Critical Reflection

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Critical Reflection Scholarly Teaching

• Christopher Price
• Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and
  Teaching
• Instructor, Department of Political Science
  International Studies

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Critical Reflection Scholarly Teaching

• Who are you?
• What is your department?
• Why are you here?
• Is there something specific you would like to
  learn today?

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Critical Reflection Scholarly Teaching

• This session will address how to become a more
  critically reflective teacher.  It will also
  discuss how reflection about teaching can lead to
  improved student learning and a more scholarly
  approach to teaching. OR

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The moment when Wile E. Coyote realizes his
predicament and crashes to the canyon floor has
the same emotional quality as a particular moment
in the incremental rhythm of learning critical
reflection. It is the moment when we realize that
the old ways of thinking and acting no longer
make sense for us, but that new ones have not yet
formed to take their place. This state of limbo -
similar to the coyotes suspension several
hundred feet above canyon floor - is
frighteningly uncertain. - Stephen
Brookfield Becoming a Critically Reflective
Teacher
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Critically Reflective Teaching

• Critically reflective practice is a process of
  inquiry involving practitioners in trying to
  discover, and research, the assumptions that
  frame how they work
• - Stephen Brookfield, Critically Reflective
  Practice

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Hunting Assumptions

• Taken-for-granted beliefs that are seen as
  common sense

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Hunting Assumptions

• Taken-for-granted beliefs that are seen as
  common sense
• Teachers hold many causal assumptions
• Critical reflection looks to clarify and
  investigate the truth of these assumptions

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Hunting Assumptions

• What are your causal assumptions?
• How might you clarify and investigate the truth
  of these assumptions?

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Four Critically Reflective Lenses

• Our autobiographies as teachers and learners
  (critical self-reflection)
• Our students eyes (reflection through student
  feedback)
• Our colleagues experiences (reflecting with
  peers)
• The literature on teaching and learning
  (reflecting through critical reading)

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Critical Self-Reflection

• What does our experience as students tell us
  about learning?
• A visceral rather than an intellectual route to
  critical reflection
• Learning logs/journals, videotaping, peer
  observation can help with critical self-reflection

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Reflection through Student Feedback

• Student perceptions of our teaching matter
• The critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) can
  help collect this feedback
• At what moment this week/month/semester were
  you most engaged as a learner?
• At what moment this week/month/semester were
  you most distanced as a learner?
• What action that anyone (instructor or student)
  took this week/month/semester did you find most
  affirming or helpful?
• What action that anyone (instructor or student)
  took this week/month/semester did you find most
  puzzling or confusing?
• What about this course this week/month/semester
  has surprised you most?

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Reflecting with Peers

• Teaching is often done in isolation
• Talk about teaching often done without critical
  reflection
• Ways to encourage critically reflective dialogue
  and collaboration
• Brown bag discussions
• Conference teams
• Faculty learning communities

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Reflecting through Critical Reading

• Teaching and learning literature is vast but
  underutilized
• First look for writing in discipline
• Also consider recommended practice texts
• Book clubs in or across departments

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Critical Reflection

• Questions/Comments?
• Do you do this already? Do you have any critical
  reflection techniques not mentioned here?
• What are the barriers to critical reflection?
  What is needed to overcome these barriers?

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Scholarly Teaching The Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning (SoTL)

• Process is same, difference is scope of
  application
• Scholarly teaching focuses on individual practice
• SoTL is systematic reflection or study of
  teaching and learning made public (McKinney)
• NOT the same as educational research
• Goes beyond good teaching defined as promoting
  student learning

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SoTL at Brockport

• 16 - My department values scholarship/research on
  teaching and learning as much as traditional
  discovery-based scholarship/research.
• 5 - My department DOES NOT value scholarship/
  research on teaching and learning as much as
  traditional discovery-based scholarship/research
  but it does count somewhat toward promotion
  tenure decisions.
• 2 - My department DOES NOT value scholarship/
  research on teaching and learning as much as
  traditional discovery-based scholarship/research
  and it DOES NOT count toward promotion tenure
  decisions.
• 7 - Did not respond

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SoTL at Brockport

• 34 (10) full-time faculty reported to have
  conducted SoTL (in departments where education is
  not primary subject matter).
• In some departments, faculty are discouraged from
  pursuing only SoTL research
• Knowledge about SoTL varies widely

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Why SoTL?

• College teaching is more than the marriage of
  instructional skill with content expertise
  because

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Why SoTL?

• the changing context of learning environments
  require a knowledge base that can help teachers
  keep up with these changes

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Why SoTL?

• Purpose of SoTL is to provide a knowledge base
  for college teachers
• To be accepted as knowledge SoTL needs
• to count, be taken seriously, and be of a
  caliber that merits reward and recognition
• a viable literature associated with professional
  practice (Weimer)

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SoTL as the Wisdom of Practice
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SoTL as the Wisdom of Practice

• Dominant view of knowledge in higher education
• Discovery-based
• Objectivity prized
• Reason over emotion
• Empirical data valued

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SoTL as the Wisdom of Practice

• Using only the dominant methods of research
  would make SoTL difficult because
• The goal of SoTL is to improve practice
• SoTL is conducted solely by those who aim to
  benefit from its findings
• Therefore, methods that include personal accounts
  of change and narratives should be explored as
  viable modes of SoTL including critical
  reflection.

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Scholarly Teaching and SoTL

• Questions/Comments?
• Do you do this already? How do you do this?
• What are the barriers to scholarly teaching and
  SoTL? What is needed to overcome these barriers?

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From Critical Reflection to SoTL A Personal
Example

• The assumption Student discussion is an
  unqualifiedly good thing and should be encouraged
  when and where at all possible
• The unreflective practice Use online discussions
  in face-to-face courses
• The critically reflective question Do online
  discussions work as well as face-to-face
  discussions?

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From Critical Reflection to SoTL A Personal
Example

• Experience as a student and teacher caused me to
  question my assumption
• Used the CIQ to get feedback about online
  discussions
• Collaborated with colleague to compare CIQ
  results
• Consulted literature on online discussions
• Presented results at two conferences and wrote up
  results in two papers

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References

• Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a critically
  reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA
  Jossey-Bass. 
• Brookfield, S. (1998) Critically reflective
  practice. The Journal of Continuing Education in
  the Health Professions 18 197205.
• McKinney, K. (2007) Enhancing learning though the
  scholarship of learning and teaching The
  challenges and joys of juggling. Boson, MA
  Anker Publishing.
• Weimer, M. (2006) Enhancing scholarly work on
  teaching learning Professional literature
  that makes a difference. San Francisco,CA
  Jossey-Bass