Critical Reflection

Scaffolding pre-service teachers to critically reflect on their practice remains a challenging goal. Exploring the extent to which peer discussion facilitates this critical reflection is the focus of this paper. Using a series of three linked tasks, pre-service teachers 1) reflected on a classroom incident from a vignette of practice, 2) shared and discussed their initial reflections with peers and 3) revisited their initial reflection in an attempt to unearth any assumptions they may have had. The study found that peer discussion broadened pre-service teachers’ perspectives beyond the initial ego-centric reflections, which were dominated by issues of pupil management, control and discipline. The peer
discussion process supported pre-service teachers in identifying and questioning some of their preconceived assumptions. However, findings indicate that the process supported pre-service teachers in acquiring greater breadth rather than greater depth in reflective thinking. We would argue that rather than seeing peer engagement opportunities as a panacea, it should be viewed as a valuable scoping exercise to unearth alternative perspectives and to begin the process of ‘hunting assumptions’.

This paper focuses on documenting the reflections of undergraduate students in the early childhood education programme with regard to their experience with school placement in kindergarten. Their views on the importance of school placement, the implementation of activities they design, the teaching process and the interactions developed in the classroom are studied. A review of responses indicates that most students can attribute the importance of their school placement to a number of factors related, firstly, to the acquisition of experience, but also to more complex factors relating to communication and the interaction of the students themselves with kindergarten children, as well as the link between academic knowledge and its practical application. At the same time, it is highlighted the fact that, through the process of reflection, the students are willing to revise some of their choices while planning and implementing educational activities. In conclusion, it appears that the study of student reflection is a complex "mechanism" which nevertheless appears to be quite significant in preparing future teachers and can contribute to improving the operational framework of practical work experience (school placement), with a direct impact on the feedback to the knowledge they are provided.

In this newspaper interview/article I describe my "Contemplation Music Writing Project," how it started and how it works. There are several articles published on Academia.edu about my lessons with music, contemplation, reflection, writing, and discussion.

The curriculum will work for adults, including educators, parents, and people in business. With stress levels for teachers reaching an all-time high, this type of approach to mental health and self-care, would be appreciated in the schools. Teachers can form groups, sit in a circle, listen to music, "contemplate inner experiences," write about, and then discuss these events with colleagues.

Not always an easy, fun way of dealing with serious matters, however, it will create an opportunity--a "window"--to express thoughts, feelings, and experiences: "Get into IT, and get IT out," was the motto I used with the kids. Teachers can form small groups, let's say, 6 to 8 people, choose a diverse series of songs/music (playlist) to play, choose a "discussion leader," read their "contemplations" orally, and discuss them with a passion-based Q-and-A technique. It worked with the kids under difficult circumstances, and it would work with teachers.

Abstract
Purpose: The authors examined Health Sciences students’ willingness to reflect on an academic failure at the students’ point-of-entrance into university in order to gauge how students’ willingness to engage in reflective tasks might be predictive of their subsequent academic success and, ultimately, of their potential to become health professionals.

Methods: Following Health Sciences students’ failure on an English diagnostic test, the authors determined the proportion of 568 Health Sciences students who voluntarily reviewed or did not review (SR and SNR respectively) their failed tests before sitting a second-chance test 60 days later. The authors then compared the improvements between SR and SNR on the second-chance test and determined three relationships: 1) whether SR or SNR showed greater improvement on the second-chance test; 2) whether SR or SNR had higher mean marks in their four requisite Health Sciences courses; 3) if SR were more likely to be subsequently placed in a health professional programme.

Results: 42% (N=237) of students chose not to review their test after failing it and being advised that they could review the test. Those same students were already performing at a lower level on this first test for their Reading Comprehension (F(1,566)= 5.608, p=0.18) and Listening Comprehension (F(1,566)=4.117, p = 0.043). While SR improved more than did SNR when they sat the second test, reviewing the failed test did not significantly correlate with improved success on the second test. However, SR achieved higher mean marks across their four requisite Health Sciences courses than did SNR (Wald’s Z = 8.015, p Wald’s Z = 3.108, p = 0.002) and were more likely to be offered a place in a professional programme (Wald’s Z = 3.108, p = 0.002).

Conclusions: Choosing to engage in a relatively simple reflective task following an initial failure predicts subsequent academic success for our Health Sciences students and their potential of becoming health professionals.

This chapter provides a critical and synthesizing review of the literature on issues related to preparing teachers for diverse learners from historical and theoretical standpoints, reviewing more than 50 years of calls for teacher education reform and efforts to prepare White teachers and teachers of color for racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in schools and communities. It finds that the limited success of such efforts is the result of policy changes that overemphasize recruitment and underemphasize retention, and calls for restructuring teacher education programs and research that focuses on critical reflection and generativity that can lead to transformative practices in the classroom. The authors argue for a (re)new(ed) emphasis on community-based teacher preparation grounded in critical reflection and generativity, which facilitates and promotes transformative teacher education that prepares teachers to teach diverse student populations.

Whereas the five senses are necessary for our survival in this world, the Quran tells us that we are also endowed with three faculties that are necessary for our guidance. These are foresight (basar), listening (sama'a), and having sincere feeling and intellect (qalb or afaydah). The Quran emphasizes that for serious matters, we should use our faculties to reflect and ponder. Out of the three faculties it is the heart that is in the driver seat. It integrates the information from sight and sound to help develop foresight and heedfulness and helps us learn wisdom (ya'qeloon) and develop understanding (yafqahoon). People who do not do reflect and ponder and follow their desires are like animals who are driven by impulse only. The Quran tells us that we, using these faculties, should try to understand our true purpose in life, which is to be successful in the Hereafter. If we do not use these faculties for this particular purpose, we forfeit our right to be human. We degrade ourselves to a level lower than animals. We, however, need to have a right attitude to derive benefit from these faculties.

Our ability to adapt to the relentless change of modern society and to transform how we see the world are essential to our survival in these complex times. However, we are rapidly losing that race as increasing complexity overtakes our ability to build our adaptive and transformative capacity. Transformative learning and systems literacy are essential components to turning that tide. This paper gives an overview of transformative learning theory and applies a systems and complexity framework to that process to create a foundation for transformative change. It covers the concepts of the disorienting dilemma, critical reflection, dialogue, and meaning making at the edge of chaos.

Acting reflexively implies a "self-critical and self-conscious stance" (Glass, 2015, p. 555) of recognizing myself within a research process as an intentional participant-practitioner of generating knowledge. This article attempts to reveal visual evidence across a landscape of textual references and material implementations as a process of the what and how of knowing. My aim is to affirm the intentionality of my reflexive praxis as a way of knowing and becoming through committed intertextual inquiry and discovery. 1

Resumen

En el presente ensayo se ha de conducir al lector a través de la posible causa con más trascendencia tras el suicidio, como eventualidad máxima a trastornos que afectan el psiquismo. Un origen asentado en la inhabilidad, del hombre de la posmodernidad, de remitirse a las cuestiones fundamentales de su humanidad, debido a los condicionamientos impuestos desde su nacimiento y que terminan por inhibir su pensamiento. Un individuo carenciado y ahogado en la inmanencia que ha sido castrado de su libertad, para ser domesticado por medio del control social, para beneficio de quienes ejercen el poder.
Palabras Clave: Suicidio, ser, control, reflexión, libertad

Abstract

In the present essay the reader will be led through the possible cause with more transcendence behind suicide, as a maximum eventuality to disorders that affect the psyche. An origin based on the inability, of the man of postmodernity, to refer to the fundamental questions of his humanity, due to the conditioning imposed from his birth and that end up to inhibiting his thinking. An individual deprived, and drowned in the immanence that has been castrated of his freedom, to be domesticated through social control, for the benefit of those who exercise power.
Keywords: Suicide, being, control, reflection, freedom.

Abstract This essay critically reflects on our experiences and observations, as a multi-racial research team from the USA, of the politics of race and racism at the 2005 meeting of the World Social Forum which took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The challenges of discussing issues of ...

The present research attempts to study the education of teachers through the perspective of university pedagogy and transformative learning theory. The aim of the study is to investigate the possible long-term effects over a decade of an educational intervention on teacher students during their university studies by applying the 'Transformative Learning through Aesthetic Experience' method. Taking into consideration that they are going through the period of emerging adulthood, in which their identity is under development, the basic question is to explore reflective skills in the participants. We do so by updating their views on the educational issues analyzed in the above educational intervention. From the research findings it is clear that there are long-term effects of the above educational intervention on the development of the participants' critical reflection and on the way of their epistemological assumptions are configured throughout the emerging adulthood.

A belief that as part of any equitable society a just system is needed for members whom find themselves in crisis, and that creativity can be useful as a transformative and informative process, guides this research. Questions of how creativity and dance movement therapy (DMT) can be powerful whilst working with domestic violence and abuse (DVA) will be explored. Dance movement and the body have power and are of value and necessary in recovery, prevention, intervention and therapist experience. In introduction I will precise the statistics and outcome measures used in cases of domestic violence abuse interventions. I will explore the literature and research that already exists with domestic violence and dance movement therapy. I will suggest that existing outcome measures tell us little about how to work with or what happens to a person during or after such crisis. The aim of this research is to offer more of an integrated voice by focusing on the therapist's embodiment whilst working with dance movement therapy and creativity with children whom have experienced and witnessed abuse. The objectives are to look specifically at the therapist's embodied processing of therapeutic material and the themes which emerge from this. Using an experiential and somatic emphasis, the focus of the therapist's perspective has an autoethnographical lens which will be captured in five films of my processing as a dance movement psychotherapist after sessions with children whom have experience DVA. These films will be viewed and commented on by an academic and personal supervisor adding another perspective and layer to the embodied process of therapist. These comments will be presented at the EADMT conference by poster presentation and the results will be presented here in this paper and by films which will be available to view online in a secure environment. In summary of the results: this research finds that different layers of embodiment and movement/creativity exist as a result of working with and experiencing DVS and the films show the impact on the therapist body. The layers are intricate, intimate and interconnected and provide an informative and authentic pathway for the therapist in the processing of client material.

Purpose This case study presents an overview of the development process and outcomes from a six-year collaboration between Halifax Bank (part of the Lloyds Banking Group) and Middlesex University between 2010 and 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK). The collaboration involved the construction of work-integrated higher education programmes that were, from the outset, predicated on clear return on investment criteria for the Bank. One unexpected outcome from the collaboration was the emergence of critical reflection as a valued business benefit that, it is argued, has the potential for significant cultural change within the organisation. Design/methodology/approach This case study discuses how 'productive reflection' can lead to an integrated approach to organisational learning. The study is located in the context of Halifax's specific organisational objectives established following the banking crash of 2008. Quantitative and qualitative evidence is considered to illustrate the extent to which the 'return on investment' criteria established by Halifax have been achieved. Findings The case study indicates that the challenging business context of the financial crash of 2008 provided the impetus for a sustained collaborative development that allowed the potential pitfalls of restricted learning opportunities to be addressed resulting in an integrated approach to organisational learning. In addition to the organisation's return on investment criteria being met, there is evidence that the work-integrated approach has raised the productive reflection becoming part of an emerging the learning culture. Originality/value The scale and sustained period of the university-business collaboration is unique and provides valuable insight into how an organisation's learning culture can be affected by a work-integrated approach. In demonstrating the perceived business value of productive reflection, the case presented illustrates how learning can start to become considered as a normal aspect of working life.

In this paper the authors critically analyse theories and practices of intercultural education and intercultural learning in Austria. Contextual aspects such as demographic developments and corresponding educational opportunities in Austrian schools are described. The impact of shifting orientations toward minority schooling for autochthonous ethnic groups, educational provisions for migrants, and intercultural education are examined. The authors draw attention to inconsistencies