One of my biggest learning is that I don't have to have an answer. I am a fixer, a solver of problems by nature. If something doesn't go right in my lesson, or a student doesn't engage in the activity - I must understand why so that I can fix it for next time. I have tried to go from this to the bigger picture in my reflections. Why do I what I do? What assumptions and life experiences influence my teaching and my reactions to situations? How do my students perceive events? How does this all interact together to influence the learning environment of my classroom? What is technologies role?
"Reflection becomes critical when it has two distinctive purposes. The first is to understand how consideration of power undergird, frame and distort educational processes and interactions. The second is to question assumptions and practices that seem to make our teaching lives easier but actually work against our best long term interests." (Brooksfield, What it means to be a critically reflective teacher)
Through out this program I have uncovered more and more of my assumptions around education, technology, learning in the 21st century and knowledge. It has been eye opening. I feel like I am assembling a bit of a jigsaw puzzle that is continually changing shape. One moment I think I have a corner and then it morphs into something else. The idea of what knowledge is started out as something concrete in my mind and has changed into something that is constructed together because we each look at it through our own experiences and ideals.
Critical reflection is essential in my continuing growth as an educator. Let me end with a quote from The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research.
"You understand that engaging in inquiry is not about solving every educational problem that exists, it is about finding new and better problems to study, and in doing, leading a continuous cycle of self and school improvement . . . truly, becoming the best that you can be."
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