Reflecting about teaching practice with ICT plays a very important part in the development of student ICT capability throughout the integration of ICT in the curriculum. However, for teachers, it is all about taking responsibility for the use of ICT in the classroom and their professional growth.
The Importance of Reflection in Teaching
According to QCAA (2020), teacher reflection is critical as it encourages teachers to:
- Regularly evaluate their approaches to teaching and learning.
- Understand more about the positive impacts of high-quality effective pedagogies on children’s learning
- Become more aware of the importance of high-quality interactions, including strategic intervention and substantive conversations to maximise children’s learning
- Use action research approaches — e.g. drawing on alternative teaching strategies to help
children to learn when familiar methods fail - Co-construct learning with children and other partners so it is responsive to the child’s family and
community
It is important that teachers do reflect on practices and take the appropriate steps to improve them. These teaching strategies for the classroom can help you go a long way in ensuring that outcomes are learned by students.
As teachers, you should encourage students to reflect critically and evaluate their own work with ICT, so too must teachers.
It must involve determining which parts of the lesson went well and which ones were less successful. From here, they can make adjustments and plan for better lessons accordingly.
For this to occur, they need to look deeper into the practices and ask questions as to why a particular approach was a success or failure.
Classroom reflection such as this is said to promote thinking about classroom activities and the beliefs associated with those actions (Kennewell et al., 2000).
Clarifying existing ideas about teaching helps to forge new ideas or modify old ones. A powerful reflection involves carrying out action research. That is the approach where teachers are required to take a more rigorous look at the quality of their teaching and learning.
For judgments here to be made, evidence such as the following in relation to classroom activity needs to be taken into account:
- Lesson plans and schemes of work.
- Comments from observing teachers.
- A diary of classroom activity.
- The results of students’ class and homework and.
- The results of examinations.
Teacher Reflection Questions
The following teacher reflection questions can be used as a guide (Kennewell et al., 2000, p189). Reflection about teaching strategies with technology in the classroom will help you analyse your teaching strategies in the future.
They include lesson reflection for teachers that cover the learning of outcomes planned for students.
- To what extent am I catering for the abilities of all the students in the class?
- Are students able to build on prior learning?
- Have I considered common misconceptions associated with this topic?
- Are the students able to use what they have learned in a new situation?
- Did the students appreciate that they were making progress?
- Did the students improve their confidence in the subject and the image they have of themselves as a learner of the subject?
- Did the students develop good habits of work, including perseverance and concern for correctness?
- Did the students use their initiative, exercise imagination, and think for themselves?
Other teacher reflection questions
- How was the ICT activity integrated into the normal running of the classroom?
- What skills did I need in order for the ICT activity to succeed?
- How did I ensure that all students had access to the ICT activity?
- What were the learning outcomes for the students in ICT?
- What assessment opportunities were there?
- How does this experience add to my understanding of teaching ICT capability in literacy development?
- What will I do next time?
Here are some lesson reflection for teachers:
- Did you need, for example, to alter the timings of the introduction to ensure understanding of what was required for all the children?
- Did you find that you talked too much and the children needed more time and more independence in their work?
- How far did the lesson achieve the intended learning objectives?
- Make a judgement based on your identified assessment opportunities. If it is part of a sequence of activities, how much is there still left to do?
- Comment on how the lesson went for the children experiencing difficulty and for those children of high ability.
- How well were you able to meet the needs of those with English as an additional language?
- Did children with special educational needs have full access to the activity and were they able to succeed?
(Allen, Potter, Sharpe & Turvey, 2012, p.36)
If you are an early childhood teacher, these education reflection questions are good to consider:
(Early Years Learning Framework, 2020)
- Who is disadvantaged when I work in this way? Who is advantaged?
- What are my understandings of each child?
- What theories, philosophies, and understandings shape and assist my work?
- What aspects of my work are not helped by the theories and guidance that I usually draw on
to make sense of what I do? - What questions do I have about my work?
- What am I challenged by? What am I curious about? What am I confronted by?
- Are there other theories or knowledge that could help me to understand better what I have observed or experienced? What are they?
(DEEWR,2009:13)
Reflection about teaching strategies with technology is significant as it will ensure that your students gain the knowledge, skills and understanding they need in order to become proficient users of ICT.
It will help you conduct a thorough analyses of the situation on the outset of your planning and prepare your students for their future.
Take this lesson reflection questions with you about teaching and learning with ICT.
Critical Reflection in Early Childhood Education
Having a reflective practice in early childhood education is important if you want to ensure that are being responsive to a child’s learning needs in relation to technological skills, capabilities, knowledge and interests. As an educator, you would need to engage with questions of philosophy, ethics and practice with the intention to gather information and to gain insight that will support, inform and enrich your decision-making.
Why is Critical Reflection important in Early Childhood?
Critical reflection in early childhood education is just as significant as it is in primary education and other sectors of education. As the EYLF emphasise “it involves closely examining all aspects of events and experiences from different perspectives”. From this perspective, you should be able to frame your reflective practice with a set of more specific questions.
It also makes up one of the five key principles that reflect contemporary theories and research evidence concerning children’s learning and early childhood pedagogy. This principle along with the others in the EYLF underpin early childhood practice so that all young children are supported and progress through their early learning outcomes.
Additionally, early childhood teachers working within the EYLF need to submit critical reflections on the use of, teaching decisions and pedagogies, and purpose of ICT in early childhood learning environments as evidence of teacher practice at both the Proficient and Highly Accomplished level where they are expected to lead critical reflection with colleagues.
What is Critical Reflection in Early Childhood?
The NQS (National Quality Standard – ACECQA) state that to be confident educator in critical reflection is the ability to understand how it differs from evaluating, summarising and recording what you see and do.
For example:
In relation to ‘looking in detail and creatively’, you would:
- Think about your teaching practice and program decisions.
- Explore multiple perspectives.
- Make the links between theory and practice clear.
- Make purposeful changes to practice to improve children’s early learning outcomes.
Reflective questions for early childhood educators would involve key questions such as:
- What do we know about this child?
- Why did we make the decision/respond the way we did?
- Were we guided by our philosophy and theories about how children learn (with a focus on equity, inclusion and diversity)?
- How did we feel about the decision?
- What went well?
- What didn’t go well?
- Should we continue, improve or change the decision/practice?
Other reflective practice questions for early childhood educators that would explore ‘feelings’ would include:
- What were my feelings when it happened?
- Why did I feel that way?
- How can I use these feelings to motivate change for myself, the team, and the service?
Critical reflection in early childhood education can therefore be used as tool for professional and personal growth especially when questions are asked such as:
- Can I share my critical reflections at a team meeting?
- Can I develop ideas for improvement?
- Can I implement a change and what will it look like?
The NQS also recognises that critical reflection is about:
- A process that usually takes place after the decision/ practice, etc., has occurred.
- Done individually or in a group, such as with educators, children, families, or other professionals. A group setting gives us other perspectives.
- Used to enhance our professional practice, identify improvements, and inform the decisions we make.
- Used to strengthen our program, providing ongoing quality experiences for our children, with a particular focus on equity, inclusion and diversity.
- A continuous process of engagement.
- Done in daily diaries, reflective journals, meetings and reflection sessions.
How often do early childhood teachers have to ‘critically’ reflect?
The process of critical reflection in early childhood education is an ongoing process and there are no set rules how often you should set aside time to document your reflections.
How to Practice Critical Reflection?
One way that you can practice critical reflection in early childhood education is to engage in collaborative reflective practices. This is a good way to promote change as learning together can make it easier to experiment with new ideas and ways of teaching and learning with ICT in early childhood learning activities.
Collaborative practices also help to motivate you in making positive changes in children’s learning. Having a critical friend can:
- Inspire you.
- Challenge you.
- Support you.
- And lend an ear and offer friendship when the process becomes too overwhelming.
Another way is to also develop a Learning Journal that will reflect your beliefs and practices about children’s learning with ICT in early childhood learning environments.
You could also develop a philosophy statement with your own team that will address questions like ‘What do we believe’ or ‘Why do we hold such beliefs’ and ‘How can we transform these beliefs into practice’.
Steps for Critical Reflection in ECE
As a guide to start your critical reflection process, the EYLF outlines as according to Aussie Childcare Network, the following:
Identify a concern
The first step is to choose an issue for critical reflection – this can happen in a formal setting like a weekly staff meeting or informally over lunch break when perhaps some educators begin discussing the challenge of conducting group time for children and how most seem unwilling to join. With educators generally agreeing that none of them are happy with the way group time seems to be working, you have an issue suitable for critical reflective practice.
Gather information
The next step is to collect evidence on what is currently happening and look for patterns. In the above example, staff may decide to use different ways to collect the information about children’s participation in group time, like taking observations and photographs of the children at five-minute intervals to see where the children were positioned and how they were participating, as well as asking children questions about what they understood group-time to be.
Once information is collected, it is time to analyse the data and reflect upon what the information is telling you. For example, in the above instance, educators may find that though a small group of children appeared to be highly engaged in the group times, a relatively large number of children remained disinterested and some even complained of it being too teacher-driven
Frame a question to be explored
Once you have identified what is not working, ask how might the situation be improved. So in the above example, a question framed by educators might be, “How can we rethink group time to make it more meaningful to the children?”
Decide upon action
This is mainly focused on ways to change a practice that is no longer working for example, in this instance, the staff may decide to offer ‘workshops’ around music, stories, puppetry, and gardening to children instead of group time so that it would be both be focused on the child’s interest and involve hands-on activities.
Let children could choose between group time and the workshop, thereby giving them more agency and reducing the chances of non-compliance.
Evaluate the change
This is when educators would examine whether the new practices have addressed the issue first identified. Thus in the example, the staff would collect another round of observations and photographs, and then get back to discuss whether they revealed any changes, for example, children who had previously struggled with group time may now appear to have fun in the workshops. On the other hand, if evidence shows children still disengaged from the activities, educators may have to return to the evidence with a fresh set of eyes to identify patterns they may have missed out on earlier – like higher chances of task refusal in the late afternoon than mid-morning, based upon which a different framing question would have to be drawn up and action is taken.
Critical Reflection as Part of Technology Integration and Digital Play-based Learning Professional Development to support Pedagogical change
Within all our online training for early childhood educators, we make it a requirement for participants to complete and submit a critical reflection on the educational theories learned.
The successful submission would address the following standard descriptors: APST 2.6.2, 3.4.2, and 4.5.2. Alternatively, if you teach in the Philippines you will address PPST 7.4.1, 7.4.2, and 7.4.3 in relation to Professional reflection and learning to improve practice.
Critical reflection questions in early childhood education
- To what extent am I catering for the abilities of all the students in the class?
- Are students able to build on prior learning?
- Have I considered common misconceptions associated with this topic?
- Are the students able to use what they have learnt in new situation?
- Did the students appreciate that they were making progress?
- Did the students improve their confidence in the subject and the image they have of themselves as a learner of the subject?
- Did the students develop good habits of work, including perseverance and a concern for correctness?
- Did the students use their initiative, exercise imagination and think for themselves?
- How was the ICT activity integrated into the normal running of the classroom?
- What skills did I need in order for the ICT activity to succeed?
- How did I ensure that all students had access to the ICT activity?
- What were the learning outcomes for the students in ICT?
- What assessment opportunities were there?
- How does this experience add to my understanding of teaching ICT capability in literacy development?
- What will I do next time?
- How far did the lesson achieve the intended learning objectives?
- Make a judgement based on your identified assessment opportunities. If it is part of a sequence of activities,
- how much is there still left to do?
- Comment on how the lesson went for the children experiencing difficulty and for those children of high
- ability.
- How well were you able to meet the needs of those with English as an additional language?
- Did children with special educational needs have full access to the activity and were they able to succeed?
Critical Reflection Exercise
I have no doubt that since you are reading this you may have already started the productive process of technology integration in early childhood education.
In this case, you can begin the process of critically reflecting on the following:
- The use of technology and its relevance to the children’s learning (APST 2.6.2)
- The use of ICT resources with young children (APST 3.4.2).
- The purpose of ICT in early childhood learning environments (APST 4.5.2).
Write a 500 word report now in relation to these points and how you currently integrate technology in early childhood education and care today.