(Week 12) Larrivee's Levels of Reflection

For my last post in my Learning Log for Lorayne's course "Critical and Reflective Practice in Education", I would like to use Larrivee's assessment tool to describe my own level of reflection, both past and present.

Early in my teaching career, before 2008, I was, as the above card accurately portrays, mainly in the Pre-Reflection (Level 1) and Surface Reflection (Level 2) stages.  Why do I think so?  Well, I taught my classes with the express purpose of relaying information with minimal support from any established theories, research or best practices.  As such, I was very teacher-centered considering most of my beliefs were based on my own classroom experience.  My focus was on short-term results and did not recognize the different learning needs of students.  As described in the article, my concern was, "mainly with means, rather then ends".

Since this time, I have been engaging in much higher levels of reflection.

Based on the following descriptors, in Larrivee's article, I would say that I'm currently navigating between Levels 3 and 4:

To break this down even further, before Lorayne's class, my practice indicated I was more in Level 3.  Having completed an M.Sc. in Linguistics at Aston University, in 2008, I developed a good habit of questioning my own assumptions and strategies based on theory and research in the field of TESL including how:

•  ELL's successfully acquire a second language, 
• to measure learning needs 
• to implement different methodologies such as Problem-Based Learning
• to assess students fairly, 
• to involve students' prior knowledge, 
• find alternative ways to represent information, and;
• constructively criticize my own learning

However, it wasn't until I moved back to Canada, in 2012, when I started to think beyond the classroom and different theories to look very seriously at what it means to have a quality educational experience and reflect upon the principles of justice and equality.  In Lorayne's course, my Critical Incident group used my current situation as the "International Student Support Officer" to address the "low retention rates of International students at Algoma University".  Based on the realities of my job, I've encountered a great deal of diversity, and because of this, I've had to seriously reexamine and question my own set of believes and learn how to suspend judgement - all of which, according to Larrivee, are descriptors of Critical Reflection!  

(Week 9) Critical Incidents

In Week 9, we discussed the article by Griffin (2002) "Using critical incidents to promote and assess reflective thinking in preservice teachers".  This article triggered me to think back to the time when I graduated from Lakehead University to teach overseas.  As I mentioned in my second post of this blog "My Journey", I taught ESL in Korea using a toolbox full of the knowledge and skills I learned in my teacher education program.  However, based on my inexperience in the classroom - not being much more than a pre-service teacher, I quickly reverted back my own education experience as a kid, full of assumption and believes about what and how to teach.  The article refers to this phenomenon as a 'latent philosophy of education" (Henry, 1999, p. 53). However, I wonder about the term "latent" because in my experience, you can spot a new teacher a mile away!

The main reason, I believe, this happened is because, during this time, I was a very "concrete thinker" as opposed to an "alert novice" which means that I was more concerned with, as the article explains, the 'how to' or 'what works' questions or the effective application of skills and technical knowledge in the classroom.  As I reflect back on this time, there was also another barrier for me as a young teacher and that was "time".  I was required to teach 30 contact hours with students ranging in age from 5 to 18 years of age which left me no chance to reflect upon my own practice.  During these years oversees, I was more concerned with organizing my lessons, keeping track of attendance and motoring students' behavior in my classes.  The 5 minutes afforded between classes and the limited prep-time did not adequately provide time for critical reflection.  Problems or challenges which I identified were more often than not, addressed on the fly without being recorded for subsequent review.  Over time, as I mentioned in my second post, this led me to feeling of frustration and disappointment because I knew there was more to education than just the transfer of information.

I posted the above picture because this is how I often felt teaching in the kind of environment described above.  Deep down inside, I knew that sticking to the teacher-centered style of learning, although easier to manage the students, was a disservice to the students and to my own professional growth as a teacher.

(Week 6) Towards a Theory of Online Learning

For Week 6, we had an asynchronous class where we were responsible for submitting a paper based on our reflection on Anderson's paper "Towards a theory of online learning".  For this paper, we were to consider our own needs as a learner in this online class and the elements of design which are optimal for them.

Having spent 15 years in the field of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), I have come to a place where, as I reflect on this time, I see two particular areas of need bubbling on the surface. The first is my need, or thirst, for knowledge in the field of Educational Technology.  The second, is my need to be challenged and to approach topics from more of an analytical or critical point of view so that I may improve upon my current practice.  
I see these two needs being interlinked and because of that I would like to keep them in the same melting pot as I continue my reflection.

In my paper, I talked about the general design of the UOIT program and the affordances of the Internet, as I described what facets of the platform have been optimal for my aforementioned learning needs.  For this blog, I would like to reflect more specifically on Lorayne's Critical and Reflective Practice in Education.  I will start out by saying that this course has been the best one I have taken so far in the program because of Lorayne's emphasis on, as the name of the course mirrors,  "reflection" and about being "critical". Through the ongoing interaction within the breakout rooms and group work, I have been able to learn through other participants' perspectives and gather firsthand information from real-life contexts.  Like other courses, there has been an emphasis put on the core readings but Lorayne is able to bring the concepts to life by giving us the time we need to reflect on the ideas.  In other courses, I always felt pushed or rushed to move on to new concepts without being able to dive deeper into what was presented.  Because we were able to work together, and effectively share our ideas I really feel that I've belonged to a real community of learners and that Lorayne has kept the focus on student-centered education.  

As I wrote in my paper, I would like "to be able to incorporate technology into the classroom and feel adequately prepared for a world where everything is in constant flux".  Through the UOIT program, I have come to the realization that there is not one simple recipe which will work for every classroom and that a teacher has to be very flexible and open to new ideas.  

During the first 8 courses in the M.Ed program, I have been exposed to many different learning theories and methodologies.  However, it is through the collaboration and dialogue with other professionals that I have been able to synthesize and be critical of the  information and ideas, where i feel the real learning begins.  In this respect, I see this higher order thinking to be integral to any graduate program.  

(Week 5) Reflective Practice in the Civil Society

(Week 5)

In Week 5, the second assigned reading was an article entitled, "Reflective Practice in the Civil Society: The contribution of critically systemic thinking" by Ulrich (2000).  Although this was one of the more difficult articles to get through, I really enjoyed its content.   

Ulrich's ideas revolving around corporatist society, including special interest groups, having more "legitimacy" than the individual citizen really struck a cord with me.  To explain why, I would like to apply his ideas to the field of education.

Everyday, as a teacher, I feel the separation that exists between the world of teacher and that of academic research.  Unfortunately, much of the educational research conducted by those in the academy is largely irrelevant to teachers' lives in schools.  On the other hand, many academics dismiss the knowledge produced through teacher research as trivial and inconsequential to their work. This kind of mistrust and under-appreciation creates a power struggle in education, which, as Ulrich mentions in his article, leaves very little room for teacher to act as an "individual" or to function as a "citizen".

In the article, Ulrich talks about the difference between "professionals" and "lay people".  At no time do I personally consider teachers to be considered part of the "lay people" category.  To enter, and stay in, the teaching profession, requires a high level of education, training and professional development.  As I reflect on this point, I can see more clearly why academics view teachers as a treat to sound professional practice rather than a basis and support for it.  As the article suggests, there really needs to a bridge between civil society (the teacher) and the concept of professionalism (the academic).

At the start of this post, I put the picture of the "eye" because of the following quote from the article: "Reflective practice risks being blind if it shuts its eye to the issue of responsible citizenship."  To legitimatize and include teachers reflections, I agree with Ulrich in that the notion of citizenship has to change to include a new set of "civil competencies".  His concept of boundary judgments, shown below, as a way to deal with the divides between the individual and the corporatist society makes room for this to happen.

By understanding the context of each group, educational research can include both teacher produced knowledge and knowledge produced by those in the academy. This will go a long way to close the divide which exists between the tow and greatly benefit the processes of teacher development, school reform, and teacher education.  

(Week 4) Critical Reflection

In this post I would like to reflect on Jack Mezirow's article "Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood", which was very helpful in differentiating between meaning schemes and meaning perspectives.  The former is based on habit or event sequences such as the sun rises in the east and set in the west.  The latter, are made up of higher order schemata, which are open to assumptions based on one's past experiences, belief systems, cultural assimilation, etc.  I like the example, given in the article about the painting and how one might judge it to be beautiful whereas another person may think it is ugly based on certain stereotypes and/or ways of knowing which are usually imprinted upon us at a very young age.

Reading through Mezirow's article, I learned that critical reflection is to "challenge the validity of presuppositions in prior learning".  In this sense, "to be critical, one has to challenge what has already been established as far as the problem and reassess our own orientation to perceiving, knowing, believing, feeling and acting".

The article goes on to identify 3 common areas of distortion in meaning perspective where meaning perspectives can be transformed - epistemic, sociocultural and psychic.

I would like to reflect on the socio-cultural distortion by using the following video:

Socio-cultural distortion is about our "belief systems that pertain to power and social rlationships, especially those currently prevailing and legitimized and enforced by institutions".  In the video, it talks about labels which are given from birth.  The world "force feeds" us these labels which we must swallow, digest and accept.  I really like the part of the video where the speaker talks about his body as a vehicle that he drives around and how people judge him for his body, not for who he is on the inside.  The dealership is society who labels certain editions "black" or "white" and once you have a car you are forced to drive it the rest of your life.  Growing up in a small town like Sault Ste Marie there are many stereotypes against people who are not white, middle class, "ordinary folk". As such, it is difficult for many of our International students to feel comfortable when they leave our campus which is very diverse.  They feel like they do have labels attached to me especially if they wear their customary dress from their home country!