A Moment of Reflections – 3 Experiences I’m Learning From
3 Experiences and What I Learned
1. Mentoring new teachers provides amazing opportunities for self-reflection. 
As a full-release mentor in my district, I wear two distinct hats – mentor and evaluator … yet n’er the two shall meet. When I mentor, I observe and conference to provide data that can guide our conferences toward growth for my mentees. When I evaluate, I must collect data in an effort to provide accurate feedback based on a criteria for impacting student achievement and student learning. For me, however, I use these times to often reflect on my own practice. Did I practice what I speak? Is what I am saying practical for a teacher? a new teacher? (And the big Whammy question …) Am I guiding new teachers or creating ‘mini-Me’s”?
I often have to discuss these self-reflections with others in an effort to find perspective. When discussing this idea with a colleague this evening (and bless her for listening!), I was reminded of a lesson a pastor spoke to me and my husband in pre-marital counseling. He said, “the man who believes ‘I will never have an affair,’ is often the one who finds himself in that dilemma. The one who is ever cautious will guard himself against the temptations of having an affair, and is more likely not to have one.” (Go Dan Southerland!) Translation: If I continue to reflect on my own practice as a guard against trying to clone myself and share best practices instead, I can empower my new teachers to success.
2. I am never too-seasoned to not learn from a training – educational reflection.
I am in the middle of a wonderful training – Discipline in the Secondary Classroom. I am taking this as part of my district position – we are asked to attend all trainings that new teachers are required to attend so that we have a greater understanding of the information our new teachers are learning.
What I truly enjoy about this training is the changes I will be making to my own future practice! It’s not that I did not have a well-managed classroom before, but I have found that there are some adjustments that I can make that will improve my practice. For example, I need to reward effort. (In the past, I thought this was just a “behavior management restart” idea.) If I “begin with the end in mind” (thanks Stephen Covey!), then I would calculate approximately how many points I might offer, then take a percentage of that to determine a weekly participation grade. (In the example provided in our text, the teacher determined 20 points each week. Each child would start with 15 points and earn/lose points based on effort.) This practice helps students connect hard work with learning.
3. Tonight I started “Master Trainer” – a train the trainer course — experienced reflection.
I must be honest – I signed up for this class because I wanted to “hone my training ability so that I could help my participants become better teachers as they impact student learning.” In other words, I was confident that I was pretty good and just needed some fine tuning … right? Wrong … AND I’m not in any way discounting this first night or suggesting that it was a negative experience. It was enlightening and gave me cause for deeper reflection.
As a trainer, I recognize the need for adults to have their needs met, for trainings to be practical, for learning modalities to be considered. I’ve also considered more lofty goals such as the inclusion of movement and creature comforts. So … what did I learn? in just one night? My greatest “AHA!” was that training is about the needs of the group – even if the training is a pre-scripted curriculum, I am still required to respect the needs of my learners while maintaining the fidelity of the material. And when a participant has a lot of questions or experiences to share or things the information reminds them of, I (and I love this word picture!) need to “wrap up their experience in a beautiful package and appreciate the connections he/she is making as a result of this training.” Because in the end, it is about the participant learning the material. (Isn’t that cool! Hopefully, I have paraphrased Sabrina accurately!)
(Thanks to my training tonight, I made time to write again!)
So what is the goal of reflection? In my opinion …
1. Reflection leads to growth! If “hindsight is 20/20,” then we can change what we did not like, accept what we cannot change, and enjoy the positive things we can duplicate.
2. Reflection should be natural. As teachers, learners, and trainers, reflection should be a good habit. The best of teachers, I believe, can reflect in the middle of a lesson … they assess their students’ understanding, they adjust, they re-teach, and sometimes, they continue.
3. Reflection never ends. Even when we think “we’ve arrived,” if we become satisfied, then we stop growing. As Jim Collins is quoted, “good is the enemy of great.” When we reflect, we find that no matter how experienced we find ourselves, we can always learn from those around us – other teachers, new teachers, trainers, administrators … even students.
How have you learned from reflection? Start the discussion.
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