, vol. 23, 191-206. Brookfield, S.D. (1987). Developing Critical Thinkers. San Francisco: Open University Press. Brookfield, S.D. (1988). Training Educators of Adults: The theory and practice of graduate adult education. New York: Routledge. Brookfield, S.D. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Brookfield, S.D. (2008). Radical Questioning on the Long Walk to Freedom: Nelson Mandela and the practice of critical reflection. Adult Education Quarterly: A Journal of Research and Theory, vol. 58, no. 2, 95-108. Ghaye, A. & Ghaye, K. (1998). Teaching and Learning through Critical Reflective Practice. London: David Fulton Publishers. Goodson, I. (1997). ‘Trendy Theory’ and Teacher Professionalism. Cambridge Journal of Education, vol. 27, no. 1, 7-21 Hall, S. (1997). Forms of Reflective Teaching Practice in Higher Education. Access from http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf1997/hall1.html Helterbran, V. (2008). Professionalism: Teachers taking the reins. A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, vol. 18, no. 3, 123-127. Henderson, J.G. (1992). Reflective Teaching: Becoming an inquiring educator. New York: Macmillan Killion, J.P. & Todnem, G.R. (1991). A Personal process for personal theory building. Educational Leadership, vol. 48, no. 6, 14-16. Larrivee, B. (2008). Development of a tool to assess teachers’ level of reflective practice. Reflective Practice, vol. 9, no. 3, 341-360.



McKernan, J. (1996). Curriculum Action Research: A handbook of methods and resources for the reflective practitioner. London: Kogan Page. Moon, J.A. (1999). Reflection in Learning and Professional Development. London: Kogan Page. Ramsey, S.J. (2010). Making Thinking Public: reflection in elementary teacher education. Reflective Practice, vol. 11, no. 2, 205-216. Santoro, N. & Allard, A. (2008). Scenarios as Springboards for Reflection on Practice: stimulating discussion. Reflective Practice, vol. 9, no. 2, 167-176. Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Smyth, J. (1989). Developing and Sustaining Critical Reflection in Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 40, no. 2, 2-9. Spalding, E., & Wilson, A. (2002). Demystifying Reflection: A study of pedagogical strategies that encourage reflective journal writing. Teachers College Record. Vol.104, 1393-1421. Stein, D. (2000). Teaching Critical Reflection, Myths and Realities No. 7. Access from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/16/7a/20.pdf

Sumsion, J. (2000). Facilitating reflection: a cautionary account. Reflective Practice, vol. 1, no. 2, 199-214.

Tripp, D. (1993). Critical Incidents in Teaching: Developing Professional Judgement. London: Routledge

Tripp, D. (1994). Teachers’ Lives, Critical Incidents and Professional Practice. Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 7, no. 1, 65-76. York-Barr, J., Sommers, W., Ghere, G. & Montie, J. (2001). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools. California: Corwin Press Inc. Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1989). Action Research for Change and Development. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Action Research in Higher Education, Government, and Industry, 20-23 March, Brisbane, Australia.



Appendix 1: Rosemary’s Model of Teacher Reflection (after and adapted from Brookfield and York-Barr et al)

Individual Reflection

What

happened?

Why?

So what?

What Now?

Reflection with

Partner(s) Detection of Assumptions

Reflection in

Small Groups

Or Teams

Reflection-on-action

Reflection-for-action

Enhanced Student

Learning

becoming a critically reflective teacher: to face the...

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