A Critical Examination of the Reflective Models

Question: Discuss about A Critical Examination of the Reflective Models? Answer: Critical incident 1 Having recently taken over a module that was not within my subject specialism but had started several weeks previous, I was feeling rather uncertain in regards to how the first session would go. Feeling as though the odds were stacked against me I never would have expected a student to approach me and ask for advice in regards to their academic career. Feeling somewhat relived I had survived the first session with no real issues, I dismissed the class. As most the student were leaving, a female student twice my age approached me and asked if I could assist her with getting the right support and recommend an undergraduate degree course. Feeling fairly surprised I had been asked for such advice, I spent the next 30 minutes to an hour listening to her academic interests, strengths, support needs, commitments and location and suggested various undergraduate ICT degree course at numerous universities and colleges based on those factors. At the closing stages of the discussion she felt quite determined that she had now found the most suitable path for her. Since the discussion she has set up a meeting with the course coordinator of the college and is enthusiastic about change. Out of curiosity I did ask why she had asked me for advice and not the previous lecture. Her reply was that she felt as though I was much more approachable. Feeling somewhat responsible for her change in academic choice Im left thrilled that I can make an impact so early in my teaching career. The incident discussed above can be analyzed through a model produced by a Reflective Practioner; Donald Schon called as Reflection in and- on- action The model describes the different ability of a practitioner to analyze incident. First, through his past learning and experiences and second, by exploring the present situation and critically look into your actions (Brockbank and McGill 2012). Reflection-before action In the incident, the situation where the person feels out of the odds when given a task to perform that does not describe his prior learning can be framed in the Reflection before action theory of Schon. Given the circumstances, the person links himself to the feelings of his past experiences and makes his conclusion without critically analyzing it. He considers himself the least required person to be approached by the student as he underestimates his quality of delivery in the class according to his prior learning (Hbert 2015). Reflection-during-action The situation where the student approaches the person and shows interest for discussion with him explains the reflection-during-action theory of Schon. When the student seeks for the person's advice, he though nervously, responded to the student query and ended with a successful session wherein the student was fully satisfied with the discussion and his advice. Here the reflection-during-action can be fairly explained where the person reacts according to the situation and explores the reasons and act accordingly. He goes beyond his thought of looking the situation based on his past experiences and studies his action. Hence, the incident is critically analyzed with Scohn theory (Marzano et al.2012). Reflection-after-action The situation where the person feels happy about being responsible for the students academic choice and feel thrilled to put an impact on the student explains the reflection-after-action of Scohn Theory Significant incident 2 Having recently taken over a module and not being informed whether any students have learning disabilities, I naturally assumed that there were no students with learning difficulties. In addition to this, I had also been unable to notice learning disabilities when teaching the first session. Prior to the next session I was to teach I attended a lecture on disability awareness which was quite the eye opener. Having attended this session got me thinking, how could I become aware of students with disabilities without student profiles? Based on my first session it obviously wasnt as simple to detect as I initially thought. Its not like all students with disabilities had an assistant with them, which I naively believed before starting the PGCE. Most disabilities are invisible, so invisible that the student themselves may not be aware. So how can I be? Nevertheless, implementing what I had learnt from the awareness session I decided to introduce a group activity so I was able to formatively assess each student. All of a sudden became more aware, all this time I had been blind and all of a sudden my eyes were open. It became quite apparent some students had learning difficulties. By the closing stages of the session I had become aware of two students with dyslexia and one student with aspergers. Now being more disability aware I can offer students the support they need to achieve the grade they deserve in addition to developing as a teacher. In the incident, the person was unable to notice learning disability and never knew that disability can be invisible until he had attended a session on disability. The reaction of the person to convert the information of invisible disability as knowledge falls in line with Kolbs theory of reflective model which explains experiential learning (Westbury et al.2012). What happened? Before taking the session, nothing was informed about the learning disability of the student. The person assumed that there was no learning disability and even during the session , he could not identify any learning disability among the students. But after attending a lecture on disability awareness, he reacted by conducted a group activity in the class under the given situation of invisible disability Analysis He took the information of invisible disability as knowledge and applied this knowledge through an experiment in the class to identify it among the student. He took a group activity in the class to explore the knowledge. In the group activity, the student became more attentive and aware, and the disability of few students could be identified. Making generalisations Such an action of the person can be categorized as experiential learning and revolves round the concept of how information has been transformed into knowledge and also how this knowledge has been implemented (Shaw 2013). The learning taken here is to learn through exploring the information into action to convert it into knowledge. Experiential learning is highly applicable for the challenges faced in todays world. Planning future action Based on the incident, the person can plan differently for his future sessions in the class. He should try to make the student more interactive through several subject related activities. In this way, the actual ability of the student will be highlighted and he would be able to deliver his session more effectively. References Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. 2012. Facilitating reflective learning. London: Kogan Page. Hbert, C. 2015. Knowing and/or experiencing: a critical examination of the reflective models of John Dewey and Donald Schn. Reflective Practice, 16(3), pp.361-371. Marzano, R., Boogren, T., Heflebower, T., Kanold-McIntyre, J. and Pickering, D. 2012. Becoming a reflective teacher. Bloomington, Ind.: Marzano Research Laboratory. Rushton, I. and Suter, M. 2012. Reflective Practice For Teaching In Lifelong Learning. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Shaw, R. 2013. A model of the transformative journey into reflexivity: an exploration into students experiences of critical reflection. Reflective Practice, 14(3), pp.319-335. Westbury, I., Hopmann, S. and Riquarts, K. 2012. Teaching As A Reflective Practice. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.