Reflective Practice - What is it and why do I bother with it?
I feel it is important to be a reflective practitioner of teaching because there are always ways to refine and improve my teaching for the benefit of my students.
For more information on reflective practice, I recommend Mark K. Smith's page Reflection, learning and education on the The Encyclopedia of Informal Education:
http://infed.org/mobi/reflection-learning-and-education/
Refining my Curriculum & Teaching
The following are the student behaviours I have identified that can lead to students not successfully earning the final grade they need to progress in their academic plans.
Please note that I greatly empathize with what is going on in students' lives. I too have had serious challenges and barrier to educational success, so it is rewarding to me that I have a career that I can pay forward all the support I have received over the years.
After I identify these behaviours, I work to identify and adopt strategies to put supports in place, refine my curriculum, or modify my teaching practice to improve success rates.
As you may notice, none of these difficulties are intellectual!
Sequentially listed in the order by which I was able to identify these challenges and barriers to student success.
- Difficulty arriving for class on-time
- Difficulty attending class regularly
- Difficulty handing in the first assignment
- Difficulty returning to class after a crisis
- Difficulty with procrastination and writer's block
- Difficulty handing in all assignments<BR>
- Difficulty incorporating feedback to improve
- Difficulty with school fatigue