Free Essa. Reflective Practice and Theories in UK Primary Schools

Much is expected of educational teaching practices since the responsibility of training citizens that society demands has fallen on the teacher. However, educational practice is a very complex phenomenon considering the diversity in the characteristics of students, the different ways of learning, the various tasks that the teacher has to carry out in classes, the contextual influence, and the way of teaching to ensure all students learn. It is crucial to analyze educational practices that occur in the classroom, considering reflection on practice as a tool for change in conceptions, routine practices, and most importantly, in the way teachers act and develop themselves in the classroom in the processes of teaching.

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Reflection on Teaching Practice

For teachers to improve their performance, improve themselves, and ensure the success of their students, teachers must abandon the feeling of holding the knowledge and, make a reflection on the situation and the challenges that affect their training seeking theoretical support for their training, becoming a professor-researcher. Nowadays, exercising a teaching activity is very different from what was long ago (Olaya Mesa, 2018). Countless changes have occurred in society and the world, and innovations require increasingly qualified professionals. The formation of the reflective teacher is indispensable as a way of seeking to overcome the difficulties of acting in the classroom.

Reflective practice has as its fundamental purpose the understanding and improvement of the professional who applies it. In the case of teachers, the aim is for teachers to resignify their practice, empowering them with new information that they discover and investigate themselves and that allows them to be in constant prospecting of elements and findings in favor of continuous personal and professional improvement (Berrill & Whalen, 2007). The improvement of teaching practices is a central task because of the demands of the UK’s educational reform and the need to train new citizens able to confront different complex social, political, economic, and cultural issues.

Theory-Practice Relationship

The theory-practice relationship is a fundamental factor in reflective practice since, if only theory or practice is considered, its analysis will be incomplete (Huda & Teh, 2018). Both theory and practice have a dialogical relationship in which both are needed to be generated, verified, or corrected. That is to say, in reflective practice, theory, technique, and practice are required, but also a reflective and critical part is required that allows a correct analysis of it.

Even when teachers use the theoretical assumptions from different investigations, they are interpreted according to their own beliefs, experiences, and context. It is emphasized that teachers must assume the role of researchers to generate a dialogue between theory and practice that allows them to identify, analyze and respond to educational problems that arise (Campbell & Norton, 2007). It is necessary to recognize that educational theory carries a political burden, considering itself, on the one hand, as a necessity to sustain and give continuity to the progress of a society and, on the other hand, as a way of protecting the interests of the State and having control over the population.

According to Zeichner and Liston (2013), teachers must be aware that theory is part of their learning and that the meanings they give it are per their conceptual schemes and the interpretation that each one gives them, so the theory must be contrasted with what happens in the classroom, without it necessarily having to be accepted or rejected, but rather, must be tested, analyzed and, where appropriate, adapted to the context, enriching it with the experiences obtained.

Each teacher seeks excellence when working in the classroom, but for this, they must be aware of how they carry out their work, Teachers must create a learning pattern and a social structure that makes it easier for each child to develop their potential and be successful, both in the classroom and outside it (Gore & Zeichner, 2011). Two main theories focus on learning and teaching and implementing reflective practice, implicit and explicit theories.

Implicit theories focus on different approaches to studying what teachers and students know about learning and teaching, it takes place largely independently of consistent attempts to learn and in the absence of explicit knowledge about what is being taught (Parker, 2017). Thus, the theories of the teacher around learning are centered on four theories which are:

Direct theory. Focusing exclusively on the results of the products of learning. It is based on a naive realistic epistemology, according to which simple exposure to the content or object of learning guarantees the result, conceived as a faithful reproduction of the information or model presented.

Interpretive theory. Concentrates all those results, processes, and conditions. This theory is the evolution of the direct theory, it is closer to the information processing models.

Constructive theory. Relates and filters mental problems, reconstructive of own representations, as well as self-regulation of the own activity of learning, if not transforming, the results depend on the person who learns.

Postmodern theory. It reaches a point where it makes one know that knowledge is within the subject, teaching activities are configured more by the learning subject and its circumstances more by the teaching subject.

When teachers are faced with relative situations, less elaborate implicit theories can be used (Dinkelman, 2003). Thus, two of the implicit theories that are direct interpretive theory and constructivist theory predominate at a higher level, with teachers in training and in-service, particularly in basic education, based on the review of some results.

Reflective Practice

By reviewing theories and observing their practice, teachers can start a reflective process. The term reflective practice highlights the existence of reflection in action and another, reflection on action. The first is similar to pre-reflective consciousness in that it refers to the thought that one has about the action at the moment that it is occurring and the second refers to the reflection that occurs after the action. Among the authors who define the reflective practice, there is Pollard and Pollard (2014), explain it as a training procedure to encourage students to develop the ability to observe themselves and engage in critical dialogue with themselves about everything they think (thoughts) and do (actions).

Among the different authors who have written about reflection or reflective practice, are Berrill and Whalen (2007), Huda and Teh (2018), Souto-Manning, and Dice (2007), and Zeichner and Liston (2013). Each of them presents some characteristics that are coincident or that can be complemented and that are or should be included in the process. As such, reflective practice must be a conscious, intentional, methodical, deliberative process, ethical, social and historical, responsible, retrospective, and prospective; seeks professional and human development, implies a distancing or pause from the activity to think about it and a suspension of the judgment to act objectively, it is aimed at the intervention, it requires time to become explicit, it comprises a practical-theoretical dichotomy and requires self-recognition skills.

As human beings, people are social beings and it is through this relationship that they have with others, learn, and develop. These learnings involve a process of mediation and internalization, as explained by Vygotsky (Shabani, 2016) in his sociocultural theory. Derived from this information, it is considered that in reflective practice, teachers should seek to learn from what they live in their labor and social context, having the opportunity to restructure their knowledge. In other words, reflective practice can be developed if the teacher is open to receiving and evaluating information from various sources such as colleagues, experts, students, theories, other spaces, and their environment.

Mathew, Mathew, and Peechattu, (2017) propose a model of the reflective practice of six stages: identification of the problem, diagnosis, rationale, assumption of action, implementation, and theorizing or contribution; which must be carried out circularly and recursively, attending to three processes: 1) knowledge of the context, of the action and the intention; 2) the significance and resignification of a model of action (putting into action, valuation and revaluation); and 3) the emancipation of the teacher (synthesis of the theory-practice relationship of the new knowledge that the teacher reaches).

The mediated reflective practice model incorporates three elements as its support:

• 1) The mediation of a tutor who accompanies and supports the participating teachers throughout the cycle of reflective practice, responding to the need for training.
• 2) The teacher's search for self-knowledge and its practice as a starting point for the model, instead of starting from a previously identified problem, as most models propose. That is, it is considered that teachers can omit some points of their practice that they already take for granted because of the experience they have but that could be improved or changed; and
• 3) The transformation of the teacher in their real and perceptual performance, that is, it is not about presenting changes if he is not convinced of them; there must be coherence between what the teacher thinks, says, and does.

This model is divided into three phases, each with three cycles (Pollard, 2017):

Phase 1: Knowledge of the teacher and his practice, from 3 cycles: 1) a process of self-knowledge through introspection in which the teacher analyzes aspects of his/her past, present, and future mainly related to the teaching/learning processes he has lived, 2) the knowledge obtained from the information that others give him through the observations and considerations they make of him so that the teacher has an idea how others perceive it;

Phase 2: Meaning of the practice. Based on the data obtained in the first phase 1) the teacher identifies and poses a significant problem or situation and describes it so that it can be studied for improvement; 2) teachers look for information from different reliable sources and, together with the data obtained from the observations and experiences described in phase one, contrast them, so that it is possible through analysis to substantiate the problem, and 3) an action plan is developed that synthesizes the learning from the previous cycles within this same phase.

Phase 3: Teacher resignification and practice. 1) the teacher takes the designed plan into practice, taking care to be flexible and supervise how it develops while maintaining control of events through records and observations, 2) the results of the intervention are evaluated based on of all the data obtained, they are reflected on, revaluing the events and a theoretical contribution is made; and 3) from the actions and reflections, the teacher is in the capacity to evaluate if there was any transformation not only in his activity but also mentally, that is to say if he managed to resignify his practice convinced of it and not only by acting. In which case he will have taken a step towards his emancipation, understood this as his mental liberation becoming someone more critical and reflective.