example reflective essay teaching practice

12 Reflective Teaching Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Reflective teaching is a process where teachers reflect on their own teaching practices and learn from their own experiences.

This type of reflection allows teachers to see what works well in their classrooms and what needs improvement. Reflective teaching also helps teachers to understand the impact that their teaching has on students.

Examples of reflective teaching include observing other teachers, taking notes on your own teaching practice, reading about how to improve yourself, and asking for feedback from your students to achieve self-improvement.

Reflective Teaching Examples

1. reflection-in-practice.

Reflection in practice is a concept by David Schon which involves small moments of reflection throughout your day.

Instead of pausing at the end of your activities and reflecting upon what you did, Schon argues that good practitioners reflect in the moment and make tiny changes from moment-to-moment. This is the difference between reflection on practice and reflection in practice. “Reflection on” occurs once the lesson is over. Reflection in occurs during the lesson.

For example, as you’re doing a question-and-answer session with your class, you might realize that the students are tuning out and getting bored. In order to resolve this problem, you might choose to get the students all to stand up and play heads or tails for questions you ask them. This might get the kinesthetic learners re-engaged in the lesson and salvage it from its impending implosion.

Related Article: 15 Action Research Examples

2. Conducting Classroom Observations

Another way to do reflective teaching is to start a classroom observation routine. Create a template for your observations (e.g. listing each student’s name down the side, with notes beside it) and take notes on students’ work.

You could, for example, choose to observe how well students responded to a new classroom intervention. These written observations can form the basis for changes that you can make to your work as you progress.

Similarly, you could make observations about students’ interactions after changing the classroom layout. This can help you edit and refine your chosen layout in order to maximize student learning and figure out the best location for each student.

3. Pivoting based on Formative Feedback

Reflective teachers also try to obtain formative feedback from students in order to gather data that can form the basis of their reflection.

An example of formative feedback is a pre-test a month before the exams.

This pre-test can help the teacher understand the general areas of weakness for their students, and acts as the basis for a pivot in their teaching practices. The teacher may, for example, identify a specific math challenge that the majority of the students had trouble with. They can then put extra focus on that challenge for the next few weeks so the students can ace that challenge in the end-of-term test.

In this way, formative feedback is a core tool for teachers in their formative feedback toolkit.

4. Keeping a Teaching Diary

A personal teaching diary can help teachers to identify trends in their behaviors (and the behaviors of their students) that can help teachers to improve.

For example, in my teaching diary, I will often take notes about how I reacted to certain events. I’ll note my reaction as well as things I did well, ways I effectively self-regulated , and things I did poorly. If I’m taking notes on an answer to a student’s question, I might note that something I did well was “give a clear answer” but an area for improvement might be “I failed to follow-up later in the day to check my student’s comprehension”.

Incidentally, teaching diaries can be extremely useful for self-performance reviews . Bring your teaching diary into the performance review and go over it with your line manager. They will be super impressed with your reflective practice!

5. Receiving Student Evaluations

Despite how much we may despise student evaluations, they can contain important tidbits of information for us.

I often like to compare my evaluations from one to the next to see if there are changes in the student trend. I’ll also work really hard on one aspect of my teaching and see if I can get students to take notice and leave a comment in the evaluation.

For example, one semester, I decided to implement a tech intervention (I let students use an educational app in class). The students used the app, and it turns out – they didn’t like it!

Without the student evaluation, I wouldn’t have been able to identify this problem and work on solving it. You can read all about that study here, which I published in an academic journal.

6. Debriefing with a Mentor

Having a mentor has been invaluable for me in my career. By sitting down with a mentor, I learn a lot about my strengths and weaknesses.

Mentors tend to bring out reflectiveness in all of us. After all, they’re teachers who want us to improve ourselves.

Your mentor may ask you open-ended questions to get you to reflect, or discuss some new points and concepts that you haven’t thought about before. In this process, you’re being prompted to reflect on your on teaching practice and compare what you do to the new ideas that have been presented. You may ask yourself questions like “do I do that?” or “do I need to improve in that area?”

7. Using Self-Reflection Worksheets

Self-reflection worksheets are a good ‘cheat’ for figuring out how to do self-reflection for people who struggle.

You can find these worksheets online through services like Teachers Pay Teachers. They often involve daily activities like:

• Write down one thing you struggled with today.
• Write down one big win.
• Write down one thing you will actively try to work on tomorrow.

These worksheets are simple prompts (that don’t need to take up too much time!) that help you to bring to the front of your consciousness all those thoughts that have been brewing in your mind, so you can think about ways to act upon them tomorrow.

See Also: Self-Reflection Examples

8. Changing Lesson Plans Based on Previous Experiences

At the end of each unit of work, teachers need to look at their lesson plans and self-assess what changes are required.

Everyone is aware of that teacher who’s had the same lesson plan since 2015. They seem lazy for failing to modernize and innovate in their practice.

By contrast, the reflective practitioner spends a moment at the end of the lesson or unit and thinks about what changes might need to be made for next time the lesson is taught.

They might make changes if the information or knowledge about the topic changes (especially important in classes that engage with current events!). Similarly, you might make changes if you feel that there was a particular point in the lesson where there was a lull and you lost the students’ attention.

9. Professional Development Days

Professional development days are a perfect opportunity for reflective teaching.

In fact, the leader of the professional development day is likely to bake reflectiveness into the event. They may prepare speeches or provide activities specifically designed for teachers to take a step back and reflect.

For example, I remember several moments in my career where we had a guest speaker attend our PD day and gave an inspiring speech about the importance of teachers for student development. These events made me think about what I was doing and the “bigger picture” and made me redouble my efforts to be an excellent teacher.

10. Implementing 2-Minute Feedback

The 2-minute feedback concept is excellent for reflective practice. For this method, you simply spend the last 2 minutes of the class trying to get feedback from your students.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to give students a post-it note at the end of the lesson. Have them write on one side something they liked about the lesson and on the other something they didn’t like. Then, you can read the feedback to reflect on how to improve.

With younger students, you can do ‘hands up’ for students and ask them how confident they are with the topic.

For online lessons, I’ve put a thermometer up on the screen and asked students to draw on the thermometer how confident that are (line at the top means very confident, line at the bottom means not confident at all).

11. Reading Books

Books are excellent for helping us to reflect and contemplate. There is a wide range of books for teachers, from philosophical ones like Pedagogy of the Oppressed to very practical workbooks.

Through reading, we encounter new ideas that challenge our current ideas. As we pick up new ideas and information, we interrogate our current thoughts and find ways to assimilate them into our new thinking. Sometimes, that requires us to change our own current opinions or thoughts, and challenge us to consistently improve.

In this way, reading books about teaching is an inherently reflective practice. It makes us better practitioners and more thoughtful people.

12. Listening to Podcasts

Like books, podcasts enable us to consume information that can help us pause and reflect.

I personally love podcasts because I find them easier to consume than books. The conversations and dialogue in podcasts help me to feel immersed in a conversation with close friends. Good podcasts hosts make you feel like they’re grappling with the exact same concerns and emotions as you are – and it’s a motivating experience.

Good podcasts for teachers include The Cult of Pedagogy and Teachers on Fire. These podcasts help me to reflect on my own teaching practice and continue to learn new things that I can compare to my own approaches and integrate when I feel they offer new insights that are valuable.

There are many ways to incorporate reflective practice into your teaching. By taking the time to reflect on your teaching, you can identify areas where you can improve and make changes to your practice. This will help you to become a more effective teacher and better meet the needs of your students. Through reflective practice, you can also develop a stronger sense of who you are as a teacher and what your personal teaching philosophy is.

Drew, C. & Mann, A. (2018). Unfitting, uncomfortable, unacademic: a sociological critique of interactive mobile phone apps in lectures. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0125-y

Lousberg, L., Rooij, R., Jansen, S. et al. Reflection in design education. Int J Technol Des Educ. 30, 885–897 (2020). doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-019-09532-6

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Number Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Word Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Outdoor Games for Kids
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 50 Incentives to Give to Students

2 thoughts on “12 Reflective Teaching Examples”

Dr Chris Drew, this article is useful for teachers like me. I really appreciate your hard work. Thank you for being a helpful professor. Sandy

Dr, Chris Drew. First of all Congratulations. This article is handy for me as I am doing my teacher training course. You did a good job, explaining in a simple manner so, anyone can understand easily. Thank you so much. Alka

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Online Teaching Hub

Online and Blended Teaching Hub

Reflecting on teaching practice.

Reflection is an integral part of the teaching process. School activities in and outside the classroom create a natural environment for reflective teaching. Professional experience, healthy self-awareness, and genuine care for students and colleagues help teachers to reflect effectively. Reflective practices consist of in-the-moment reflection for immediate action, after-the-moment reflection for future action, and outside reflection for exchange of reflective experience among a teacher’s colleagues and professional learning networks. Reflection promotes evidence-based changes in the classroom to advance teaching practices and is one of the cornerstones of a teacher’s professional development and supports the quality of education in today’s ever-changing world.

Questions to Consider

Why is reflection essential to my growth as a teacher?

How do I receive feedback about my teaching and lesson content?

How does reflection impact my next steps towards continued growth as a blended or online teacher?

At-a-Glance Video

• Topic Summary
• Infographic: Reflective Questioning and Strategies
• Infographic: The Continuous Reflection Cycle
• Infographic: Benefits of Reflective Teaching

Web Resources

Reflection resources.

• Ways to be a More Reflective Teacher
• Benefits of Reflective Teaching and Learning 
• How To Apply Reflective Practice when Teaching Online
• How to Encourage Reflective Teaching in Your School
• Self-Reflection: Are You a Reflective Teacher?
• Questions to Tackle When Reflecting on Teaching
• Fun Ways to Reflect on Your Teaching
• Reflective Teaching: 5 Minute Definitions for Teachers in a Hurry
• Reflect on Teaching Practice

Related Online and Blended Teaching Hub Topics

• Building a Professional Learning Network
• Building Effective Relationships
• Culturally Responsive Teaching
• Work-Life Balance

Online and Blended Teaching Hub Tool Pages

• Assessment: Edulastic , Google Forms , Microsoft Forms
• Polling: Mentimeter , Poll Everywhere , Slido

• Faculty & Staff

Developing a reflective teaching practice

Our university is built on a commitment to using the power of discovery, creativity, and analytical thinking to solve challenges, including those we encounter in the process of teaching. While consulting the scholarship of teaching and learning is a good way to identify effective teaching strategies, the most important dimension of an effective teaching practice is reflection.

What is “reflective” teaching?

The American philosopher and educational reformer, John Dewey, considered reflection crucial to learning. As Dewey scholar, Carol Rodgers, notes, Dewey framed reflection as “a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking” that led to intellectual growth.

Because our students are so diverse and there’s so much variety in instructional contexts, good teaching requires instructors to observe, reflect upon, and adapt their teaching practice . In addition to identifying areas for improvement in your teaching, reflection is also core to an inclusive teaching practice.

Reflective practices

There are lots of ways to be thoughtful about your teaching, but here are a few for each point in the quarter.

Before the beginning of the quarter:

• Reflect on your course goals. What do you want students to be able to do by the time they leave your course?
• Reflect on your own mix of identities. How has privilege or oppression shaped your perspectives?
• Reflect on how your discipline creates knowledge and decides what knowledge is valuable. How has this constrained what and how you teach?

During the quarter:

• Keep a journal to briefly jot down your observations of student interactions and experiences in the classroom. Note things that are working and things you might want to change.
• Get an outside perspective. Ask a colleague to come observe a class and your interactions with students and/or course materials.
• Conduct a mid-quarter evaluation to gather information on how the course is going. Ask yourself what you can do to relieve the pain points that students identified in the evaluation.

At the end of the quarter:

• Reflect on your course data. What do your gradebook and course evaluations indicate about what worked well and what didn’t work so well? What can you do to improve students’ performance?
• Connect with a consultant to brainstorm ways to redesign assignments or improve your teaching practice.
• Dig into the scholarship of teaching and learning to find ideas for how others have improved their teaching practice in a certain area.

Reflecting on your identities and position

Your teaching emerges from your educational background and training, as well as from your personal history and experience. Reflecting on how who you are and what you have experienced shapes your teaching can help you identify ways to better connect with your students.

Positionality and intersectionality

Positionality refers to the social, cultural, and political contexts – including systems of power and oppression – that shape our identities. Our positionalities influence how we approach course design, choose content, teach, and assess student work. Recognizing how your own positionality impacts your teaching can help you create a more inclusive classroom.

On one level, intersectionality refers to the ways that the multiple dimensions of our identity intersect to shape our experience. Black feminist scholars have stressed how social systems based on things such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and disability combine to create an interlocking system that privileges some and oppresses others.

Reflecting on your own positionality and the intersectional nature of your identity can help you think more intentionally about your content choices, the materials you assign to your students, and even how the different aspects of your students’ identities may affect their experience in your class.

Empowering students

The relationships that define learning environments are, unavoidably, imbued with power. As an instructor, you hold a position of authority, and a level of implicit institutional power – you determine the content of your course, create assignments, and grade those assignments. But when students have agency in their courses, they are more likely to be engaged and invested in their own learning . Reflecting on the power structures that define your classrooms may help you find ways to recalibrate or redistribute power so that students become more active agents in the creation of disciplinary knowledge, as well as in their own learning.

As you reflect, you might consider adopting one or more of following strategies for empowering your students:

• Take on the role of a guide. Rather than aspiring to transmit information through lecture, consider ways to make students active participants and contributors in their learning. Develop student-driven activities and discussions that create constructive, cooperative learning environments that encourage students to learn together.
• Consider flipping your classroom . Devote the time you spend with students to interaction and collaboration. Create videos focused on your lecture material that students can watch (and rewatch) as a homework activity.
• Work with students to articulate community values and expectations. Consider building community agreements with students. Openly discuss how you will assess students’ work and allow students to ask questions and offer their own ideas for grading. A great way to get students involved in thinking about their own assessment is to co-create assessment rubrics.
• Encourage students to share their own knowledge and expertise. Ask students to think about what they already know about a course topic and how your course can help them build upon that knowledge. Challenge students to think critically about why and how course material is relevant to their own lives.
• Practice inclusive course design. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles can help make your teaching more inclusive and offer students more opportunities to engage and express their knowledge.

Reflective Essay on Different Aspects of Teaching Practice

There are numerous areas of teaching which I need to improve upon, yet I have chosen to focus this essay on some of the fundamental factors to becoming a successful teacher: behaviour management and acting on feedback.

Behaviour Management

On placement I had to be careful to ensure that I had the correct level of formality in my relationships with pupils. This seems to be particularly apt in Mathematics where a significant amount of concentration and effort are needed. Haggerty (2002) suggests that a mathematics teacher needs to be relatively formal, in part due to the subject’s complex properties.

Being overfamiliar with pupils can diminish a teacher’s authority. Initially, in the first few weeks of the placement I was too informal with pupils and failed to progress from a teaching assistant-pupil to a teacher-pupil relationship adequately which requires a formal rather than informal, consultative register (Joos, 1972). However, my good relationship with pupils allowed me to contribute to their learning informally such as regularly helping pupils with maths homework outside of lessons and doing intervention and group work. Pupils seemed to thrive on the support I gave them. The informal, incidental learning (Marsick and Watkins, 1990) that took place clearly supplemented their formal lessons well.

Pupils gained a relational understanding (Skemp, 1977) of the topics they were learning due to my detailed explanations of how and why the maths worked. A great example of this was a colleague informing me of a Y11 student’s progress I had been working closely with: she was now achieving a C in Maths having only being at a grade D/E before, thus making her a candidate to sit the GCSE Higher Maths paper.

However, the rapport I had with pupils sometimes negatively impacted on my experiences in the classroom: particularly in my Year 9 class, where pupils misbehaved as they saw me as more of a student than a proper teacher. After consulting with the regular class teacher, I tried to remedy this by being stricter and tolerating disruption less. Capel and Gervis (2005) suggest that teachers who have high expectations of behaviour from their class tend to get their students to behave well. I found this to be true.

I tried to model the standard of behaviour I expected from the pupils, always being smart and punctual. I greeted pupils at the door at the beginning of the lesson and treated them fairly in the hope they would see me as a role model and copy my behaviour and thought processes (Bandura, 1977). This technique only partially solved the problem. My Year 7 and 8 classes behaved quite well but my Year 9 class was still disruptive, though they behaved better than at the start of my placement. I was teaching more lessons by my third week on placement and this naturally helped me gain some authority as pupils became more used to me as a teacher.

To try and improve the behaviour of my Year 9 group, I tried an alternative approach with them. I raised the volume of my voice, had zero-tolerance on misbehaviour and enforced heavy sanctions such as after-school detentions towards those who did misbehave. Interestingly, this worked on some students and not on others. This is perhaps explained by a University of New Hampshire report (2012) which stated that although some students who have a dearth of discipline at home will respond to this method, pupils who have controlling parents are less likely to respond to this strategy well. This is validated by my own experiences. I become more authoritarian instead of my intended authoritative manner (Ferlazzo, 2012) and damaged the rapport I had with students, creating conflict. Kearney et al. (1991) explain that students who dislike their teacher do not perform to their full potential in lessons, which was certainly true in my Year 9 class.

One approach that I did observe in an NQT’s lesson was to use formal register at the start of the lesson in teacher exposition before gradually using more informal language to assist students through activities and build a rapport with pupils. I found this to be successful in lessons when I trialled this approach. I also noticed that I was a lot more informal and relaxed when working with smaller groups of students as a teaching assistant. Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) explain that small group sizes are effective when a teacher has a large amount of interaction with students and motivates them which is something I always tried to do in my practice.

Gates (2001) highlights a lack of relevance to real life in Mathematics lessons as being a factor in misbehaviour in students. To try and engage students more, I provided more situations where pupils could see the content in a real-life context. Examples included having interesting facts at the start of the lesson such as why there are 360 degrees in a circle and having worded, practical questions on worksheets. As well as establishing strong cross-curricular links with Literacy, this allowed pupils to see the practical uses of mathematics which could motivate them more (Chambers, 2008) and add authenticity to their learning. Cockcroft (1982) suggests that it is hard to implement situations like this in every maths lesson. This is one of the limitations of this method. For example, algebraic topics are harder to link to real life than richer geometry modules. One target I got from my tutor was to have more purpose and meaning in my lessons, which I tried to achieve by chunking lessons into fast-paced activities with links to the real world. This worked for some pupils, but not all: less confident pupils preferred a slower-paced lesson where they had time to understand concepts.

Overall, I was quite a confident and recognisable figure to pupils, which had advantages and disadvantages. Ollerton (2004) argues that an informal teacher-pupil relationship can stimulate negative and disrespectful behaviour from students. This was partially true, particularly in my Year 9 class. This was because many pupils viewed me as a visitor or substitute, a common problem for student teachers on placement (Pope and Shivlock, 2008). However, after increased interaction with students in and out the classroom, they started to respect me more which is crucial to successful learning (Comer, 1995). It seems that the correct balance of being formal, yet approachable is required to be a successful teacher.

Acting on Feedback

Throughout placement I constantly reflected on my practice. I acted on and listened to feedback from experienced teachers. I did so as then they could give me the benefit of their expertise, thus increasing my Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) by getting closer to their level of teaching capability.

Constant reflection is something that is needed to be an effective teacher. Ofsted (2012) established that the most successful mathematics teachers constantly strived to develop their practice. I kept a daily diary but this was not a sophisticated enough tool to use in my reflections. Schon (1991) states that, in order to become a reflective practitioner, you have to critically analyse your own strengths and weaknesses. My own interpretation of this was to relate theory to practice. From studying feedback given to me, I concluded that my biggest shortfall was in behaviour management. In order to try and overcome this barrier, I applied Honey and Mumford’s (2006) model of learning to a particular scenario involving my Year 9 class who often misbehaved in my lessons:

• Activist-  The initial experience/stimuli of misbehaviour that happened in a Year 9 class I was teaching. Although not malicious in any way, students were loud and off task.
• Reflector-  This is where I reviewed the experience and sought to understand why they were behaving like that by considering the internal/external conditions which affected their behaviour. I concluded that it was partially because of my teaching style, not having a clear and consistent routine and the school’s weak behaviour policy. It was also due to external factors like it being the last period on a Friday, meaning the students were desperate to get home and not in the mood to listen to me.
• Theorist-  When contemplating the situation, I realised that it was not actually all my fault and that there were other factors causing their misbehaviour such as the time of day and the day of the week.
• Pragmatist-  When I thought about how I was going to change this, I addressed each set of factors in turn. In terms of the internal factors, I set out clear expectations of behaviour of my class as well as a fixed classroom routine which calmed them down. For the external factors, I made it clear to the class that it was irrelevant that my lesson was last period on a Friday.

Going through this cycle of reflection enabled me to enhance my practice and learn experientially (Kolb, 1976) by reflecting on what I had made mistakes on and how to correct it. In this situation, I did note that the class started to behave better though I need to improve more in this area. However, there are limitations to this style of reflection. Davies (2012) states that it is quite elaborate and may distract from teaching practice. In addition, Price (2004) states that this model of reflection doesn’t really address any major issues. The amount of time spent reflecting on the problem did hinder me in my teaching practice.

To improve further, I needed to look at alternative models of reflection and learning through enactment and getting more voluntary experience in schools. Whilst on placement, I only taught lower school pupils and I need to gain experience teaching KS4 pupils. Observing and assisting experienced teachers will only increase my learning of the teaching profession. I will observe how to manage different classes to improve my performance and consistency in the classroom (Collinson, 1994; Bobek, 2004).

The placement I undertook really developed me as a teacher. I feel a lot more confident leading a class and have more of a teacher presence, particularly when dealing with younger students. I have started to control classes better and feel comfortable dealing with misbehaviour in the lower school. Conversely, I feel I need more practice at handling older students. Future actions I will take to improve my practice is to teach more challenging classes and older year groups in my summer placement to try and become more confident at leading a class.

I feel I have established a solid and reliable model of reflection which allowed me to change my practice and respond well to challenging incidents (see earlier example with my Year 9 class) and establish a plan of action. However, I do need to make sure that I continually reflect and amend my teaching style to suit different types of classes. I have always got on well with pupils and my varied abilities allow me to contribute a lot more to a school than just being a maths teacher.

Ofsted (2008) identify ‘subject expertise’, pedagogical knowledge and strong classroom management as the triumvirate of attributes needed to be a successful mathematics teacher. I feel I can demonstrate these skills well at an individual or group level. If I am comfortable displaying these skills at a whole class level I feel I will become a successful teacher.

Reference List

Bandura, A. (1977)  Social Learning Theory.  New York: General Learning Press.

Bobek, B. L. (2002) ‘Teacher Longevity- A key to career longevity’,  The Clearing House,  75 (4), pp. 202-205.

Capel, S. and Gervis, M. (2005) ‘Motivating pupils’ in Capel, S., Leask, M. and Turner, T. (eds.)  Learning to Teach in the Secondary School: A companion to school experience.  4 th  edn.

Carroll, H. (1950) ‘A scale of measuring teacher-pupil attributes and teacher-pupil rapport’,  Psychological Monographs- General and Applied,  64 (6), pp. 24-27.

Chambers, P. (2008)  Teaching Mathematics: Developing as a Reflective Secondary Teacher.  London: Sage.

Cockcroft, W. (1982)  The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Teaching of Mathematics in Schools.

Collinson, V. (1994)  Teachers as Learners: Exemplary teachers’ perceptions of personal and professional renewal.  Bethesda, MD: Austin and Winfield.

Comer, J. (1995) Lecture given at Education Service Center, Houston.

Davies, S. (2012) ‘Embracing reflective practice’,  Education for Primary Care,  23, pp. 9-12.

Ferlazzo, L. (2012) ‘Students who challenge us: Eight things skilled teachers think, say and do.’,  Educational Leadership , 70 (2), pp. 100-105.

Gates, P. (2001)  Issues in the Teaching of Mathematics.  London: Routledge.

Great Britain. Ofsted (2008)  Mathematics: Understanding the Score.  London: Department for Education.

Great Britain. DfE (2012)  Standards for Meeting Qualified Teacher Status.  London: Department for Education.

Great Britain. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2009)  The White Paper: Learning Revolution.  London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Honey, P. and Mumford, A. (2006)  The Learning Styles Questionnaire, 80-item version.  Maidenhead: Peter Honey Publications.

Joos, M. (1972)  Language and cultural diversity in American Education.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kearney, P., Plax, T. G., Hayes, E. R. and Ivey, M. J. (1991) ‘College teacher misbehaviours: what students don’t like about what teachers say and do.’,  Communication Quarterly,  39 (4), pp. 325-340.

Kolb, D. A. (1976)  The Learning Style Inventory: Technical Manual.  Boston: McBer.

Ollerton, M. (2004)  Getting the Buggers to Add Up.  London: Continuum.

Pascarella, E. and Terenzini, P. (1991)  How College affects students.  San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Pope, M. and Shivlock, K. (2008)  Successful Teaching Placements in Secondary Schools.  Learning Matters: Exeter.

Price, A. (2004) ‘Encouraging reflection and critical thinking in practice’,  Nursing Standard,  18 (47), pp. 123-129.

Schon, D. A. (1991)  The Reflective Turn: Case Studies In and On Educational Practice.  New York: Teachers Press, Columbia University.

Skemp, R. (1977), ‘Relational Understanding and Instrumental Understanding’,  Mathematics Teaching,  77, pp. 20-26.

University of New Hampshire (2012)  Controlling parents more likely to have delinquent children.  Massachusetts: Science Daily.

Watkins, K. and Marsick, V. (1990)  Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace.  London.

Vygostky, L. S. (1978)  Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Reflective teaching.

When instructors engage in reflective teaching, they are dedicating time to evaluate their own teaching practice, examine their curricular choices, consider student feedback, and make revisions to improve student belonging and learning. This process requires information gathering, data interpretation, and planning for the future. Reflective teaching involves examining one’s underlying beliefs about teaching and learning and one’s alignment with actual classroom practice before, during and after a course is taught.

When teaching reflectively, instructors think critically about their teaching and look for evidence of effective teaching. This critical analysis can draw on a variety of sources: Brookfield (2017) lays out four crucial sources: “students’ eyes, colleagues’ perceptions, personal experience, and theory and research.” Instructors can use various tools and methods to learn from these sources and reflect on their teaching, ranging from low-key to formal and personal to inter-collegial. For example, reflective teaching may include self-assessment, classroom observations , consideration of student evaluations , or exploration of educational research . Because each semester’s students and their needs are different, reflective teaching is a continual practice that supports effective and student-centered teaching.

Examples of Self-Assessment

Reflection Journals: Instructors might consider capturing a few details of their teaching in a journal to create an ongoing narrative of their teaching across terms and years. Scheduling a dedicated time during the 5 or so minutes after class to write their entries will ensure continual engagement, rather than hoping to find a moment throughout the day. The instructor writes general thoughts about the day’s lesson and might reflect on the following questions: What went well today? What could I have done differently? How will I modify my instruction in the future?

Teaching Inventories: A number of inventories , like the Teaching Practices Inventory (Wieman and Gilbert, 2014), have been developed to help instructors assess and think more broadly about their teaching approaches. Inventories are typically designed to assess the extent to which particular pedagogies are employed (e.g. student- versus teacher-centered practices). 

Video-Recorded Teaching Practices: Instructors may request the Poorvu Center to video record their lessons while conducting a classroom observation, or instructors can video record themselves while teaching and use a classroom observation protocol to self-assess their own practices. Some Yale classrooms have video cameras installed for lecture capture , which instructors can then use for their self assessment. 

Teaching Portfolio: A more time-intensive practice, the teaching portfolio invites instructors to integrate the various components of their teaching into a cohesive whole, typically starting with a teaching philosophy or statement, moving through sample syllabi and assignments, and ending with evaluations from colleagues and students.Though less focused on classroom practices, a portfolio is an opportunity to reflect on teaching overall. The Poorvu Center offers an opportunity for faculty new to Yale to complete a teaching intensive and reflective program, the Faculty Teaching Academy , which includes a culminating portfolio. Faculty who complete the program will receive a contribution to their research or professional development budgets.  The University of Washington CTL offers best practices for creating a teaching portfolio . 

Examples of External Assessment

Student Evaluations (Midterm and End-of-Term): In many courses, instructors obtain feedback from students in the form of mid-semester feedback and/or end-of-term student evaluations . Because of potential bias, instructors should consider student evaluations as one data source in their instruction and take note of any prevailing themes (Basow, 1995; Watchel, 1998; Huston, 2005; Reid, L. (2010); Basow, S.A. & Martin, J.L. (2012) ). They can seek out other ways to assess their practices to accompany student evaluation data before taking steps to modify instruction. The Poorvu Center offers consultations regarding mid-semester feedback data collected. They will also conduct small group feedback sessions with an instructor’s students to provide non-evaluative, anonymous conversation notes from students in addition to the traditional survey format. If instructors are interested in sustained feedback over time from a student perspective, then they can also participate in the Pedagogical Partners program.

Peer Review of Teaching: Instructors can ask a trusted colleague to observe their classroom and give them feedback on their teaching. Colleagues can agree on an observation protocol or a list of effective teaching principles to focus on from a teaching practices inventory.

Classroom Observations: Any instructor at Yale may request an observation with feedback from a member of the Poorvu Center staff. Observations are meant to be non-evaluative and promote reflection.  They begin with a discussion in which the instructor describes course goals and format as well as any issues or teaching practices that are of primary concern. This initial discussion provides useful context for the observation and the post-observation conversation.

Basow, S.A. (1995). Student evaluations of college professors: When gender matters. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(4): 656-665.

Basow, S.A. & Martin, J.L. (2012). Bias in student evaluations. In M.E. Kite (Ed.), Effective evaluation of teaching: A guide for faculty and administrators. Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

Brookfield, S. (2017). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Huston, T. (2005).  Report: Empirical Research on the Impact of Race and Gender in the Evaluation of Teaching.  Retrieved 3/10/17 from Seattle University, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning website.  

Reid, L. (2010). The Role of Perceived Race and Gender in the Evaluation of College Teaching on RateMyProfessors.com. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. 3 (3): 137–152.

Wachtel, H.K. (1998). Student Evaluation of College Teaching Effectiveness: A Brief Review. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 23(2): 191-212.

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What Is Reflective Teaching and Why Is It Important?

Gerald smith.

• June 11, 2022

If you feel that your teaching is becoming a bit stale or you’re unsure of a lesson’s effectiveness, reflective teaching is the best way to regain your confidence and interest in ESL education. Let’s take a closer look at what reflective teaching entails, why it’s important, and how you can implement reflective practices in your career.

Reflective teaching is covered in detail in the IDELTOnline™ course, Bridge’s most advanced professional TEFL certification, which can be used as a pathway to an MA TESOL at more than 1,600 universities.

What is Reflective Teaching?

Reflective teaching is a teacher’s practice of thinking, writing, and/or speaking about their lessons and their teaching methods and approaches.

It’s easy for teachers to get into a rut while teaching, where it feels like they’re delivering lessons on autopilot. Reflective teaching is a way to break out of that rut and become the best teacher you can be.

In his essay, “Reflective Practice for Language Teachers,” Thomas Farrell writes, “Reflective practice occurs, then, when teachers consciously take on the role of reflective practitioner and subject their own beliefs about teaching and learning to critical analysis, take full responsibility for their actions in the classroom, and continue to improve their teaching practice.”

Want to read the entire essay and get a more in-depth look at reflective teaching? Take the graduate-level IDELTOnline™ course.

Why is Reflective Teaching Important?

“Teachers who engage in reflective practice can develop a deeper understanding of their teaching, assess their professional growth, develop informed decision-making skills, and become proactive and confident in their teaching.” -Farrell

It improves your lesson plans

One of the main benefits of reflective teaching is that it helps you to become a better teacher who engages their students more and consistently improves their lesson plans .

By analyzing different aspects of lessons like teacher talking time or student collaboration, you can measure your success.

For example, if you remember that students weren’t engaged during an activity, you can analyze the reasons why. Maybe you didn’t set a clear context or you overexplained and slowed down student discovery. Or, maybe it didn’t have anything to do with your planning, and the students simply partied the previous night and didn’t want to discuss the differences between the present perfect and past simple.

Whatever the reason, reflective teaching can help you think of a solution.

It can help you break out of a teaching rut

The more you teach, the easier it is to get into a teaching rut. You reuse the same tried and tested activities, you tell the same old anecdotes, and you recycle the same tired grammar explanations.

While reusing activities is great, you need to make sure you’re not doing something that feels boring to you. When you’re not having fun, you can’t expect your students to have fun.

Farrell writes, “If teachers engage in reflective practice they can avoid such burnout because they take the time to stop and think about what is happening in their practice to make sense of it so that they can learn from their experiences rather than mindlessly repeat them year after year.”

Reflective teaching gets you to think about how to modify activities and lesson plans so they’re fresh and interesting for both you and your students.

It inspires you to try new things

When materials like ELT course book activities start to get boring, it’s time to try something new.

Online, there are tons of resources for up-to-date lesson plans. Personal favorites are Onestopenglish and TeachThis.com , but there are hundreds more, some free and some paid.

Another great way to try new things is to collaborate with a fellow teacher. This is easy when working at a language school, but you can also do this online through Facebook groups and Linkedin. Teachers even share lesson plans through Twitter.

It’s part of continuing professional development

Continuing professional development comes in many forms, such as Specialized TEFL/TESOL courses or Micro-credentials that offer targeted training. Reflective teaching is also an effective way to continue developing and expanding your teaching skills throughout your career.

While reflecting on your teaching, you can also think back to training from TEFL courses you’ve already taken and see if you’re fully utilizing what you studied in your online TEFL certification lessons.

Learn more about professional development for EFL teachers.

It provides opportunities to share your experience

Posting your teaching reflections in Facebook groups or on Linkedin helps start conversations around best teaching practices .

You’ll be surprised to see how many teachers have had the same experiences as you or will have suggestions on how to teach in new ways.

This not only allows you to offer and receive great feedback but also builds your network or community of teachers .

See the ways that the IDELTOnline™ sets you apart as a teacher.

What are the characteristics of reflective teaching?

Although reflective teaching can take many forms, there are a few characteristics that appear throughout all types of reflective practices:

• Reflective teaching notes what happens in the classroom, why it happens, and how it can be improved.
• If you are practicing reflective teaching, it’s rare that you will teach the same lesson again in the exact same way because reflective teaching challenges you. You’ll need to critique yourself and your go-to lesson plans.
• Although many teachers write their reflections down, not all reflective teaching needs to be written. Many teachers, instead, choose to speak about their lessons with a colleague or mentor, or what Farrell calls a “Critical Friend.”
• Reflective teaching is collaborative, often involving a head teacher or a colleague.
• Reflecting on and speaking about how your lessons go often leads to helpful insights.

What are some examples of reflective teaching?

Some ways of practicing reflective teaching include:

• Teaching journals: Write down classroom reflections in a journal.
• Classroom observations: Be observed either by a mentor or by recording the lesson and rewatching it yourself.
• Critical friends: Speak about your classes with a friend who can offer constructive criticism.
• Action research: Research something you struggle with, and maybe even take a course to improve specific teaching skills .
• Online groups: Teachers actively post online about reflective teaching in teacher development groups like the Bridge Teaching English Online Facebook Group . Posting online helps teachers get more recognition in the industry as well as organize their reflections.
• Blogs: Many teachers choose to share their reflections by creating their own EFL blogs . For example, Rachel Tsateri, an EL teacher and writer, published a reflective post on her teacher talking time (TTT) on her website, The TEFL Zone . Because Rachel read a lot of the literature around TTT, she was also engaging in action research, a rather academic but effective approach to reflective teaching.
• Teacher beliefs: Continue to develop and verbalize your own beliefs about what makes good teaching. Not sure where to start with your teaching beliefs? Learn about crafting an ESL philosophy of teaching statement.

Try different methods to find the right one for you. Journaling is an easy first step, but if you’re a more social teacher, you might prefer working with a critical friend or a teacher development group.

Teaching, a lot like learning, is a journey. No one becomes a great teacher overnight, so don’t be too hard on yourself when a lesson doesn’t go well. Instead, think critically about how you teach so you can continue to improve your students’ learning experiences and grow in your profession.

Want to learn more about reflective teaching and other best TEFL practices covered in the IDELTOnline™ course? Take a look at what this certification entails and whether it’s right for you.

Gerald Smith is an EL teacher, journalist and occasional poet. Originally from Texas, he now lives on a houseboat in Glasgow, Scotland with his partner and their two kittens.

• Cambridge Libraries

Study Skills

Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

• What is reflective practice?
• Everyday reflection
• Models of reflection
• Barriers to reflection
• Free writing
• Reflective writing exercise
• Bibliography

Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think!  It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

What is reflective writing?

Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience. 

Remember...

Reflective writing is...

• Written in the first person
• Free flowing
• A tool to challenge assumptions
• A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

• Written in the third person
• Descriptive
• What you think you should write
• A tool to ignore assumptions
• A waste of time

Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.

You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:

Created by SkillsTeamHullUni

• Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
• Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:

1. Job applications

Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.

2. Appraisals

In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.

3. Written feedback

If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.

4. Blogging

Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.

5. During the research process

When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.

6. In academic writing

Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.

Think about ... When you reflect

Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!

Reflective terminology

A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:

• The most important thing was...
• At the time I felt...
• This was likely due to...
• After thinking about it...
• I learned that...
• I need to know more about...
• Later I realised...
• This was because...
• This was like...
• I wonder what would happen if...
• I'm still unsure about...
• My next steps are...

Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.

You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University ,  UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.

Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.

Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.

This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.

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Strengthening Your Teacher Identity

Reflective practices can help new teachers stay resilient and grounded as they encounter challenges on the job.

Do you ever find yourself questioning the success or failure of a teaching moment or asking, “Why am I here, doing this job?” Have you compared yourself with other teachers and questioned your own identity as a professional? Teaching is a vigorous and personal journey. Checking on our teacher identity development, at any stage of our career, helps keep us on course to our destination of professional success.

Why is teacher identity important?

Research shows that teachers who stop and reflect maintain a stronger teacher identity. In college, preservice teachers must repeatedly reflect on new content learned, field teaching practices, and interactions with mentors and others at school sites. Using reflection at the university level reinforces knowledge, encourages teacher identity discourse, and helps dispel any teaching misconceptions that a preservice teacher may have. Replaying events, practices, and conversations and talking ourselves through them via reflective practice is essential. 

Reflective opportunities allow you to ask yourself questions, develop proactive solutions, and even realize when you need help. This may seem like another task to add to your already full cup, but with the proper outlet, your cup will feel like it’s perpetually flowing and not holding stagnant water.

Reminding yourself of who you are as a teacher brings you back to the foundation of your “why.” Your teaching philosophy about effective classroom management, accurate and fair grading, existing biases, successful learning environments, working with professional teams, your place within the school culture, and other topics creates your teaching philosophy and teacher identity. In 2012, researcher Christopher Day found that teachers with a strong teacher identity and passion for their content area experience a stronger sense of self-efficacy and agency . Working through their misconceptions about teaching and learning helps teachers to communicate better and show students more empathy. 

HOw Reflective Practices Help Teachers

Why are we asked to think about our thinking, decision-making, and actions in college as preservice teachers? Reflective practice asks preservice teachers to think critically about their professional development, evaluate practices, and consider the strategies, technologies, or new educational theories they’re observing or using for the first time. Overall, this practice helps preservice teachers gain confidence by reflecting on their thoughts and sharing them with a community of mentors, instructors, and peers, which contributes to their emerging teacher identities. 

Implementing Simple Reflective Exercises

Whether you’re a beginning teacher of a few years or a veteran of many, it’s important to find a sustainable reflective practice that’s easy to add to your day (and even something you look forward to). Try these out and see if they work for you.

Journaling: If you enjoy handwriting, invest in a writing journal you’re excited about (one that’s leather-bound or has an inspirational cover). Use your favorite writing implement to help get your thoughts onto the page. If handwriting isn’t your thing, journal in a Microsoft Word document. Just be sure to always have it accessible.

Consider a diary or journaling app. Look for features such as affordability, comfortable interface, ease of use, speech-to-text features, and periodic notifications. Some journaling apps, such as Dabble Me , allow you to write your daily reflections as emails to yourself.

One-minute rant: Sometimes, we just need an unstructured reflective opportunity to articulate and release frustrations and feelings we want to work out at a later time. A time-limited opportunity allows you a moment for release but prevents emotional escalation. Keep your rant focused on a specific topic, and use a timer.

Letter to my future self: This exercise allows you to think about your aspirations as a teacher and the specific goals you want to achieve in a given amount of time. Imagining your future teaching identity can help you get perspective on the bigger picture of your professional journey and identify goals such as achieving a higher degree or teaching at a higher level.

Artist representation: Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, find an artistic outlet to help you reflect on your professional experiences. You can use a picture or other artwork as a prompt for your perspective. You can keep tangible artifacts from students, administrators, colleagues, or parents for inspiration. These pieces can be pictures, notes, or quotes you wrote down from conversations. Allow these items to motivate you to create something symbolic or abstract. These objects can represent your identity as much as writing can.

Action research: All teachers are researchers: Action research is the cyclical process of planning, acting, making observations, and reflecting. It effectively addresses specific difficulties you may be experiencing in your learning environment, such as struggles with classroom management, test scores, or teaching strategies.

Start with a question that targets a specific problem. Collect and analyze data you may already have related to this problem (an assessment or observational data). Then, research possible interventions you can plan to implement in your classroom. Collect new data and reflect on your new observations. Is the intervention working? As you reflect on your latest data, plan your next steps to deepen the process of learning. Think critically about the problems you find in your practice, and empower yourself by using a growth mindset to solve them. 

How to Overcome Reflective Challenges

As with anything, consistency can help you stay on track and see your progress. Teaching is a community of practice. Consider sharing your thoughts and reflections with a trusted colleague or mentor. Form a lunch group to create reflection questions to share together. Add reflection to your daily or weekly schedule, and plan when you want to reflect. This might be helpful right after a lesson you taught for the first time. 

If you’re still trying to decide what to write about, just free-write, free-draw, record a dialogue with yourself, or keep a list of reflection questions on hand. Engaging in reflective practice fosters personal and professional growth, creates space to explore learning experiences and professional development, and magnifies the value and effort we put toward these professional actions.

Questions for Reflective Essays on Teaching

You may wish to consider some of the following issues as you think about writing a reflective essay on your teaching. We have grouped these questions into three subgroups: questions about your discipline and your research, questions about your student learning objectives, and questions about your teaching. These questions are not a template designed to produce a formulaic reflective essay. Select the ones which most effectively stimulate your thinking about your teaching, transform or adopt these questions, or create your own questions. Finally, while reflective essays should address the broad teaching issues which are fundamental to your teaching, you might also consider concentrating upon a single course.

Discipline and Research

• Think about your discipline as a lens or a window onto a given body of material, ideas, or texts. What problem, issue, or question first animated the construction of that lens? Do those same issues continue to animate it today? Think about the historical origins of your discipline, and its evolution as a field of study.
• What first captured your interest in your discipline? What now engages your attention about that discipline (i.e., what is your current research)? Think about the origins of your entry into your field of study, and about the transformations which your thought has undergone to lead you to your present interests.
• Under what broad problem, issue, or question would you subsume your current or most recent research projects and interests? How might that same problem, issue, or question have some impact on the lives, interests, or futures of your students? What kinds of texts or course materials might help you to demonstrate the relationship of your work and your discipline to your students?

Student Learning

• What important skills, abilities, theories or ideas will your discipline help students to develop or obtain? How will those skills or that knowledge help your students solve problems they may encounter, resolve difficult issues or choices with which they are confronted, or appreciate important–and perhaps otherwise neglected–dimensions of their lives and minds?
• How–if at all–do you communicate the value of your disciplinary lens, and the kind of research you pursue, to your students?
• What do you want your students to be able to do as a result of taking a course with you? Recall? Synthesize? Analyze? Interpret? Apply? Think both across all of your courses and within individual courses.
• What abstract reasoning skills will your students need to accomplish these objectives?
• How will you and your students best understand the nature of their learning, its progress, the obstacles it faces.

Teaching Practices and Reflections

• How do you communicate to your students what you expect them to know and do as a result of having taken your course?
• What teaching strategies do you use in the classroom–i.e., discussion, lecture, case studies, etc.–in order to foster the learning goals you have set for your students? How do you teach your students the abstract reasoning skills necessary for the learning you want them to do?
• How do your course materials, assignments, and exams contribute to fostering student learning?
• How do you measure student learning in your courses? How do you measure your own progress in helping students achieve the learning objectives you have set for them?
• How do you know whether your efforts to foster student learning have helped or hurt? Stimulated unintended, and perhaps undesirable, results? Have students learned despite you?

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Reflections of a Student Teacher

My student teaching experience was transformative. The ten weeks were filled with moments of joy and growth. I learned many lessons, and I wanted to share a few.

My focus during student teaching was to connect with students and build a partnership with them. I felt that a truly student-centered classroom honors who students are and incorporates student voice and choice. My mentor teachers inspired this focus. They connected with students in different but meaningful ways. From weekend updates to asking how clubs and sports were going, they made sure to know what was going on in their students’ lives. I started doing the same. By doing so, I learned so much about who students are and what they care about. It also created space to ask students what their preferences for learning are. I was then able to incorporate their voice in the lessons I planned and give them choice in activities they completed. When I asked students what they thought about including student voice and choice in the classroom, they shared that “having a choice makes me feel heard and is helpful to customize my learning experience to my preferences to help me succeed”, and “I love having a choice in class because it makes me feel more important”. My students taught me that including student voice and choice in the classroom creates rich learning experiences for them and me. The classroom becomes our classroom.

I also learned that reflection is key. Teachers are reflective practitioners; lessons and teaching practices can always improve. Self-reflection and conversations with others, like my mentor teachers, created space for me to consider how I can improve. I liked reflecting immediately after lessons because my thoughts and feelings about how the lesson went were the freshest then. I also saw teachers reflecting with one another. Members from the Human Geography team would meet often and discuss how the lessons they created went. The discussion was surrounded around what went well and what could be improved. Here, collaboration was not only rooted in creating ideas as a team but also creating space to grow as a collective of teachers. They knew that they can always get better at their craft.

I learned one last and arguably the most important lesson. My last day of student teaching was very bittersweet. On the one hand, the end of student teaching meant I was that much closer to getting my own classroom. On the other hand, it meant saying goodbye to everyone. I loved the school community, from the teachers to the students. I thought to myself, how can I say goodbye to individuals who have made such an impact on me? I then realized that the people you meet is the best part of the job. Teaching means meeting individuals who will forever change your life. I am so grateful for the people I met at Elk Grove High School, and I am so excited to meet more wonderful people next year. I can’t wait to start my teaching career!

Critical Reflection

Critical reflection is a “meaning-making process” that helps us set goals, use what we’ve learned in the past to inform future action and consider the real-life implications of our thinking. It is the link between thinking and doing, and at its best, it can be transformative (Dewey, 1916/1944; Schön, 1983; Rodgers, 2002). Without reflection, experience alone might cause us to “reinforce stereotypes…, offer simplistic solutions to complex problems and generalize inaccurately based on limited data” (Ash & Clayton, 2009, p.26). Engaging in critical reflection, however, helps us articulate questions, confront bias, examine causality, contrast theory with practice and identify systemic issues all of which helps foster critical evaluation and knowledge transfer (Ash & Clayton, 2009, p. 27).  While critical reflection may come more easily for some students than others, it is a skill that can be learned through practice and feedback (Dewey, 1933, Rodgers, 2002).  

Guidelines for Integrating Reflections into Your Course

Incorporating the following characteristics into the design of your reflective activities can help make the reflective process as effective as possible.  

Create Curiosity.  When students learn new concepts or subject matter, they often experience a sense of uncertainty and disequilibrium until they can make sense of the new information. Critical reflection is necessary to assimilate the new information and resolve the state of disequilibrium. It takes time to do well; sparking students’ curiosity can motivate them to engage in the reflective process(Dewey, 1933; Rodgers, 2002). Providing appropriate question prompts, activities, problems and tasks can help spark the necessary curiosity. See CTE's online resource: Reflection Framework and Prompts .

Make it Continual.  Build in “periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning” (Kuh, O’Donnell & Reed, 2013). Because critical reflection is a defined way of thinking, students have to have numerous opportunities throughout the course and the program to practice and receive feedback.

Connect It.  Activities to promote reflection can range from writing/rewriting exercises, problem solving activities, discussions, role playing/simulations, and group work to name a few. To be effective, though, be sure to explicitly connect the reflective activities to course/program learning outcomes, specific assignments, course concepts or experiences .  For an example of role playing/simulations, please see CTE's resource, an interview (YouTube) with Dr. Veronica Kitchen about Using Simulations in the Classroom .

Give it Context.  Design reflective activities to support integration of learning across courses and to engage students with “big questions” related to community/public issues that matter beyond the classroom. Ideally, reflective activities should ask students to consider messy, ill-defined problems that do not have a ‘right’ answer (Moon, 1999).  This helps move them towards higher order thinking and higher levels of reflection. 

Consider your Class Size.  Assessing and providing feedback to reflections require time and resources. For smaller classes, it might be manageable to assess individual reflections through journals, logs, and blogs. For larger classes, consider facilitating whole class discussions and opportunities for peer feedback. Dividing a large class into smaller groups for discussions and small group brainstorming sessions can provide the practice and feedback students need without all the feedback having to come from you, the instructor. Having students share reflections through ePortfolios is yet another way for students to receive feedback from peers. See CTE's online resource about ePortfolios .

Model the Reflective Process.  During class discussions, model the reflective process by asking the kinds of questions that members of your discipline ask. Explicitly point out how you support a claim with evidence. As you go through the process, explain how you are modeling the critical reflection process. Providing students with a rubric may help them practice the process themselves.  

Breakdown the Assignment.  When you provide students with details for a particular assignment, lead a discussion asking them as a group to outline a process for tackling the assignment. Have each student then create a personal plan for addressing the areas which might cause them more difficulty.  Ask students to hand in different pieces of the assignment throughout the term, providing feedback to the various components. Over time, less guidance and feedback will be required to help students with the reflective thinking process. 

Encourage Multiple Perspectives.  Being exposed to different perspectives (through discussions with classmates, or through resources such readings, websites, case studies, simulations that represent different points of view), and being able to participate in a dialogue with others (peers, instructors) about matters of importance is critical to the reflective thinking process. Having students work on collaborative projects can facilitate this; they learn to listen to others and consider different approaches to solving problems.

Provide a Safe Environment  where students can explore and articulate emotional responses. Students might not mind sharing their knowledge and understanding about content with their classmates but may be less inclined to share emotional responses with others. In these cases, consider splitting up the task so that the descriptive, non-personal component is done in class and the articulation of learning part is handed in individually to a TA or instructor.    

Assess It.  Making reflections part of a course grade encourages students to engage in the reflective process, helps them track their growth and development over time, and signals to them that critical reflection is a worthwhile and valued activity. Provide students with ‘frequent, timely and constructive feedback’ to the reflective activities.

Provide Clear Marking Criteria and Exemplars.  Clearly state the criteria for success and show students an example of a good reflection. Explain why the example is a good one (e.g., show how the reflection provides concrete examples to support the observations, and ties the observations back to the course content/learning outcome). Provide students with opportunities to self-assess or provide peer-feedback using the rubric that you will use to assess their reflections. 

Assignment and Rubric Examples:

See the links below for examples of critical reflection assignments that have been shared with CTE. Some of the instructors have also included their assessment rubrics along with the assignment instructions. 

• Reflecting on Professional Skill Development
• Becoming Reflexive Practitioners
• ePortfolio: Inspired Insights, Magnificent Failures, and Unanticipated Connections
• AAC&U Integrative Learning VALUE rubric
• Higher Levels of Reflection Rubric

Choose Prompts that Suit Your Goals    

Use language that suits your course and discipline.  The term ‘reflection’ has come to mean different things to different people (Rodgers, 2002). Use a term that makes sense to your discipline. Science students might roll their eyes if asked to reflect on personal development in a chemistry course. Is there a term that your discipline uses instead of the term reflection (design notes, lab notes, documentation of bugs)? 

Choose the type of reflection that suits your goals.  Reflective activities can be of two types: one type helps students focus on their growth and development, and on their personal learning process and another type fosters students’ capacity to think deeply about content and concepts. Be sure to choose reflective prompts that align with your course goals.  

• Process Reflection.  This type of reflection promptsstudents to think about their progress and the strategies they are using while they are working on a project or assignment (e.g., where are you with your project? What challenges are you having? What are you planning to do about those challenges? What problems did you encounter in completing the assignment? How did you troubleshoot them? What still needs work?) This can be done individually or, in large classes, consider using small group discussions.
• Inward-Looking Reflection.  When reflecting inward, students focus on their personal strengths, gaps, resources, standards, values, response to challenges, strategies, etc. 
• Outward-Looking Reflection.  By observing others, students can build their awareness of alternative perspectives and ways of doing things. When contrasts are noted, students can give examples to support their observations.
• Forward-Looking Reflection.  At the beginning of a course, project, or assignment, prompt students to think about which components look familiar and which look more challenging and difficult, and why. Towards the end of the course, hand these lists back to the students and have them discuss whether they have met their goals. As a class, have the students list which of the goals they believe they achieved, and which they did not. Alternatively, have students write a letter to the students who take the course next, giving advice and encouragement.
• Backward-Looking Reflection . At the end of a project, work term or volunteer experience a backward-looking reflection is a good way for students to take stock of their experience.

Examples of Reflection Models and Reflection Questions:

• Sample Reflection Questions
• Eight Reflection Models
• Reflections to Foster Deep Thinking & Connection Making

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help.  View the  CTE Support  page to find the most relevant staff member to contact. 

• AAC&U Integrative Learning VALUE rubrics retrieved from  https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics
• Habits of Mind: The Questions Intelligent Thinkers Ask that Help Them Solve Problems and Make Decisions retrieved from  https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-assessment-high-sch-humanities-habits-of-mind.pdf
• Sample reflection questions retrieved from  https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-replicatingPBL-21stCAcad-reflection-questions.pdf
• Teaching Metacognitive Skills CTE tipsheet retrieved from  https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/metacognitive
• Ash, S.L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 25-48.
• Boss, S. (2009). High tech reflection strategies make learning stick retrieved from  http://www.edutopia.org/student-reflection-blogs-journals-technology
• Dewey, J. (1916/1944). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The Free Press.
• Kalman, C.S., Sobhanzadeh, M., Thompson, R., Ibrahim, A., Wang, X. (2015). Combination of interventions can change students’ epistemological beliefs.  Physical Review Special Topics Physics Education Research,  11(2):020136-. doi:10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.11.020136
• Kuh, G. D., O’Donnell, K., & Reed, S. (2013). Ensuring quality and taking high-impact practices to scale.  Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities .
• Moon, J. (1999). Reflection in learning and professional development. Abingdon, Oxon: RoutledgeFalmer.
• Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey and reflective thinking.  The Teachers College Record ,  104 (4), 842-866.
• Schön, D. A. (1983).  The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action  (Vol. 5126). Basic books.

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Reflective Essay Examples

50 best reflective essay examples (+topic samples).

If you have ever read reflective essay examples, you would know that these types of written works examine the writer’s life experiences . When you write a reflective paper example, you write about your own experiences and explore how you’ve changed, grown or developed because of those experiences. There’s no standard format for this essay as it may vary depending on the target audience.

Table of Contents

• 1 Reflective Essay Examples
• 2 What is a reflective essay?
• 3 Reflective Paper Examples
• 4 Format of reflective essay
• 5 Creating the outline of reflective essay examples
• 6 Reflective Paper Samples
• 7 Tips for writing reflective essay
• 8 Reflective Essay Samples

What is a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a type of written work which reflects your own self. Since it’s about yourself, you already have a topic to write about. For reflective essay examples, readers expect you to evaluate a specific part of your life. To do this, you may reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings you’ve experienced at that time.

Since you’re writing reflection essay samples about yourself, make sure that they’re interesting and exciting. This is very important so that your readers don’t get bored with what you’ve written. Reflective essays are very personal thus, they’re a special type of essay. As you write one, you need to reflect, think, and explain.

In the essay, you should demonstrate and describe different feelings or emotions which you’ve felt in the past. These statements breathe life into your essay as your readers start picturing what you’ve written in their minds. Reflective essays are very honest, personal, and emotional, especially those which describe painful experiences.

Reflective Paper Examples

Format of reflective essay

As aforementioned, reflective essay examples don’t have a standard format. They seem easy enough to write but once you’ve sat down to start writing, you may suddenly find the task very challenging! Besides the format, you must think about the life experience you want to write about and remember everything about it.

A reflective paper example is a lot like a personal journal or diary. Of course, the difference is that other people will read your essay. Therefore, you must write it with good structure and coherence. In this regard, reflective essays are a lot like the other types of essays too.

When writing a reflective essay, you will have to examine your own life experiences. The purpose of writing such an essay is to provide yourself with a platform to share your most meaningful life experiences with other people. You can also use it as a way to explore how your experiences have changed you as a person.

You can present reflective writing in different formats. Most of the time though, people use a learning log or a diary entry format. You can use these formats and others. Just make sure that your essay has a good flow and that it’s easy for other readers to understand.

The format to use for your reflection essay samples would depend on your target audience. You can make an academic reflective essay or you can make it as a general and informal piece of writing. If you need to write the essay for a class assignment, follow the format given to you by your teacher.

No matter what format you choose, you may write an essay which:

• Focuses on your personal growth Such an essay helps you learn how to evaluate and analyze the experiences you have had in your personal life. This helps promote emotional development and growth. It also helps you understand yourself and your behaviors better.
• Focuses on literature For this type of essay, you may have to include references to literature and apply these to your own life experiences. Such essays are commonly given as assignments to students in school.

Creating the outline of reflective essay examples

Before you write your reflective essay examples, you must create an outline for them. Although you’d write about your own life, creating an outline gives structure to your essay to serve as a guide for what you want to write about.

Whether you need to write an essay for school, for a magazine or for any other reason, creating an outline is the very first step. With a good outline, you have a better idea of how your essay will flow from one paragraph to the next all the way to the conclusion.

When creating the outline of your reflective paper example, keep it organized. Develop the outline gradually and put a lot of thought into it. In doing this, you make the writing process much easier. Here is a rundown of the steps involved in the essay-writing process:

• Choose a topic (a significant life experience you want to write about)
• Gather information
• Create an outline
• Write a draft
• Finalize your essay

Reflective Paper Samples

Tips for writing reflective essay

As you think about the content of your reflection essay samples, remember that the important thing is that such an essay must be highly personal but also engaging to readers. There’s so much more to reflective essays than just writing your story. You must also reflect on your experiences to engage your audiences.

For your starting point, think about the most significant experiences you had in your life. Those which had either a negative or a positive impact on you as a person. If the reflective essay is a school assignment, your professor would probably specify what you must write about. Here are some tips for you for writing your reflective paper example:

• Reflection The most important part of writing your reflective essay is the reflective process. Think about the personal experience you want to write about. Focus on what happened, how this experience made you feel, and how it affected your life. Explore your memories and emotions for this part of the process. As you’re recalling and reflecting on your life experience, take a lot of notes . Write down all the details you remember and try to be as clear and as detailed as you possibly can. Take as much time as you need for reflection. You can even close your eyes as you try to remember those experiences vividly. When you’re confident that you have recalled all of the details of your life experience, it’s time to write your essay. To make it more meaningful, try to answer some important questions about your life experience including: Did you learn anything new about yourself because of this experience? Have you grown or developed because of this experience? If so, in what way? Did this experience impact your life positively or negatively? If you had the chance to experience this all over again, would you do anything differently? Why did you behave in such a way at the time of this experience? Did you make the right choices? What are your general thoughts and feelings about this experience? Can you say that you learned from this experience? Did you gain any new perspectives or skills because of this experience? These are “signpost questions” which can help you write a more meaningful essay. These are just some examples, you can also think of your own questions to ask yourself. The point of these questions is to make sure that you think critically and deeply about the experience you’re writing about.
• Planning After you’ve reflected on your life experience, it’s time to start planning your essay. When it’s time to start, you might feel as if you’re not adequately prepared even though you’ve done a lot of reflection. This is a normal feeling, especially if you want to create a written piece which people will love reading. To ease your anxiety and doubt, come up with a well-rounded and comprehensive plan. The best way to do this is through an outline. With an outline to guide your writing process, you can come up with an essay that’s more coherent and which has a clear structure. An outline or plan is important for reflective essays. Since you’re writing about an emotionally-charged topic, you might find yourself getting “lost” along the way. This is especially true if you’re writing about a painful experience which still affects you until now. The outline serves as a map for you to keep your thoughts organized. In your outline, make sure to establish all of the fundamental details you wish to include in your essay. This helps you pick out and remove any superfluous information to make it easier to read and understand. Planning the points you want to write about makes it easier for you to stay on point. As such, your writing becomes a lot clearer and your readers can follow your line of thought. An outline also prevents you from missing out any relevant information. It’s very difficult and frustrating to go back after you’ve written the whole essay just to fit in this information! Planning your essay also saves you a lot of time. Coming up with the structure makes you more familiar with your essay even before you start writing it. Thus, you can spend more time writing, revising, and proofreading your essay to make it the best version possible.

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Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences.  It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:

• Description of the experience
• Feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
• Analysis to make sense of the situation
• Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
• Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or general changes you might find appropriate.

Below is further information on:

• The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection
• Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using this model

This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. However, by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your learning experience.

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have other prompts that work better for you.

Description

Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later.

Helpful questions:

• What happened?
• When and where did it happen?
• Who was present?
• What did you and the other people do?
• What was the outcome of the situation?
• Why were you there?
• What did you want to happen?

Example of 'Description'

Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.

• What were you feeling during the situation?
• What were you feeling before and after the situation?
• What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
• What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
• What were you thinking during the situation?
• What do you think about the situation now?

Example of 'Feelings'

Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.

• What was good and bad about the experience?
• What went well?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Example of 'Evaluation'

The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it.

• Why did things go well?
• Why didn’t it go well?
• What sense can I make of the situation?
• What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation?

Example of 'Analysis'

Conclusions

In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.

• What did I learn from this situation?
• How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?
• What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?
• What else could I have done?

Example of a 'Conclusion'

Action plan

At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful.

• If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?
• How will I develop the required skills I need?
• How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

Example of 'Action Plan'

Different depths of reflection

Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels of details. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is presented much more briefly.

Adapted from

Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.