REFLECTION: A TOOL FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Keywords:
reflection, question, critically examine, professional developmentAbstract
This paper explores how reflection helps teachers to grow professionally. The common held belief among teachers is that they are growing when they get experience. Although experience is very important for the teacher development, it will not help teachers to grow unless they learn from their teaching. In order to grow teachers should never allow them to be fixed with ideas, approaches and strategies, but need to keep open to the possibilities of going wrong by questioning their teaching and reflecting on their practice. Since reflection is not a spontaneous activity, it requires time, effort and personal investment from teachers. Teachers believe that their teaching automatically help learners learn; furthermore, they often feel that they understand exactly what they are doing in the class, what impact their teaching has on the learners and know their learners’ needs and feeling. How is it possible if teachers never stop for a moment to analyze their teaching activities or critically examine their actions, intentions, motives and attitudes towards learning and learners? In fact, teachers keep on planning and teaching without reflecting on them because, they feel it is too difficult to reflect on their teaching. This paper argues that reflection is neither difficult nor impossible. On the contrary, teachers can reflect if they really want to do it. As reflection is regarded as a tool for professional development, different ways of doing teacher reflection are discussed in terms of both theoretical and practical terms.
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References
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