Metareflection

This entry looks back over the previous reflections to consider what themes seem to recur in my thinking about teaching in EDF4113 and why; what’s missing from my reflections; and some thoughts about my ongoing professional learning as a teacher educator. The idea of a meta-reflection is that it is a way of recognising patterns in thinking as a teacher and from that, how future growth might be informed.

My journal began as a way of thinking-aloud in EDF4113 about the teaching, learning and science experienced in the unit. I wanted to share my thinking about how I teach, student responses and my own responses to sessions and how my thinking about these different aspects informs my teaching.

It is clear to me through the journal entries that knowing how students experience my teaching matters a great deal to me. This is a value that I hold that has been borne out through the experience of the unit. I have tried a variety of different ways of getting feedback in this unit - this blog, informal conversations with students, feedback sheets at the end of the unit, replying to student emails with open ended questions about how they are going, making a space on the ‘Blackboard’ site for discussion and trying to engage with students who do offer feedback through the Blackboard site. I have tried to present myself as a person who cares to know about learners and to be responsive where I can be. This has been both successful and unsuccessful as I have been able to make contact with a range of learners, but not all by any means. I have also tried to promote discussion in classes as a way of sharing and hearing experiences of others.(It is interesting that Mezz picked this up as typifying my approach.)

Why is knowing about learners' experiences so important to me? I feel strongly that the relationship in teaching promotes learning. Making connections with, being with and relating to others is likely to lead to deeper engagement compared with handing out information. This meaning of teaching then means, knowing about and trying to respond to the needs of different learners so that they might feel valued and willing to take a risk, to try new ways of working, be honest about their progress and share these experiences with others (rather than defending or rationalising behaviour.)I hope that these practices might influence how new teachers might work with their students.

I have noted something very interesting in my blog entries about this theme of valuing relationship. The way in which I seek feedback is similar each time – always open ended questions (e.g., “Session 1 – “I am very interested to know about your thoughts about your experiences of the unit… how did the time feel for you today? Were you feeling like the time went quickly, or not? Session 3 - did it make sense? was it relevant?” Session 5 – “As always, am keen to hear your thoughts about this or any other aspects of the session....”Session 11” What feedback do you want to say about the session?”). And, only a small number of students took up my invitations to comment. This reminds me of camp this year , when I was concerned there was limited feedback from the whole group about their experiences of planning. I learnt from that experience that I needed to structure the task differently to get the kind of feedback I wished to encourage. Here too might be the same thing – How might I structure this blog differently, then? Perhaps a person/small group could be nominated each week on behalf of the class to ‘write back’ – that becomes one of their journal entries?

However, how do I know that what students say in their feedback is not just what I want to hear? How do I know what they are really experiencing? Brookfield (1995) says, “The main difficulty in trying to see ourselves through our students’ eyes is that students are understandably reluctant to be too honest with us…Even under the cloak of anonymity it feels risky to point out the oppressive aspects of a teacher’s practice.” (p.34). As a teacher, the best that I can do is continually work towards finding out how students’ think and in ways that enable students to feel as though they can speak honestly. I hope that through raising this issue here that some students might be prompted to consider how they work with their own students to encourage open dialogue. The tricky part is that once you have opened up an avenue for communication, then you must take responsibility for knowing what to act on and how to act on it. For example, in this unit, I have tried to act on feedback related to assessment by clarifying tasks and criteria with students and lecturers.

To be continued....