Book Review: Teach Reflect Learn

Book Review: Teach Reflect Learn

– Building Your Capacity For Success in The Classroom

by Peter Hall & Alisa Simeral

In Teach Reflect Learn, Peter Hall and Alisa Simeral provide teachers with the opportunity to assess their current self-reflective tendencies and offer strategies for moving them through the stages of the authors’ self-reflection continuum.

Chapter 1 provides teachers with some feel-good images of teachers as heroes and “centers of the solar system” of their students.  It also includes evidence of the enormous impact that teachers have, including a reference to John Hattie’s meta-analysis of educational research which determined that “… 9 of the top 13 influences on student achievement were teacher-or teaching-related.” (4)

In Chapter 2, self-reflection, as it pertains to the teaching profession, is defined, and the doing-thinking gap is discussed.  For teachers, self-reflection involves the following 5 behaviours related to the reflective cycle:

• Growing awareness of the instructional core (knowledge of every student’s individual learning style and needs, the content, & pedagogy);
• Deliberate planning and intentional action (precision in the selection of learning goals, instructional strategies, and student groupings);
• Assessing of the impact of pedagogical moves;
• Making adjustments  based on feedback from assessments; and,
• Engaging in iterative reflective cycles.

Hall & Simeral's Teacher Reflective Cycle

A doing-thinking gap occurs when teaching strategies are used in classroom situations without sufficient thought regarding the particular context.  Hall and Simeral indicate that this gap can be eliminated “… by identifying and pursuing a specific purpose”. (19)

The authors’ reflective self-assessment tool for teachers is outlined and explained in chapters 3 and 4.  It consists of 10 scenarios – each with four possible responses.  Each response is assigned a score. (from 1 to 4)  The higher the score a teacher receives on the self-assessment, the further along the Continuum of Self-Reflection he/she is placed.  The continuum consists of 4 stages: Unaware Stage, Conscious Stage, Action Stage, and Refinement Stage.  Teachers will reach the Refinement Stage when they demonstrate, to a high degree, the 5 aforementioned behaviours of the Reflective Cycle.

Hall & Simeral: "What Makes a Great Teacher"

In Chapter 5, Hall and Simeral discuss the characteristics of and strategies for teachers in the Unaware Stage of the self-reflection continuum.  Such teachers, “… have not yet learned about certain teaching strategies, [and] aren’t yet attuned to the finer details of their class and students.” (46)  Unaware Stage teachers are comfortable and set in the way they teach, rely often on textbooks and teacher’s guides, put the onus on students to alter their work habits and behavior, and rarely engage in reflection on their teaching practices.  Strategies suggested by the authors to enable teachers in this stage to grow along the self-reflection continuum include the use of:

·        the WOW!/YIKES! strategy whereby, at the end of the day, the teacher writes down one success and one challenge or surprise;

·         Give One, Get One by which teachers exchange favourite strategies related to a specific topic; and,

·         An instructional coach teaching a lesson in the teacher’s classroom.

Give One; Get One Teacher Sharing Strategy

Characteristics of and strategies for teachers in the Conscious Stage are offered in 

Chapter 6.  Teachers in this stage are stuck in the knowing-doing gap – They are aware that they must create meaningful and differentiated learning experiences for each of their students; however, they fail too often in their planning and practice to provide these experiences.  In order to grow as reflective practitioners, teachers in this stage need to become more intentional in their planning and practice.  Some suggested strategies for teachers in this stage include:

• Setting short-term achievable goals (The authors provide, as an appendix, their Quick-Win Goal-Setting Form for this purpose.); and,
• Participating in capacity-building activities such as book studies and article reviews that focus on an important instructional strategy, and then trying out specific elements of that strategy in their classrooms.

Chapter 7 deals with the Action Stage.  Teachers at this stage have plenty of technical competence “in the science of teaching but need to connect it with the art of making necessary alterations.” (97)  In other words, they know and can apply many effective instructional practices but lack the observational capacity and analytical skills to know when exactly to apply these practices.  Effective strategies for Action Stage teachers include:

·        Having one-to-one conversations with struggling students during which the students are asked to explain their thinking;

·        Analyzing video of their teaching and focusing on specific moves the teacher made that led to student learning and on actions that blocked learning; and,

·        Observing other teachers’ classrooms to note how they respond to specific learning needs of students.

In Chapter 8, the authors describe teachers in the Refinement Stage.  They are teachers who:

·        “…think critically throughout their day, continuously reflect on their practice, and dial in to the learning.” (123)

·        “…make immediate, fluid adjustments to a lesson, responding directly to student questions, struggles, thinking, and actions.” (130)

Advice for Refinement Stage teachers includes finding opportunities to take leadership roles in their school and offering “… to open up [their] classroom to a colleague’s visit.” (143)