Reflection

Definition

Reflection occurs when teachers experience difficult situations in practice and need to think them through. Reflective practitioners are thinkers. (Milner 2003).

Types of Reflection

1.      Reflection 'on' action - Reflection before and after teaching.

2.      Reflection 'in' action  - An action that redirects plans during teaching based on an observation while carrying out a lesson.

ü      Teachers, while teaching, are reflecting on prior experiences with a particular lesson. They reflect on when they were students all while still attending to the realities of the current teacher-student situations (Milner, 2003).

ü      Laparade Early Learning and Training Center’s in-service and pre-service teachers trainings will utilize these reflective strategies to increase your meta-cognitive skills as a teacher. A reflective teacher is a professional who often thinks back on what has been seen or heard. They make choices and come up with alternative actions.

ü      Laparade will train and teach from the heart. The passion that teachers bring to the program will be the foundation for which their own learning will occur. Teaching with heart will be the basis for understanding needs and meeting standards.

ü      Laparade will be a safe place to have honest conversation about who the teachers are and understanding their connections to families and community. The teachers will develop a strong sense of efficacy--confidence that what they do affect the lives of the children they touch and teach.

ü      Laparade will set a tone for teachers to challenge their own beliefs and thoughts in respect and retrospect to all children and families. They will be given the freedom to come with their own beliefs and as they spend time at Laparade gain experiences that will help them to get a working understanding of perspective, empathy and diversity. The kind of understanding that assures you that changing your beliefs to help others is not the same as assimilating, accommodating, or compromising. It is building a community of synergy through differences without loosing your identity in the process or in the name of education. Laparade believes that “it does take a village to raise a child”, but that we are in the business of building the village.