Reflection on Instructional Strategies

Video Transcription

Welcome. I'm Tricia Faith Fyfe. And in today's video lesson, we'll look at the lesson topic of reflection on instructional strategies. As we learn about this topic, we will work towards several learning objectives.

Together we'll answer the following three questions in this video lesson. What does it mean to be a reflective teacher? How do pedagogical practices and content knowledge impact my students' learning? And how can I reflect better in my teaching?

So what exactly does it mean to be a reflective teacher? Let's first look at some important individuals in teacher evaluation and reflection, Danielson Marzano, and Shulman. We've studied these frameworks. And each of these three identifies a reflective teacher as one that goes back and revisits their instruction. As well, they revisit techniques, and practices, and student achievements to truly see if what they are doing as a teacher is working.

Are students meeting objectives that were intended? If not, what can be done to adjust as far as instructional and professional practices to ensure students are meeting objectives? It's important for teachers to use reflection throughout each and every stage of instruction-- planning, where we design lessons and prepare for these; during the lesson itself; and post lesson.

Here are some questions that you can use to be a reflective teacher. What did I teach? How did I teach it? Did my students meet objectives? And can I adjust my practices? Now that we understand what reflection looks like, let's discuss why we should reflect as teachers.

The short answer is if we don't reflect as teachers, we don't know if what we are doing is working. Without reflection, we do not know if students are learning and meeting objectives. We don't even know if the objectives are sufficient for our students. And we don't understand if our strategies are working or not.

Reflection helps guide what we are doing. And it helps us adapt instructional practices as needed. It promotes student learning and engages our students. It challenges us to better our own teaching strategies and learn more about our students' needs. It betters our classroom environment and culture. And it increases productivity and creativity. There are many reasons to reflect as a teacher.

Questioning is key in reflection. Note how many questions I've already used in this lesson thus far. Let's go over some example questions that you might use in your own reflection. The topics of the questions that I ask here are the important ideas. The way that the questions are worded is up to you.

How do I develop a rapport and relationship with my students? How do I personalize learning for my students? How do I ask questions and respond to questions? How does my classroom environment, routines, and rules impact my students?

Some others are what learning targets do I set for students. Are my students engaged? Why did a lesson go well, or why did a lesson not go well? The skills teachers use in the classroom are causally linked with student achievement.

A teacher's pedagogical skill in the classroom can be linked with the quantity and quality of student learning. The relationship between classroom strategies and behaviors and student achievement is very straightforward. The causal relationship between reflective practices and pedagogical skill is not commonly recognized, although the interaction between these elements has been discussed in research for decades. What I've quoted for you is an excerpt from Marzano's 2012 publication.

We must also take a look back at connections to, Shulman specifically his fifth and sixth observable behaviors, reflection and new comprehension. And you can see here how much reflection is emphasized in these two observable behaviors.

What does this reflection process look like after implementing lesson? I'm going to walk you through a simple lesson how the teacher might use Marzano to help guide reflection. We'll look at both the high yield instructional strategies that are relevant and specific design questions from Marzano's 41 key strategies to reflect.

Let's say a teacher implements a lesson to middle school students on area and perimeter of shapes. In this lesson, the teacher first reviews area and perimeter and then preselects groups of students to use learning stations. One station is an online tool called Geogebra where students explore the concepts.

Another station is a hands on activity where students use geoboards or other manipulatives to plan materials in a building project. One station is a worksheet that students work on independently to assess their skills. And one station is a group activity where each group creates a short presentation about using area and perimeter in the real world.

After this lesson, the teacher reflects. Using design questions from Marzano's framework, the teacher might reflect on this lesson by going over design question two and three. Design question two is what led you to help students effectively interact with new knowledge. And here this teacher uses multiple different strategies to help students interact with this knowledge. The learning stations provide different types of activities that will meet different students' needs as well students will be able to go over the information in multiple formats, therefore helping them to learn and retain this information.

For design question three, the teacher might think about this question. What do I do to help students practice and deepen their understanding of new knowledge? And again, these learning stations help students practice in multiple different formats. These students are also deepening their understanding of new knowledge using multiple different strategies. The teacher might also use Marzano's high yield instructional strategies to reflect on the lesson. This teacher might focus on the use of nonlinguistic representations, which is number five in these strategies. Manipulatives and online websites are great tools for this.

The teacher also sees as they reflect that there is evidence of cooperative learning, which is number six. Use of these learning groups and learning stations is a great example of this. As the teacher reviews area and perimeter, she touches on number one, identifying similarities and differences.

And students are encouraged to generate and test hypotheses, which is number eight in these strategies, as they go over the group project together about real world situations that use area and perimeter. And they also talk about this in learning station number two where the groups are using manipulatives for a building project.

There are many ways you can be a reflective teacher. Here's some ideas for incorporating reflection into your own teaching. You can use peer feedback. You can use data that you find. Maybe you decide to record your instruction or maybe you decide to keep a reflective journal. This might help you go back and look at your personal growth and your professional growth.

It's beneficial to seek other teachers' advice and expertise as well. If you notice an area that you might need growth in, think about observing a teacher that's really skilled in this area. I also encourage you to take a look at a resource by Marzano, Becoming a Reflective Teacher.

Let's talk about what we learned today. We looked at the questions, what does it mean to be a reflective teacher? How do pedagogical practices and content knowledge impact my students' learning? And how can I reflect better in my teaching?

In today's lesson, we talked about what it means to be a reflective teacher. And we looked at Danielson, Marzano, and Shulman to see how they look at reflection and reflective teachers. We also discussed why we should reflect as teachers. If we don't reflect, we don't know if we are doing our job.

I walked you through a simple lesson in how the teacher might have used Marzano's high yield instructional strategies and design questions from his 41 key strategies to reflect. We also looked at some tips for reflection. Don't forget to take a look at Marzano's Becoming a Reflective Teacher. It's a fantastic resource.

Now that you're more familiar with these concepts, let's reflect. How can you become a more effective teacher? What are the benefits to becoming a more effective teacher? Thanks for joining me today and discussing the lesson. I hope you found value in this video lesson and are able to apply these ideas and resources to your own teaching.

As you reflect on this new information and how it can be applied, you may want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set.