1.4 Reflective practice in education – case study: Jana’s reflective practice slideshow transcript

Meet Jana

Jana is studying to become a primary school teacher. Although her image was created using AI, her experiences closely mirror those of teachers all across the country, and reflective practice is a tool she’ll use throughout her entire career.

Explore how reflective practice plays a role in her professional development at each major stage of her teaching journey.

Jana’s reflective practice as a pre-service teacher

The habits Jana develops now, as a pre-service teacher, will set the foundation for her future teaching practice. By the time she is responsible for her own students, Jana will be accustomed to using critical reflection to improve her students’ learning experiences.

In the first year of her course, Jana learns about the importance of reflective practice and how she will be expected to demonstrate her learning throughout her teaching degree. During her studies she’ll complete a wide range of reflective tasks. Some of these tasks will be formal written assessments, while others will be ungraded personal reflections or informal discussions in class or with mentors.

Here are some of the reflective tasks Jana completes during her teacher training:

Professional experience journal

As part of her pre-service placement, Jana will be required to keep a reflective journal where she’ll reflect on and review experiences and insights from her time observing and teaching lessons. Jana has decided to create a blog and keep her journal online. She will need to apply theory that she’s studied in her course to her practical experience and write about how her views on teaching and learning have been shaped by her placement experience.

Reflective essay

Jana attends a workshop on inclusive education. She is then required to write an academic reflective essay on the experience, how it aligns with readings done for class, and how she will apply her learnings in the classroom.

Mentor meetings

During her professional placement, Jana has daily chats with her mentor and more structured meetings after she teaches her planned lessons. During these meetings, Jana’s mentor discusses the lesson with her and encourages her to reflect on the experience. The mentor gives Jana constructive feedback, and together, they explore areas ideas for improvement in future lessons.

Group assessment self-reflection

Jana and two classmates carry out a group task in which they plan and co-teach a mock lesson for their classmates and teachers. After the mock lesson, as part of the assessment, the group members each answer a series of reflective questions on how they worked collaboratively, the planning and delivery of the lesson, and what they’ve learnt from the experience.

Peer feedback

Jana and her classmates have been tasked with creating a rubric for an assessment task they’ve designed. When they’ve completed the first draft, they exchange their rubric with another student on a digital platform and then provide each other with constructive feedback. Jana needs to review the clarity, relevance, and fairness of her classmate’s rubric, using a positive and supportive tone.

Teaching portfolio artefacts

As her course nears completion, Jana is creating her teaching portfolio, which will serve as both her final assessment and a showcase of her teaching style and development. She reflects on what she values most as an educator to develop her teaching philosophy. Jana includes evidence of her reflective practice by selecting relevant items from her professional journal, reflective essays, and mentor notes to be artefacts in her portfolio.

Jana’s reflective practice as a graduate teacher

Jana has finished her teaching qualification and she’s now a graduate teacher at a primary school. Like all new teachers, Jana has a provisional teaching registration, and is working towards her full registration by collecting evidence demonstrating that she has reached the proficient teacher level.

Although the list of required evidence seems intimidating at first, Jana quickly realises that many of the tasks involve reflective practice – something she’s comfortable with from her time as a student.

During this stage of her career, Jana reflects on:

• lessons she’s taught – activities she’s tried and how well they worked
• discussions with her mentor about how her classes are going
• how she has implemented teaching standards and strategies into her daily teaching practice
• interactions with students and involvement of parents
• her participation and learnings in professional development activities (follow the link to read an example)
• the lessons of experienced teachers that she has observed
• discussions about students’ progress with colleagues and parents
• incidents requiring de-escalation and documentation

Jana’s reflective practice as an experienced teacher

Now that Jana is a registered teacher with lots of experience, you might think that she will have learnt all there is to know — but in reality, reflective practice should never end.

Every day in the classroom is different and offers lots of experiences, challenges, and opportunities for Jana to further hone her craft as a teacher. Reflective practice has become second nature to Jana now — it’s an integral part of her teaching and learning. She sets aside thirty minutes of intentional reflective practice each week, which involves reflecting on her lessons or professional development sessions that she’s facilitated. She keeps notes in her professional journal, and occasionally writes formal reflections to share with colleagues and parents.

Jana enjoys looking back on her reflective journal and teaching portfolio and reminiscing. She’s mentoring her own pre-service teachers now and helping them develop their reflective skills!