Reflective practice
Professional educators seek to improve their skills and competencies systematically. They notice things about their teaching that they would like to improve, address one or two items on that list for development, and, once resolved, move onto another. They analyze both their practice and gaps in their knowledge as they go along, thinking consciously about what happens in their classrooms, and look to improve continually. Those needs and improvements may come from reading, action research, peer observation, observation or student feedback, or other sources, such as training sessions, but they must involve both input and experimentation in the classroom. This systematization of Professional Development (PD) is the essence of Reflective Practice: simply put, trying new things and accepting or rejecting them.
However useful training may be, it is often too random for the individualized development - primarily focused on input or workshops identified for a large faculty or determined by system needs: in other words, it may be useful to you, but if organized by institutions does not purposefully address your particular needs as a teacher: you may find useful ideas, but perhaps only by coincidence. Furthermore, there is not usually a formal requirement to try these practices out in your classes. To bridge the gap between theoretical input and classroom output, then, and to assist in your development as a Reflective Practitioner, we are asking you to keep track of personalized Action Points (APs) and integrate them into your classroom teaching during the year - a nudge to try out new ideas in response to gaps you've noticed yourself.
This document thus creates a virtue circle that links input to output, and to reflection, in a cycle that generates ongoing improvements in your teaching, as represented below:
PHASES OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Reflective practices should be divided into two main phases.
What is differentiation?
Differentiation is usually presented as a teaching approach where teachers think of learners as individuals and learning as a personalised process. According to Alyce Hunter in Differentiated Instruction in the English Classroom “Differentiated instruction is a recognition that students vary in their needs, interests, abilities, and prior knowledge. It's a springboard from which students work toward the same ends, but they use different content, processes, and products to get there. It's all about successfully teaching each student. And it can be done in the regular English classroom.”
Differentiation is predominantly supported in the following ways:
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Role of the learner
Understanding individual learners is vital for successful differentiation. In order to be effective, figuring out what the individual already knows or can do is a vital step in the process.
Getting to know learners is, however, more than just finding out what they know. It is also about a broader understanding of learner difference. Learners and their learning can be different for a number of reasons: they may have different levels of interest in the topic; they may have differences in their levels of motivation, their ability to remember information, their confidence, the accuracy of their handwriting, their levels of vocabulary acquisition.
Having knowledge of the individual helps teachers to plan for learning rather than teaching, and ensures that they are always supporting progress. In a differentiated classroom, teachers and learners collaborate in learning and learners have ownership and responsibility. Offering choice can encourage ownership of individual work and learning, creating a learning environment in which learners ‘have no fear’ and apply effort.
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Differentiation at Vinschool
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Scaffolding
Scaffolding, a metaphor to describe the process of learning support that enables learners to go beyond what they are initially able to do, can be a key component of successful differentiation.
Guidelines for Implementing ScaffoldingThe following points can be used as guidelines when implementing instructional scaffolding (adapted from Hogan and Pressley, 1997).
(Adapted from Northern Illinois University) |
Group work
Teachers should employ variety in their classrooms, using a mixture of whole-class instruction, one-to-one work, small group work and peer tutoring. Group work is suggested by many as a good way to differentiate as learners working in groups are able to create knowledge with their peers, help each other to learn, use discussion and apportion tasks based on the relative strengths of the group.
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