Critical Reflection on Professional Practice | Education

Critical Reflection on Professional Practice | Education In this essay I will critically review the literature on the role of the modern educator. To this end I will consider the history of teaching and the impact of modern educational theory before defining â€Å"reflective teaching†. I will then go on to consider the ramifications of critical reflectivity at different granularities. The concept of a â€Å"teacher† in the modern sense mayhave originated with the ancient Greeks. The Socratic Method set out byPlato and Xenophon encourages the learner to become an independentthinker through a process of elimination of working hypotheses.Throughout the European â€Å"dark ages† scholarly pursuits were largely thedomain of the clergy, who developed the school system and theprofessional school educator came into being. By Victorian times,however, the role of the educator was that of an instructorwho, in the spirit of John Locke, perceived children as â€Å"blank slatesonto which knowledge can be written† . Then, in the 20th Century, the view of education, and consequently the role of the educator, changed dramatically. The concept of a â€Å"teacher† in the modern sense mayhave originated with the ancient Greeks. The Socratic Method set out byPlato and Xenophon encourages the learner to become an independentthinker through a process of elimination of working hypotheses.Throughout the European â€Å"dark ages† scholarly pursuits were largely thedomain of the clergy, who developed the school system and theprofessional school educator came into being. By Victorian times,however, the role of the educator was that of an instructorwho, in the spirit of John Locke, perceived children as â€Å"blank slatesonto which knowledge can be written† . Then, in the 20th Century, the view of education, and consequently the role of the educator, changed dramatically. Educational theory in the 20thCentury was influenced by, amongst others, Piaget, Vygotsky and Dewey.It will be worth briefly reviewing their ideas. Jean Piaget developed the notion of constructivism in which learnersare considered to construct their own â€Å"theories† of the world.  Constructivism acknowledges the need to build upon and modify existingknowledge rather than simply to fill learners heads with knowledge. Lev Vygotsky emphasised the importance of scaffolding for childrenscognitive development in which the sociocultural environment isinternalised as knowledge is constructed.   As such learning was nolonger situated exclusively in the head but became an interactionbetween the child, peers and educators. John Dewey endorsed Vygotskys sociocultural approach and highlightedthe subjective nature of communal learning.   He is credited withpopularising socioconstructivist ideas into what became known asprogressive education. Another important influence came from cultural theory in the form ofwhat is known as postmodernism. Postmodernism is not a theory butrather a rejection of the â€Å"certain†. Instead, â€Å"meaning is always inprocess†,   and that which seems to be external reality is a culturalconstruct. Postmodernism demands a shift in perspective. Derrida   wrote: â€Å"The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the centerdoes not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), thetotality has its center elsewhere. The center is not the center.† Perhaps the most important contribution of postmodernism to education,then, is the identification and questioning of underlying assumptionsand a blurring of focus from naà ¯ve clarity to reflective holism. As thinking human beings it isnear-on impossible to not be reflective in an everyday sense of theword. However the term â€Å"reflective teaching† refers to something moreprofound something systematically undertaken by practitioners thatâ€Å"implies flexibility, rigorous analysis and social awareness.†Ã‚   I willnow consider how a teacher might be critically reflective at threegranularities: (i) the fine-grain which occurs whilst teaching; (ii)the medium-grain which occurs retrospectively; (iii) the large-grainwhich considers teaching in the context of wider society. Fine-grain reflection relates to whatSchà ¶n calls â€Å"reflection-in-action† . I interpret reflection-in-actionto be a sociocultural process that is not located solely in theteachers head. Indeed it is a process of which the (experienced)teacher is not consciously aware. Rather, it relates to concepts suchas routines, attention and making judgments. It is a subtle teachingskill that is often at odds with the fashionable notion ofâ€Å"well-planned lessons†. The long-term refinement of fine-grain reflection over time is perhapswhat distinguishes the â€Å"expert† from the â€Å"novice† practitioner.Luntley   investigated the nature of expertise which he defines asâ€Å"attention-based knowledge†. He reports on an experienced teacher in amathematics lesson who drew shapes on the board and asked the classwhich ones were similar. She received answers that made no sense (toher) and reflected afterwards: â€Å"I was beginning to think: Oh God! There is something I am missinghere. [Laughter] Something that is obvious to them but not obvious tome.† The teacher then took action to resolve the issue because she: â€Å"recognised a mismatch between the pupils focus of attention and herown, and was able to interrogate this in order to respond in a waywhich changed the direction of the lesson, but enabled her to re-focusthe pupils ideas.† It is difficult to imagine how a trainee teacher might instantlyimprove their â€Å"expertise† and reflect instinctively at the chalk facelike this. Sheer experience seems necessary but it may be that thisexperience can be enhanced through systematic medium-grain reflection. Medium-grain reflection has profoundimplications. Postmodernism suggests the need to be mercilesslyself-critical.   A consequence of this is the lack of a yard-stickagainst which to measure progress. For example, one cannot simplyreflect on how to improve test scores without reflecting that anenvironment engineered for passing tests may actually damage childrenslearning by other standards.   Similarly, one cannot simply reflect onhow to reduce classroom noise levels as a way to â€Å"improve† behaviour.Rather we must identify and reflect on the complex power relations atplay in the classroom. Given these shifting-sands and the opaque nature of presuppositions, itis clear that reflective teaching at the medium grain size is no simpletask. There is no formula or recipe to follow rather it is therejection of such. Practitioners retrospective reflection is in factan attitude that encompasses many areas. Here I will attempt to listjust a few of them. The teacher must consider his or her own â€Å"wholeness†Ã‚   in thesociocultural context of the classroom. Age, gender, ethnicity,class-background, culture, religion, political views are relevant.Similar holistic consideration must be given to the pupils. Furthermorethe classroom itself is a complex sociocultural environment demanding aholistic reflection. The teacher must also consider the nature of the curriculum : how it isto be implemented and what is meant by learning and how we assess it.Policies and models and recipes and formulas abound, both voluntary andcompulsory (such as the 1988 Education Reform act which introduced aNational Curriculum). Reflective practice can be valuable in helpingteachers remain cool-headed amidst passing frenzies such as the currentunsubstantiated craze for â€Å"Accelerated Learning†. However it is no good the teacher merely being aware of thesociocultural nature of the environment, or the possible flaws in thecurriculum, as though this might vaccinate her from problems. Theentire purpose of reflective teaching is to inform practice throughâ€Å"evidence-informed professional practice†Ã‚   such as reflective markingof pupils work, discussion with colleagues, classroom observations,journal keeping and so on. Another aspect is how critical reflective practice might inform ateachers professional development, such as the acquisition offine-grained â€Å"knowledge-based attention† mentioned above. Professionaldevelopment should be considered holistically in a wider socioculturalcontext as a â€Å"process of enlightenment† that is â€Å"a reflective andcommunal process†.   The next step up after school and career focused critical reflection isteachers reflecting on their role in wider society which I discuss inthe following section.   Large-grain reflection refers tocritically considering ones role as a teacher within wider society. Itcan involve quite pragmatic issues such as joining a union, decidinghow to vote and keeping an eye on political developments such as thecurrent â€Å"dominant managerialist ideology†Ã‚   in the work place. It can also involve philosophical and ideological considerations aboutthe future of education. During the ‘cultural revolution of 1960sAmerica many teachers (e.g. Herbert Kohl ) came to reject the ideal ofschool altogether, imagining a future utopia in which society educatesits young without institutionalisation. Other educationalists havevisions of how the nature of learning might be revolutionised in anincreasingly complex and technological society (e.g. Seymour Papert ). Considering that the teaching profession does not offer the greatestfinancial returns, working conditions or status the higher ideals areessential to me personally. Teaching must be seen as a holisticlifestyle an attempt to â€Å"save the world† even to be enjoyable. For me reflective teaching contains an inherent paradox -yet this is its strength. It is a ‘formula for thinking that teachesus to reject formulae for thinking. It is an ongoing questioning andanalysis at all granularities in which our attitude should be aholistic, dynamic process rather than a static set of commandments.Although critical reflection should be painful to a degree, the returns are enriching and invaluable. Research Proposal: Child Attachment with Care Providers Research Proposal: Child Attachment with Care Providers Rationale The author has chosen to focus on the area of nursery care for children aged six months to five years, chiefly because it is an area of personal and professional interest, and because despite a wealth of research on parenting attachment, child development, behavioural development and the like, the field of study is still lacking in good, applied research which explores how children become acclimatised to a nursery environment, and what factors may affect this process. Because of social and societal changes â€Å"many infants tart their out-of-home lives at an early age with non-familial caregivers in childcare settings† (Lee, 2006 p 133). This care setting has potentially long-term implications for the child, the family, and for society as a whole. â€Å"The infant-caregiver relationship is crucial for infants since this first relationship with a caregiver will not only provide a working model for the subsequent relationships with teachers but will also set the stage for adju stment, development, and learning in the current setting and for later school life† (Lee, 2006 p 134). Attachment theories explore how attachment between child and caregiver affect these issues.The focus on attachment theories is also related to the need for nursery workers to engage in partnership working with parents in order to ensure good supportive exchanges of information from both sides, and to promote the best possible experience for the child (and their peers). The author has observed great differences between different children in the ways that they settle into the nursery environment. Some children adapt quickly to the new situation, the caregivers and the activities, while others take much longer, displaying ongoing signs of separation anxiety and other behaviours which indicate they are not fully acclimatised to the nursery environment and carers. While there are arguments here about whether or not childcare workers and parents should expect certain levels of conformity from such young children, and about the individual needs of children being met in a flexible, responsive manner, there is no doubt that children do need to learn to interact in peer groups and to integrate into environments other than the home environment at some point during their developmental processes. The adaptation to the new environment may be related to parenting styles, attachment, or the characteristics of caregivers. Literature Review A range of variables might affect the child’s ability to settle into the childcare environment. Some of these are potentially derived from the home setting, from attachment to parents and other caregivers, and from the kinds of parenting styles that the child has already experienced and from the family situation (David et al, 2003). Other variables are related to (potentially) biology and the social behaviours which reinforce gender. Turner (1991) explores the complex relationships between attachment and gender and child integration with peers in preschool environments, and shows that there are gender differences in these phenomena. How much this is due to carer and peer preconceptions of appropriate child behaviour is not clear, but Phillipsen et al (1999) show that social acceptance, and carers’ perceptions of behaviour and peer interactions are mediated by preconceptions about expected behaviours. This author is concerned that children’s individuality and indi vidual circumstances are perhaps, on the basis of such studies, not being given enough attention, and that this drive for behavioural conformity is perhaps serving a different purpose to the expressed, child-focused aims of nursery providers. McKown and Weinstein (2002) also relate teacher expectations to gender and to ethnicity in early years environments, and so the kinds of demographic information that would be needed in an exploratory study of this kind would include gender and ethnicity questions. Other authors have researched relationships between children and their childcare providers, and shown that the relationship between these may vary according to the perceptions of different childcare workers (Howes et al, 2000), and according to the sensitivity and characteristics of the childcare workers (Gerber et al, 2007). This study would focus on the kinds of perceptions of attachment identified by Howes et al (2000). A more useful study would employ an objective observer to measure and record attachment behaviours (Delamont, 2002), but this is a small scale academic piece, and there are insufficient resources to employ an objective, skilled observer. Other variables affecting the child’s ability to settle must obviously derive from the nursery environment. These may be characteristics of caregivers and caregiver-child relationships, which may be in turn influenced by nursery policies, by organisational culture and norms and managerial practices, and also by the personalities of the caregivers (Cryer et al, 2005). Resources may also affect this environment. Lee (2006) found that â€Å"infants and their key caregivers did build firm (close, secure, synchronous) relationships in the relationship-valued and supportive childcare context† (p 140). This suggests that the context may affect this process in significant ways. However, it is the characteristics of the child his or herself, and their parents or their attachment to their parents which may be the issue here, hence the focus on attachment theory. Rydell et al (2005) suggest that â€Å"a central prediction from attachment theory is that the quality of the child’s attachment to parents will be related to the quality of relationships with other people† (p 188). Therefore, it is important as part of the proposed study to assess the parenting experience and any markers of attachment from the point of view of the parent(s). This may be important in identifying children’s ability to develop secure relationships with other carers (Rydell et al, 2005). Bowlby (2007) argues that babies and toddlers will have their attachment seeking response activated in the absence of a primary or a secondary attachment figure when they are in the presence of a stranger and in unfamiliar surroundings, which is what may happen in nurseries when children do not ‘settle’. This attachment seeking response may be terminated if the child is able to develop an attachment to a secondary carer (Bowlby, 2007). Bowlby (2007) suggests a model of childcare that actively promotes and monitors long-term secondary attachment bonds between baby and carer. This kind of model is shown in the theory of having a key person identified for each child within the setting, which has benefits for the baby/child, in terms of affection and attachment, for parents, and for the key person (Elfer, 2002). Understanding this in the context of the child-caregiver relationship is challenging, because this relationship is multidimensional (Lee, 2006). Aims The aims of this study are: to answer the following question: Why do some children settle in nursery in a short space of time and some take longer, using the same settling in method?; and to model the complex interactions between the factors which may be seen as affecting this process. Theories of attachment will be used as a framework to inform and support the design of the study, but a range of potential variables will be explored in order to fully develop a model of understanding which may answer the key research question. Other aims of this study are that it should improve understanding in order to help childcare workers and parents support children’s transition into the childcare environment Methodology While an ethnographical methodology would be a logical choice of research methodology in this case (Massey, 1998), there are some issues around this kind of approach, including the potential bias of the researcher and the issues cited elsewhere about observation and participant observation. Perspectives other than that of the researcher need to be addressed, and data from parents and from the childcare setting needs to be incorporated. A Grounded Theory approach will be used, chiefly because of the way that this methodology supports the inclusion of a range of qualitative data sources along with quantitative data in the form of descriptive statistics and demographic characteristics (Borgatti, 2005; Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Grounded Theory sets out to develop models of knowledge and explication which are ‘grounded’ in the data under investigation, the nature of which always include ‘rich’ qualitative data (Charmaz, 1994). The complexity of Grounded Theory m odels lies in their derivation from the data themselves, and so would serve well this attempt to address a complex phenomenon likely to be affected by a range of variables. Grounded Theory allows the researcher to make full use of the data (Bell and Opie, 2002; D’Onofrio, 2001). Data analysis is via a process of constant comparison of the data with each other, through stages of analysis towards an end model (Charmaz, 1994; Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The kinds of complexities, the human nature of the interactions within the childcare environment, and the many variables that would likely affect the child’s interactions within that environment, do not lend themselves to a quantitative methodology, particularly one carried out on so small a scale. Nor would it be ethical to carry out quantitative research on vulnerable children when there is no hope of gaining a statistically significant sample size for a good quality quantitative study. Therefore, a qualitative study, which supports and exploratory approach, has been deemed more suitable. Methods which collect talk and conversation would be suitable for this kind of research (Adelman, 1981), but due to the vulnerability of the children involved, the data collection methods must be chosen with care. Similarly, the data collection methods and sources have been selected to include all relevant information which might indicate factors which impinge upon the infant or child’s ability to settle into the nursery environment. Because of the issues of perception discussed above, participant observation was ruled out as a data collection approach (Arnould, 1998). The data collection methods were chosen to minimse the impact on children, parents and childcare workers. These will include exploratory questionnaires given to parents and semi-structured interviews with nursery caregivers, documentary data in the form of the children’s nursery records, nursery policies, mission statements and staff training and orientation documents, and interviews with staff. All these kinds of data sources are suitable to a Grounded Theory Approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). It is important to take into account the complexities and details of the context, both physical and behavioural, within which the child behaviours are taking place, because this may indicate factors within the nursery itself which affect the child’s orientation into that environment. The data collection tools, which consist of a parental questionnaire and a pro-forma for the semi-structured interviews with childcare providers, will be informed by the use of established measures, including the Q-Set measure (Moss et al, 2006). Other studies have applied such measures to a similar situation in relation to attachment theory (Moss et al, 2006). Interviews will be audio-taped, anonymised at point of recording, and then transcribed as text documents. All data, from questionnaires, interviews and documentary sources will be transferred into an electronic qualitative data analysis programme such as NVivo, for ease of management and improved analysis (Drisko, 2004). NVivo allows for the development of models from qualitative data, but also supports the integration of quantitative and demographic data to develop correlations between these data and qualitative concepts and findings (Drisko, 2004). Because Grounded Theory tends to treat the literature review as a concurrent process (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), and literature sources as a form of data in themselves (D’Onofrio, 2001), the use of NVivo also supports and aids this process in terms of the management of large amounts of textual data (Drisko, 2004). Ethical Considerations It is important that the quality of the research is such that it is justifiable to carry it out within this setting (see methodology section above). Ethical considerations include the ethics of carrying out research on small children who are unable to give consent, and the affects the research might have on their caregivers. Research that distracts the childcare workers or affects their ability to take care of children would not be ethical. Participant observation was deemed as unsuitable (Arnould, 1998).Having a ‘strange’ adult (the researcher) in the environment might also disturb the ‘status quo’. Therefore, an observational method was not chosen, and parents given full information sheets and consent forms for participation in the study. Only those parents who consent will be included, and data will only be gathered pertaining to their children. Ethical approval will be sought from the researcher’s place of study (via normal ethics committee approv al). Permission will be gained from the child care organisation’s manager, and staff will be recruited via information sheets and consent forms in the same way that parents were. Staff interviews will be carried out at a location convenient to the place of work, and at agreed times which do not interfere with their normal workload. All interviews and demographic data including even the location and name of the childcare setting will be anonymised. Timescale Because of the data collection methods chosen, the timescale is adjusted to take into account the difficulties in gaining good response rates from questionnaires and in fitting in the interviews with the childcare providers in a way that does not place them under undue stress or affecting their working lives. A three month timescale (from the point of ethical approval) is projected for the data collection phase of this project, which will allow for an initial recruitment of the sample, distribution of questionnaires, a second round of questionnaires to improve response rates, and concurrent interviews with childcare providers and collection of documentary evidence from the childcare setting. The concurrent literature review must also take place within this timescale, and so literature searching, identification and collection will occur during the data collection phase, and critical literature review and analysis will commence during this phase and continue through the data analysis p hase of the research. This second phase, data analysis, should take a further three months, from initial analysis to completion of a model. Writing up should take a further two weeks. Conclusion It is anticipated that this study will illuminate the still murky waters of attachment with childcare providers, the potential benefits of the â€Å"key person† in relation to attachment and to promoting the adjustment of the child to the childcare setting. It should also shed light on demographic and other characteristics which may affect this process, thereby, at the very least, identifying key areas for further, more in-depth or targeted research. Because this is an exploratory study, the potential richness of the data should allow for some insight and discovery about issues affecting attachment and adjustment. Attachment theories would need to be explored in much greater detail than this brief proposal allows, and the quality of the existing research on these theories applied to this setting appraised. The resultant model should incorporate the evidence from the literature with the evidence from the study data into a model which may inform future approaches to caring for c hildren within this setting. Bibliography Adelman, C. (1981) Uttering Muttering : collecting, using and reporting talk for social and educational research. London:Grant McIntyre Arnould, E.J. (1998) Ethical Concerns in Participant Observation/Ethnography. Advances in Consumer Research 25 72 Asher, S.R., Pankhurts, J.T., Hymel, S. and Williams, G. (1990) Peer rejection and loneliness in childhood. In Asher, S.R. and Cole, J.D. 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