End-of-Year
Teacher Reflection: A Timeframe for
Reflection-on-Action
by Mary Beth Miller
For many elementary physical education
teachers in the United States, the end
of the school year arrives during the
late spring/early summer season, typically
in the month of June. Individuals teaching
in a year-round school model may experience
their end-of-school year during the
fall or winter seasons. Regardless of
when a school year ends, the fact that
it ends provides teachers with options
for continued professional development
through graduate education and/or accruing
continuing education credits to maintain
the teaching certificate, as well as
time for rest and recreation.
I would like to add one more R
to the end-of-year picture: Reflection
upon the school year.
The end of the school year is a great
time to look back and think about what
went well, and what needs to be improved.
The practice of reflection may be viewed
as a reflective action addressing a
cycle of professional action (teaching),
coupled with reflection upon the action
leading to modified action and refinement.
The metacognitive
practice of teachers thinking about
their thinking (about teaching) develops
a mental habit of reflection, therefore
licensing teachers to become active
monitors of their own learning to facilitate
their performance in action (reflecting
while teaching) and on action (looking
back upon action some time after it
has taken place (Schon,
1987). While many teachers exercise
both reflective practices, the focus
of this article is to address the reflection-on-action
that may occur during the timeframe
following the end of the school year
and prior to the next.
What is the particular focus point
of any reflection?
The type of reflective practice may
be explained by the theoretical framework
for reflection. For example, some teachers
may technically reflect because their
concern rests upon the efficiency and
effectiveness of accomplishing a means
to certain ends. Many beginning teachers,
or preservice teacher candidates learning
to teach, are more heavily engaged with
technical reflection to improve teacher
competence, thinking that means are
absolute. Other teachers may use a form
of practical reflection, examining the
interconnectedness of means, goals,
and outcomes. Here, means are not considered
absolute. Yet other teachers may engage
in critical reflection, adding to the
technical and practical reflective aspects
in the consideration of involving moral
and ethical criteria. Findings from
a Gore & Ziecher study, as well
as an Alder study (as cited in Hatton
& Smith, 1995), indicate that with
critical reflection, teachers are concerned
with questions of equity and justice,
judging if one professional activity
is equitable, just, and respectful of
persons or not.
The Guiding Question(s)
While a theoretical framework is important
to the physical education teacher's
reflective process, so too is the ability
to focus the reflection using a guiding
question. The guiding question formed
depends upon which type of reflection
(technical, practical, or critical)
one engages in. Regardless of reflection
type, the guiding question can address:
1) a physical educator's need, 2) a
focus on student achievement, 3) whether
set goals are evidence based and show
areas of need for the students, and
4) what kinds of problem solving products
most promote learning in this area of
need. Here is a sampling of some guiding
questions:
- How can I help students feel comfortable
working with diverse groups of classmates
and overcome the desire to always
be with their friends?
- How can I more effectively facilitate
less teacher dependency/increase cooperative
learning/utilize greater problem solving
to promote higher order thinking in
my class?
- What kinds of assessments best
help me to understand and teach my
students?
- What types of teaching best impacts
my students' learning?
- Do I, and how do I, help students
understand the importance of the "why"
of certain movement challenges presented
and not just the "what"
of the challenge?
- What changes in my teaching styles
are needed to make my students succeed?
- What changes in my teaching styles
are needed to support equity, justice,
and respect to all learners in my
class?
- How do I measure success and report
it?
- What classroom strategies are effective
in developing student self-evaluation
of their learning?
- How may I better motivate my students
to engage in meaningful movement both
in my class and extended to out-of-school
contexts?
Teachers who are concerned about high-quality
physical education continually transform
their teaching practice to promote better
learning. That said, a teacher's performance
goals may surround the following 3 constructs:
1) curriculum, instruction and assessment,
2) communication and classroom management,
and 3) professional standards. Taken
together, the physical education teacher
engaging in reflection-on-action whether
technical, practical or critical may,
in addition, use professional literature
constructed in more recent years by
the National Association for Sport and
Physical Education (NASPE) to further
facilitate their thought process and
form meaningful guided questions.
Tools to navigate a teacher's reflective
process may include the NASPE guidelines
for high-quality physical education
programs centered upon the components
of: opportunity to learn, meaningful
content, and appropriate instruction.
In particular, the guiding light to
help teachers focus their reflection
upon working in a high-quality physical
education program center upon the 6
national content standards. These standards
frame what students should know, and
be able to know and to do, as a result
of a quality physical education program
(NASPE 2004).
Standards-Based Reflection
Approach
The second edition of the NASPE National
Content Standards (2004) may serve as
practical framework for formulating
a guiding question or questions that
require an analysis of curricular content,
context, best practices, and student
achievement. Surrounding the 6 content
standards, physical education teachers
may connect the triad of meaningful
content with appropriate
practices and student
achievement to reflect upon
their professional practice that impacts
student learning and to set goals along
the path of further developing a high-quality
developmentally appropriate program.
Meaningful Content
Elementary physical educators reflecting
upon their curricular content may wonder
how closely aligned and meaningful their
curriculum content is to promoting learning
in the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective
domains. Related NASPE documents that
may guide teacher's reflection include
Moving
into the Future: National Standards
for Physical Education, 2nd edition
(2004),
Concepts
and Principles of Physical Education:
What Every Student Needs to Know
(2003),
and Physical
Activity for Children: A Statement of
Guidelines for Children Ages 5-12
(2004).
Helpful to teachers beginning their
career and still formulating developmentally
appropriate design-down units and lessons,
the Sample Performance Indicators for
Selected Themes developed by Christine
Hopple, published as Appendix A in her
book Elementary
Physical Education Teaching & Assessment
(2005),
as well as the NASPE Performance Indicators
published in her book as Appendix B,
may help a teacher identify what students
are to accomplish in physical education
by the end of specific grade levels
and grade ranges.
This can be particularly helpful for
teachers to use when reflecting upon
program design, goal setting, and assessment
strategies. Furthermore, teachers wondering
how their program aligns to the NASPE
National Content Standards (2004)
may reflect upon the notion of having
a program examination conducted using
the 2006 Physical Education Curriculum
Analysis Tool (PECAT). According to
elementary physical educators consulted
about this article's topic, time is
spent over the summer searching for
relevant resources. Remaining current
in professional organizations at the
state and national levels is one way
of keeping informed to assist one's
thinking about thinking relevant to
their professional practice, including
a meaningful curriculum that they have
control of.
Student Achievement
Of all the areas in physical education,
regardless of developmental level, assessment
to identify student achievement has
made the most recent significant impact
upon teacher reflection. Evidence of
this exists with the plethora of recent
publications in the profession of physical
education central to assessing to standards.
Across the United States, some school
districts provide their teachers time
and resources to develop their ability
to align curriculum to state learning
standards (extending the NASPE National
Content Standards, 2004), then develop
an assessment plan to identify the impact
teaching has upon student learning by
producing measurable outcomes, all aligned
to standards.
As previously mentioned, the Sample
Performance Indicators by Selected Theme
may provide a physical education teacher,
especially those just launching their
careers, to identify specific skills
and knowledge that is recommended to
be developed by the end of grade K,
2, 4, and 6. Having this information
may help teachers think ahead of a plan
for assessing performance outcomes according
to these performance indicators. Further,
elementary physical educators may turn
to the NASPE Performance Indicators
as a guideline to identify specific
content to address for assessing performance
outcomes within various grade ranges,
all aligned to the NASPE National Content
Standards (2004).
Relevant related resources published
by NASPE found within their assessment
series that may be useful to the elementary
physical educator include: Assessment
in Outdoor Adventure Physical Education
(2003), Portfolio
Assessment for K-12 Physical Education
(2000), Elementary
Heart Health: Lessons and Assessment
(2001), Standards-Based
Assessment of Student Learning: A Comprehensive
Approach (1999), Assessing
Motor Skills in Elementary Physical
Education (1999), Assessing
and Improving Fitness in Elementary
Physical Education (1999), Creating
Rubrics for Physical Education (1999).
Beginner Teacher Reflection:
A Standards-Based Approach
Used widely throughout physical education
teacher education professional preparation
programs, the National
Standards for Beginning Physical Education
Teachers, 2nd ed. (NASPE 2003)
not only provide a focus for beginning
physical education teachers to positively
influence the teaching-learning process
as a pre-service teacher candidate,
but may also be a useful tool to guide
professional practice and reflecting
upon such practice during the first
3 years of teaching while working toward
tenure. Beginning teachers may use these
10 standards as a framework to focus
their reflective practice similar to
the process of applying the 6 national
content standards as a reflection framework.
Either standards framework is appropriate
for the beginner teacher; however, the
10 beginning teacher standards are specifically
developed for pre-professionals and
professionals at the initial career
stage. Reflection-on-action by the beginning
teacher may revolve around a particular
standard outcome or outcomes depending
upon what the teacher's guiding question
may be. I shall provide a random sample
of examples for some of the 10 standards.
For example Standard 1, Content Knowledge,
has 3 outcomes each having 2 levels
of performance: acceptable and target.
A beginning teacher reflecting upon
improvement in this standard may develop
a guiding question on strategies to
improve the use of developmentally appropriate
and accurate critical elements and skill
cues to facilitate basic motor skill
acquisition, a standard commonly difficult
at the initial stages of teaching development.
Teachers wishing to improve upon teaching
to diverse learners may reflect upon
Standard 3 Diverse Learners and narrow
the reflection upon their particular
focus for improvement, either appropriate
instruction or appropriate strategies,
services and resources. A guiding reflection
question for a beginning teacher to
focus upon for their reflection may
surround their desire to learn more
about designing learning environments
from a multisensory approach (VARK:
visual, auditory, read-write, kinesthetic)
to designing less teacher-centered and
more student-centered styles of teaching.
Teachers wishing to develop an assessment
plan for their program, Standard 7 Student
Assessment, may focus on the location
of resources of developmentally appropriate
authentic assessments and develop a
starting level assessment action plan
using quality resources such as those
published by Hopple (2005) and Schiemer
(2000). In short, these 10 beginning
standards may be considered a useful
tool to frame in a beginning physical
education teacher’s ability to
form reflective questions.
Factors that Influence Reflection
An elementary physical education teacher's
incentive to reflect-on-action rests
upon various reasons such as: using
reflection to set professional goals
that are expected by teachers of their
administration; intrinsic motivation
to further develop a high-quality developmentally
appropriate program; a true caring of
delivering meaningful and enjoyable
content in a manner that students recognize
and know the value of why they are doing
what is being asked of them; constantly
striving for new motivational techniques;
learning from other teachers by observing
others teach, then reflect; attending
professional conferences and reflecting;
engaging in professional development
programs; and reflecting alone and with
others.
Regardless of factors that influence
teachers to reflect, the ultimate influencing
factor is the professional commitment
to uphold high-quality physical education
programs through best practices teaching.
The process of teacher development and
teacher refinement grounds itself with
the practice of thinking about thinking
upon ones professional practice. Reflection
is that practice of on-going self-reflection
and assessment in order to improve teaching
and affect student learning. Continual
teacher growth is met through life-long
learning and reflection. Develop the
habit-of mind to regularly think about
your thinking upon professional preparation
and practice. Time is essential for
this, and the end of the school year
is open season for reflective practice.
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