Teachers and Change: The Role of Reflective Practice

1. This paper argues that the most powerful, durable and effective agents of educational change are not the policy makers, the curriculum developers or even the education authorities themselves; they are the teachers. It further contends that the quality of the educational changes that teachers have the skills and opportunities to effect will only be as reliable and proficient as the teachers’ individual capacities for reflective practice and the development of self knowledge. These aspects of teacher development have, historically, been largely overlooked in the preparation and promotion of effective teachers. The emphasis has been more explicitly focused on the development and demonstration of teachers’ understanding of content knowledge and the associated pedagogies and in their capacities to understand their students as individual constructors of knowledge in diverse social contexts. Whilst the former teacher characteristics have traditionally been valued as desirable or even mandatory indicators of teacher quality, the latter are heavily impacted upon by the individual pedagogue's values, attitudes and notions of what it is to be a professional practitioner. In order for teachers to be effective in the Information Age, they need to recognize more than just their students’ background and learning preferences. They need to be able to take effective, positive action in the classroom context to improve the educational outcomes for their students. In order to do this they must have the willingness and cognitive capacities to recognize ethical dilemmas and examine their own perspectives on the issues they face critically and analytically. This requires regular, authentic reflection. The reflective process in which one teacher engaged as part of his role in a research study is documented...