Reflective Practice For Renewing Schools

Renew your teaching and your passion with this updated bestseller! When the teaching life gets tough, reflective practice reenergizes you—counteracting the effects of professional isolation and instilling a sense of meaning, renewal, and empowerment that benefits you, your colleagues, and your students. This bestselling book offers research-based ideas and strategies for using reflective practice individually, with others, and even schoolwide. Features of the newest edition include: Updated strategies for engaging adults and students and using reflective practices to create equitable outcomes New examples of reflective practice in action A new chapter on the core leadership practices for growing reflective practice A new companion website with resources and reflection protocols

This reference tool for mastering reflective practice and initiating it in your school offers ideas for reflective practice alone, with partners, in small groups, and schoolwide.

Written for teachers, administrators, and professional development specialists in schools and universities, this book is an educators’ guide to reflective practice. In clear, accessible language, the authors explain the potential to create meaningful change in schools and show you how to integrate reflective practice effectively into the daily work of schools. The book: - Explains reflective practice as a professional development strategy and its importance for school reform - Offers ideas and practical strategies to facilitate collaborative, data-based inquiry, dialogue, and problem-solving in schools - Describes reflective practice in action and illustrates its power to create meaningful change in classrooms - Shows how reflective practice is an important step in creating professional learning organizations Reflective practice has the potential to renew your sense of optimism, commitment, and efficacy as you learn how to support meaningful professional growth, shape a culture of learning, and make important changes in students’ learning.

Renew your teaching and your passion with this updated bestseller! When the teaching life gets tough, reflective practice reenergizes you—counteracting the effects of professional isolation and instilling a sense of meaning, renewal, and empowerment that benefits you, your colleagues, and your students. This bestselling book offers research-based ideas and strategies for using reflective practice individually, with others, and even schoolwide. Features of the newest edition include: Updated strategies for engaging adults and students and using reflective practices to create equitable outcomes New examples of reflective practice in action A new chapter on the core leadership practices for growing reflective practice A new companion website with resources and reflection protocols

Use 80 reflection breaks as individual discussion starters or as part of a comprehensive professional growth plan that is perfect for teachers at all levels.

'This book is a must read for teacher leaders, principals, and central office administrators. The authors make a substantive and powerful argument for addressing reflection at all levels of the organization and provide practical tools and insights to facilitate a comfortable transition from theory to practice. This book will be valuable to anyone serious about ensuring success for all students' - Stephanie Hirsh, Deputy Executive Director, National Staff Development Council, Oxford, Ohio 'I treasure this book. It is informative, well written, and important to educational leaders' - Robert Garmston, Cofounder, Institute for Intelligent Behavior, El Dorado Hills, California The authors explain reflective practice in a clear and concise manner and illustrate how reflective practice can enhance student learning. Readers will come away with an understanding of the potential of reflective practice to improve teaching and learning in schools.After introducing the concept of reflective practice as a set of skills and behaviours, the authors take the readers through steps and activities to establish an individual practice, reflection partners, small group reflection, and school wide reflective practice.Reflective practice is not only for individuals who want to take personal responsibility for learning and improvement but also for educators who gain greater communication between staff and community.

The concept of reflective practice has proliferated over the last few decades in many professions such as medicine, law, business and education. Within the field of education reflective practice has become a very popular concept within teacher education and development programs and perhaps its main appeal according to Loughran (2000: 33) is that it 'rings true for most people as something useful' to practice. Indeed as McLaughlin (1999:9) has remarked, 'Who would want to champion the unreflective practitioner?' The general consensus is that teachers who are encouraged to engage in reflective practice can gain new insight of their practice. There have been similar developments in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) where the allure of reflective practice seems to have also been embraced as an important educational paradigm that should be supported in teacher education and development programs. This book is the first in a new series consisting of several practical oriented books that introduce cutting-edge research and practical applications of that research related to reflective practice in language education. Written by the series editor, it acts an introduction to the series and outlines and discusses the concept of reflective practice in general, the various models and approaches to reflective practice and gives guidance on cultivating reflective practice.

As a school administrator, instructional coach, or teacher leader, you know that reflective teachers are effective teachers. But how can you help teachers become self-reflective practitioners whose thoughtful approach translates into real gains for student achievement? In Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice—a companion volume to their teacher-oriented book Teach, Reflect, Learn—authors Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral draw on lessons learned from educators across grade levels, content areas, and district demographics to present a definitive guide to developing a culture of reflective practice in your school. Hall and Simeral expand on ideas originally presented in Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success to help you gain a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities—and those of your teachers—within each stage of the Continuum of Self-Reflection. Armed with the book’s real-life examples and research-based tools, you’ll learn how to determine the current location of all stakeholders on the continuum and how teacher-leadership activities, transformational feedback, and strategic coaching can move them forward. The end result? A schoolwide culture that both values reflection and uses it to ensure that teachers—and their students—reach their fullest potential.