Week 32 : Activity 8 - Reflective Practice


Week 32 - Reflective practice

 

Activity 8 - Key change in my professional practice

        What?
When reflecting on my Mind Lab journey of 32 weeks, the significant change I have made is professional relationship as required by “Our Code, Our Standards (Minsitry of Education, 2017), particularly exposing myself to the social media.

       Now what?  
1.     Problem Identification
I was always withdrawn from accessing social media due to a negative experience I had been through. However, it is critical to reflect on this experience as Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) suggest, reflective practice can assist practitioners to understand and can evaluate their practice.

2.     Observation and Analysis
With Mind Lab in place, it regained my confidence and competence through accessing google community (G+) thus encouraging me to expose myself to other platforms which assist my teaching practice in various ways. Due to my previous negative online experience, I personally assumed there wouldn’t be anyone willing to respond to my posts. Mind Lab totally proved me wrong for there were many professional colleagues who gave up their precious times to pour out their deep amazing thoughts via blogging to support me as required and shared in my reflections. Blogging serves as a model to facilitate and enhance learning and knowledge management in a shared context among practitioners (Lave & Wenger, 1991). I refer to Mind Lab as my 2018 professional learning development (PLD), specifically digital technology wise.

3.     Abstract Reconceptualization
It encourages, and boosts up my self esteem trusting to respond and affiliate with other professional practitioners who share the same interests and goals (Osterman, K. F., & Kottkamp, R. B. 2015). Mind Lab has opened up the door ways to my limited and lonesome world in which I only collaborated with a few people - students and school staff, whether it’s learning or teaching practice.

4.      Active experimentation
With the opportunity made available through blogging, and when opening up about own overwhelmed experience, I had been fully supported, discovering solutions for some changes I need to for my professional behavior and personal belief.  Educators find great value in working collaboratively with colleagues when drawing to their diverse experience and expertise, they increase greatly the pool of available resources and ideas. I have learned quite a lot from this effective professional online communication. Mind Lab is exciting and fun. It turns my negative online fear into confidence to share with other professional practitioners who contributed their lovely ideas into improving my teacher practice, to enable my learning stakeholders and I to continuously collaborate in order to prepare the students for the 21st century learning.

What next?
Mind Lab has been modelling how to transform my teaching practice into an innovative flipped classroom that is to be well equipped and organized, personalizing learning, thus creating a safe learning environment that caters for diverse learning needs of the students. As required by the Ministry of Education (2017), I have to continuously engage in professional learning and adaptively apply this in practice. I have to also remember to use inquiry, collaborative problem- solving and professional learning to improve professional capability that impacts on the learning and achievement of all learners, thus respecting tangata whenua by integrating their cultural aspects into different curriculum areas where relevant and possible. Finlay (2008. P. 1) recommends and I agree to “recapture own practice experiences and mull them over critically to gain new understandings and improve my future practice

It is critical that I uphold the Professional Teaching expectations set out in the Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards digital technology wise, for they allow me to work collaboratively with other professional practitioners. It supports me in a professional way to catch up with the new learning speed required for the learners’ future and lifelong learning.

References:


Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, Open University. Retrieved from  http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from

Osterman, K. F., & Kottkamp, R. B. (2015). Reflective practice for educators : professional development to improve student learning.(2nd ed.) New York: Skyhorse Publishing.

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Corwin Press, Inc. Retrieved from hhttp://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf







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