How will reflection help you to become a master teacher? What gets in your way of reflecting? What will you do to clear the barriers or get around them?
When I began the Master’s Program, my mentor asked me the ways in which I thought this experience would help me to become a better educator. My mind was swarming with all of the ways I knew it would benefit my everyday practice. After taking a moment to ponder, I responded that I knew this program would help me to reflect in an organized manner that really focused on several significant facets of education. I find it so easy to get wrapped up in either one way of thinking or one area of reflection. Having the opportunity to reflect amongst a group of educators from various areas of expertise and various districts will help to me broaden my areas and methods of reflection, which I think is an essential factor in growing as a professional.
Being a second year teacher, I consider myself to be very “moldable.” I have not yet encountered enough experiences to really have a set-in-stone method of practice. Change is still somewhat easy for me, as I have not done any one thing for an extended period of time. I find it extremely valuable to be able to interact with my colleagues in this learning community while we reflect together about some pressing issues in education today. Reading opinions and experiences brings about additional issues to consider, additional factors to guide my own reflection and increase my knowledge. To me, becoming a Master Teacher means becoming a more confident teacher and leader to benefit my students, colleagues, and myself, and reflection will be a critical tool in doing so.
As I mentioned before, I think it is so easy to get stuck in one “zone” of reflection, making it more difficult to think outside of the box. I also think that TIME is a barrier when it comes to reflecting. Having a solid chunk of time to really sit down and reflect through an entire situation has been difficult for me, although the times I actually did do this have proven to be more successful than doing something on the fly. The article we read will certainly give me a more organized method of reflection, where if I don’t have the time to reflect all the way through in one sitting, I will at least be able to come back and know where I left off and what I have yet to think about. I am a visual learner, so having this layout will definitely be beneficial.
