| How can teachers effectively reflect on their practice? |
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Research taster
Workloads, pressure on time, uncertainty about change, all squeeze the amount of time teachers spend reflecting on their practice. The need to act on a quick-fire basis lesson after lesson leaves teachers reaching for solutions before diagnosing problems. Common approaches to this include seeking expert support and finding research that confirms their hunches; beneficial as these approaches are, they tend to skip an important stage in teachers' understanding and engagement with their practice. 
Your evidence
You might like to explore the benefits of taking the time to reflect on your own teaching by thinking about how you handle transitions between activities and topics. You could for example record and analyse an episode of transition, think about how you: • prepared pupils for the transition? • explained what was important in leaving existing work? • explained what pupils need to do during the transition? • encouraged pupils' interest in the next phase of work?
Moving forward
Reflecting on your practice can be a good way of consolidating work and planning for the future, you might like to work with a colleague to plan together transitions between activities that you find potentially tricky. This can be a particularly helpful activity if you each find different transitions challenging?  Find out moreYou can find out more about reflective teaching on the Reflective Teaching website: http://www.rtweb.info/index.html Find out more about teacher professional development at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/thinkingskills/TueJun241210532003/ |
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