Critical Consciousness Checklist

This chapter aims at providing pre-service and in-service teachers with a tool to analyze the criticality of their lessons. Teacher training programs are focused heavily on reflection of the effectiveness of an educator's classroom. This reflection generally concerns itself with ensuring that students meet learning targets and master the content. This chapter examines reflection through the lens of critical praxis, including positions of power, funds of knowledge, and meaning making. It provides a recommended checklist of questions aimed at facilitating an analysis of the extent to which lessons and activities successfully allow students to inhabit positions of power, access their funds of knowledge, and make meaning. Implications of critical reflective inquiry will enable teachers to more equitably guide students through their education.

Professional development for teachers’ mathematical problem-solving pedagogy – what counts?

Problem-solving is of importance in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Nevertheless, a baseline investigation conducted in 2016 revealed that mathematical problem-solving is virtually missing in South African classrooms. In this regard, a two-cycle design-based research project was conducted to develop a professional development (PD) intervention that can be used to bolster Grade 9 South African teachers’ mathematical problem-solving pedagogy (MPSP). This article discusses the factors that emerged as fundamental to such a PD intervention. Four teachers at public secondary schools in Gauteng, South Africa, who were purposively selected, participated in this qualitative research study of a naturalistic inquiry. Teachers attended PD workshops for six months where PD activities that were relevant to their context were implemented. Between the PD workshops, teachers were encouraged to put into practice the new ideas on MPSP. Qualitative data were gathered through reflective interviews and classroom observations which were audio-recorded with teachers’ consent. Data were analysed through grounded theory techniques using constant comparison. The findings from the study suggested that teachers’ personal meaning, reflective inquiry, and collaborative learning are factors fundamental to their professional growth in MPSP. The major recommendation from the study is that facilitators of PD must acknowledge these factors to promote teachers’ professional growth in MPSP. If PD processes and activities are relevant to teachers’ personal meaning, reflective inquiry, and collaborative learning, teachers find the PD programme fulfilling and meaningful. This study contributes to the PD in MPSP body of knowledge by having worked with teachers in an under-researched context of historical disadvantage.

Teacher Development through Podcast Engagement

Professional development and community engagement are important parts of maintaining commitment in language teaching. Podcasting is emerging as a form of professional development and engagement with the English language teaching community, both through the production of podcasts themselves, and through participation as listeners. Drawing upon our experiences of creating a podcast, together with an examination of other podcasts in the field, this practically oriented paper will document and identify a range of innovative ways through which engagement with podcasts, by both producers and listeners, can contribute to teacher development. This paper will highlight how podcasts can instigate opportunities for reflective inquiry, aid communities of practice, and support efforts to negotiate practical and theoretical knowledge. After providing a definition of podcasts as a media format and describing their status in the language teaching field, the paper considers professional development opportunities which may be afforded by engagement with podcasts. 言語教育におけるコミットメントを維持するには、専門的な能力開発とコミュニティへの関わりが重要な役割を果たす。ポッドキャスティングは、ポッドキャストの制作自体とリスナーとしての参加の両方を通じて、非公式で専門的な能力開発と英語教育コミュニティとの関わりの一形態として台頭してきた。本論は、過去の経験から、制作者とリスナーの両者がポッドキャストに関わることにより、教師の能力開発に貢献できるさまざまな革新的方法を記録し、明らかにする。また、ポッドキャストがいかにして内省的な探究の機会を促し、実践のコミュニティをサポートし、実践的で理論的な知識について議論や交渉する取り組みを支援できるかという点に光を当てる。メディアの一形態としてのポッドキャストの定義を示し、言語教育分野におけるポッドキャストの位置づけを説明した後、ポッドキャストに関わることで得られる可能性のある専門的な能力開発の機会について考察する。

Reconstructing and Reorganizing Experience: Weaving a Living Philosophy

Background/Context This study contributes to ongoing work in professional learning communities, self-study, and reflection. It offers a structure and a process rooted in a philosophy of practice grounded in various thinkers like Dewey, Rogers, Curran, Freire, Gattegno, Greene, and Carini. Purpose/Objective The purpose of this study is to explore the process of one teacher educator inquiry group that has lasted nearly 30 years, and which has sought to enact Dewey's notion of education, “that reconstruction or reorganization of experience that adds meaning to experience and increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.” Research Design Our research design mirrors the reflective inquiry process of our group, that is, how we researched is simultaneously what we researched. The process itself follows a structure for reflection outlined by Dewey in Rodgers. It begins with recollected experiences, descriptions of those experiences, and is followed by a “harvesting of themes,” through analysis and interpretation, to possible modes of “intelligent action.” The process is iterative and continuous. Conclusions Our conclusions go beyond mere descriptions of our process. We come to the realization that, as Greene writes, being “wide-awake” to the particularities of our lives and work; to live intentionally, deliberately, and morally; and to be aware of who and why we are, and are to each other, is essential to a democratic society.

Reflective Inquiry Practices of Instructional Leaders in Public Schools in Manila, Philippines

Objective - This study aims to explore the reflective inquiry practices of instructional leaders and examine if there is significant difference in the respondents’ reflective inquiry practices based on their personal profile. Methodology/Technique – The survey-questionnaire underwent reliability testing and yielded a result of .936. Appropriate statistical tools such as frequency or mean and ANOVA were used to determine the reflective inquiry practices of the instructional leaders and the significant difference of reflective inquiry based on their personal profile. Finding – The results indicate that the instructional leaders’ level of reflective inquiry practices is high, and it has no significant difference based on their personal profile. However, there exists a significant difference in the respondents’ level of reflective inquiry practices according to years of service and educational attainment. Novelty – Much research has investigated reflective inquiry as a pedagogical practice of teachers, but very few have attempted to study reflective inquiry as a supervisory practice of instructional leaders. There have been no empirical studies that have made use of reflective inquiry in the professional practice of instructional leaders in the local context. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: I120, I121. Keywords: Reflective Inquiry, Reflective Practice, Instructional Leaders. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Castaño, K.M.N; Litao, R.A. (2021). Reflective Inquiry Practices of Instructional Leaders in Public Schools in Manila, Philippines, GATR Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 9(1): 10 – 22. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2021.9.1(2)

Working: Glimpses of the pandemic from this fine place so far from home

This manuscript was written for a special issue on Reflections on a Pandemic. In it, I write as an emerging scholar from a working-class background. The pandemic has underscored the divergence between my working life as an academic, which is unintelligible to those I love, and their “essential” work, which increasingly renders them expendable. In this essay I struggle with the tensions that other working-class scholars have articulated before me: I am tentatively welcome in a place that asks, or even demands, that I become someone whose work is unrecognizable to my loved ones. Through the use of reflective inquiry and (counter) narratives, I am working to alter social work education, creating space for others from working-class backgrounds who might find themselves in this fine place so far from home.

Effects of Reflective Inquiry Teaching Method on Students’ Academic Achievement in Domestic Installation Module in Technical Colleges of Yobe State, Nigeria

Purpose: The study investigated the effects of reflective inquiry teaching method on students’ academic achievement in domestic installation modules in technical colleges of Yobe State, Nigeria. Methodology/Approach/Design: The study is quasi-experimental in design. A pre-test and post-test were conducted for both control and experimental groups. Two classes from four Technical Colleges were selected to give a sample size of 88. Electrical Installation and Maintenance Work Trade Achievement Test (EIMWTAT) was used to generate data for the study. The instrument was validated by three experts in the Department of Electrical Technology Education, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola. To determine the reliability of the instrument, Cronbach’s Alpha was used and a reliability coefficient of 0.91 was obtained. Mean statistics was used to answer the research questions, while the null hypotheses were tested using t-test at 0.5 level of significance. Results: The study revealed that reflective inquiry teaching method improves student academic achievement when compared with the demonstration teaching method. It further revealed that reflective inquiry teaching method is not gender biased as both male and female students performed effectively in domestic installation. The study concluded that when students are taught domestic installation using reflective enquiry method, they performed better than when taught using conventional method. Practical Implications: The results of the study may have implications for teaching staff in Technical Colleges of Yobe State, Nigeria. Based on the results of the study, the reflective method can be applied in the teaching and learning of domestic installation, industrial installation and electrical installation and maintenance works in technical colleges. Originality/Value: The study innovates by experimenting with the effect of reflective inquiry in teaching Domestic Installation Module in Technical Colleges of Yobe State, Nigeria. From the analysis, the reflective inquiry was found effective in teaching domestic installation as students’ academic achievement was significantly high. By this, the use of reflective inquiry in the teaching of domestic installation, which is now being introduced, is highly commendable.

Evolving from Didactic to Dialogic: An Action Research for Improving Teaching Practices in the mini-CEX Workshops

BackgroundFaculty development is imperative to ensure successful outcomes in the training of competent physicians. However, how faculty developers can improve the delivery of an assessment workshop through researching their individual teaching practices remains unexplored.MethodsIn 2016, the authors conducted four cycles of action research in the context of mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (mini-CEX) workshops. Multiple sources of qualitative data, including a faculty developer’s reflective journal, field notes taken by a researcher-observer, and post-workshop written reflection and feedback from fourteen workshop attendees, were collected and analyzed thematically.ResultsBy doing action research, the faculty developer scrutinized each step as an opportunity for change, enacted adaptive practice and reflection on teaching practices and formulated action plans to transform a workshop design. In so doing, a workshop evolved from didactic to dialogic with continuous improvement on enhanced engagement, focused discussion and participant empowerment through a collaborative inquiry into feedback practice. These action research cycles also supported development of adaptive practice and identity formation in the faculty developer.ConclusionsThe systematic approach of action research serves as a vehicle to enable faculty developers to investigate individual teaching practices as a self-reflective inquiry, to examine, rectify, and transform processes of program delivery, and ultimately introduce themselves as agents for change and improvement.