Design and Evaluation of Training Programs - Week 7 - Critical Reflection in Teacher Development

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 7 of the course Design and Evaluation of Teacher Training Programs and Workshops for the Master's in English Teaching at ULACIT. Today we will do several activities to explore the topics of film analysis, and reflective practice as professional development strategies, discuss the ADDIE model for training development, and review a framework for connecting content, learning goals, and activities. 

Today's Goals:

• Explore the ways that film analysis can serve as an entry point for reflecting on teaching.
• Discuss the role of reflective practice in the process of ongoing professional development and as a problem solving strategy.
• ...

Guiding Questions:

• How can fictional depictions of teachers and learners provide insight into the teaching-learning process?
• What is reflective practice and why should it be an essential skill for teachers?
• What are the aims of my training course and what objectives do I need to achieve them?

Warm Up: Memorable Fictional Teachers

What teachers can you think of from fictional books, movies, TV shows, and cartoons? What were they link? Were they "good" teachers? Why or why not?

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Richards (2017) suggests the use of fictional teachers and classroom scenes as artefacts of analysis to promote discussion and reflection. Watch the film clip below and be ready to discuss the following questions.

• What teacher qualities are depicted?
• How do the students view the teacher?
• What kind of interaction takes place between the teacher and the students?
• What assumptions about teaching and learning does the clip seem to be making?
• What would you change if you could re-shoot this scene? - e.g. to make it more realistic? Contextualized for Costa Rican teachers in 2022?

Task 1: Sharing your PD Journal

Let's take a moment to share one of the entries you made in your PD Journal in Week 6. As you share your highlight, let's think about how this tip connects to how we as individual teachers can develop in our practice and how we as trainers can use these techniques to support teacher growth with teachers we work with.

• Engage in Critical Reflection
• Learn how to engage in critcal reflection
• Taek part in group problem solving
• Use clips from movies or extracts from fiction to explore teaching
• Try doing something different

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Task 2: Defining Critical Reflection

Richards (2017) discusses the importance of critical reflection as a professional development strategy in chapter 19, but what is critical reflection? Read the following definitions taken from Farrell (2019, pp. 16-17). What do they have in common? How are they different?

• Human activity in which people recapture their experience and think about it.
• We can stand outside ourselves and come to a clearer understanding of what we do.
• A moral as well as rational process of deciding what ought to be done in a practical situation.
• The process of making sense of one's experiences by examining one's thoughts and actions to arrive at new ways of understanding one's self as a teacher.
• The mental process of structuring or restructuring an experience, a problem, or existing knowledge or insights.
• Not an end in itself, but a tool or vehicle used in the transformation of raw experience into meaning-filled theory that is grounded in experience.
• A holistic way of meeting and responding to problems, a way of being as a teacher that emancipates us from merely impulsive and routine activity, and enables us to direct our actions and know what we are about when we act. 

Farrell takes a principled approach to reflective practice. He outlines these six interconnected principles that effective reflective practice entails:

1. Reflective practice is holistic.
2. It is evidence-based.
3. It involves dialogue.
4. It bridges principles and practices.
5. It requries an inquiring disposition.
6. It is a way of life.

Task 3: Levels of Reflection

Critical Reflection or Reflective Practice is a skill that one can learn and get better at. Some authors prefer to view reflective practice in terms of levels of reflection meaning that as a teacher becomes more skilled, they are able to reflect to higher levels of abstraction. Click your group link below to take your quiz. Make sure you each go to a different section of the document. When you finish, discuss your results.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE

Check Your Level: Authors might differ on their particular descripion of the levels of reflection but there are generally recognized to be at least three. Farrell (2019, pp. 24-25) cites Day's model.

• Descriptive: Teachers focus their reflections on behavioral actions. This involves a focus on teacher skills. (Scores below 75)
• Conceptual: Teachers also include justifications of their actions based on current theories of teaching. This involves articulating a rationale for practice. (Scores 75-104)
• Critical: Teacher include both descriptive and conceptual reflections but also look beyond theories and practices to examine their meaning within ethical, moral, and social ramifications. This involves examining the socio-political, moral, and ethical results of practice. (Scores 105-120)

Task 4: Cycles of Reflection

Other authors prefer to think about reflective practice in terms of an ongoing iterative process of continual refinement and exporation. Flip through the cyclical or iterative reflective practice models in the Google Slides presentation below. What do you think they mean? What elements do they seem to have in common? What is different?

So What? Why should we concern ourselves with critical reflection or reflective practice? Can't we just train teachers to have all the knowlege and skills they will need to be effective in the classroom? 

 

Task 5: Reading Response

Last week you completed the second part of the Linkedin Learning Course and you were asked these questions.

• What are three takeaway ideas from this section of the course?
• For each idea explain why you chose it and give a specific example about how it can be applied to the context of designing a training course for teachers.

A Breakdown of the ADDIE model: In this section of the online course, the instructor went through the different stages of the ADDIE model.

• Analyze: What to train? What to leave out?
• Readiness? - Why will this benefit the learner?
• Experience? - What relevant prior experience do the learners have?
• Application? - How will the learners apply this?

• Design: Determine your delivery method, activities, and the length of the training.
• Rationale?
• Objective?
• Activity?
• Evaluation?
• Feedback?

• Develop: Create the materials and activities. Your design may be modified based on discoveries made during the development stage.

• Implement: Try it out.

• Evaluate: Assess the effectiveness of the course.
• Does the training work?
• How could it be improved?
• Who achieved the goals?
• What % achieved the goals?

Task 4: Project Check-In

So far what have we done? We have chosen a general topic of the training, carried out a needs and context analysis, and began the process of brainstorming possible content and ways of structuring the course. However, we are still missing a major part that can help you put the pieces together with your design, the objectives! 

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The Backward Design framework is a very helpful way to get started. How does it work? 

1. Identify Desired Results: Start with your content and ask yourself, "What do I want learners to know or be able to do by the end of the training?"
2. Determine Acceptable Evidence: Ask yourself, "What can trainees do to show me that they have learned?"
3. Plan Learning Experiences: If you know where you want the trainees to end up, what do they need to do to get there? 

References:

Farrell, T. (2019). Reflective Practice in ELT. Equinox Publishing Ltd.

Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses. National Geographic Learning.

Richards, J. (2017). Jack C Richard's 50 Tips for Teacher Development. Cambridge University Press.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Devleopment.