Teaching and Learning Through Reflective Practice: A Practical Guide for Positive Action

221 Pages·2011·1.32 MB·English

by  Tony Ghaye

Teaching and Learning through Reflective
Practice
Now in its second edition, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice: A practical
guide for positive action, is a guide to enable all those involved in educational activities to
learn through the practices of reflection. The book highlights the power that those
responsible for teaching and learning have to appraise, understand and positively trans-
form their teaching. Seeing the tutor/teacher as a reflective learner, the book emphas-
izes a strengths- based approach in which positivity, resilience, optimism and high
performance can help invigorate teaching, enhance learning and allow teachers to reach
their full potential. This approach busts the myth that reflection on problems and defi-
cits is the only way to better performance.
The approach of this new edition is an ‘appreciative’ one. At its heart is the explora-
tion and illustration of four reflective questions:
 What is working well?
 What needs changing?
 What are we learning?
 Where do we go from here?
With examples drawn from UK primary teacher education, coach education and
vocational education, the book reveals how appreciative reflective conversations can be
initiated and sustained. It also sets out a range of practical processes for amplifying suc-
cess. This book will be a ‘must have’ for undergraduate and PGCE students on initial
teacher training programmes and those wishing to increase their educational effective-
ness. It will also interest practising teachers, teacher educators and all those on continu-
ing professional development courses.
Tony Ghaye is an expert in positive psychology. He is Director of a not- for-profit
social enterprise called Reflective Learning- UK (www.reflectivepractices.co.uk). He
has experience as a school teacher, school leader and teacher educator. He is also
Editor-in-Chief of the international, peer-reviewed journal Reflective Practice (Routledge).
i

Teaching and Learning
through Reflective Practice
A practical guide for positive action
Second edition
Tony Ghaye
First edition published as Teaching and Learning through Critical Reflective Practice in Great
Britain by David Fulton Publishers 1998
Transferred to digital printing, in the Taylor & Francis e-L ibrary, 2010
Second edition published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
David Fulton and Routledge are imprints of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
Copyright © 1998, 2011 Tony Ghaye
Note: The right of Tony Ghaye to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. The purchase of this copyright material confers the right on the
purchasing institution to photocopy pages which bear the photocopy icon and copyright
line at the bottom of the page. No other part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Ghaye, Tony.
Teaching and learning through reflective practice : a practical guide for positive action /
Tony Ghaye. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Teaching and learning through critical reflective practice / Anthony Ghaye
and Kay Ghaye. 1998.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Teaching. 2. Teachers–Training of. 3. Reflection (Philosophy) 4. Experiential learning.
5. Teachers–In-service training–Great Britain. 6. Teachers–Training of–Great Britain.
I. Ghaye, Tony. Teaching and learning through critical reflective practice. II. Title.
LB1025.3.G439 2011
371.102–dc22 2010029293
ISBN 0-203-83332-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-57096-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-57095-4 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-83332-2 (ebk)
Dedication
To all those who strive to improve lives and livelihoods through strengths-b ased
reflective approaches to teaching and learning.

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface x
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1
1 Some Major Developments in Reflective Practice 5
2 Being a Reflective Practitioner 21
3 Some Views of the Nature of Reflection-o n-practice 36
4 A Strengths- based Reflective Practice 66
5 Reflection- on-values 90
6 Voicing Concerns and Asking Questions 110
7 Evidence- based Reflective Practice 133
8 Reflection- on-context: Partnership in Practice 162
9 Reflections on the Whole: Thinking Again 184
References 191
Index 204
vii
Illustrations
Figures
0.1 The link between reflection and practice 1
1.1 The deficit challenge 9
1.2 Reflective practices for enhancing human flourishing 13
1.3 A strengths- based reflective framework 18
2.1 Making sense of practice 29
2.2 Reflection- on-practice: four foci 31
2.3 Focus: reflection- on-values 31
2.4 Focus: reflection- on-practice 32
2.5 Focus: reflection- on-improvement 32
2.6 Focus: reflection- on-context 33
4.1 Using reflection in a strengths- based way 66
4.2 Positivity and the development of human resources? 72
4.3 The links between individual job satisfaction and performance at work 75
4.4 Your job satisfaction and performance at work 76
4.5 Jolts and the reflected best-s elf 83
4.6 Personal jolts to my best-s elf portrait 84
4.7 Can strengths become weaknesses? 86
4.8 Reflection and you 87
4.9 Reflection on feelings and behaviours 87
4.10 Reflection on positivity and strength, de- motivation and disengagement 88
4.11 How to amplify and reduce deficits through reflection 89
5.1 Reflection- on-values 90
6.1 Teachers as researchers 124
7.1 A concept map 150
7.2 Two concept maps 151
Tables
1.1 Four of the more common views of reflection 6
1.2 Ten action challenges 8
1.3 Using a strengths- based approach throughout the organization 19
1.4 Barrier- busting positive questions 19
2.1 Reflection- on-practice means . . . 22
viii
Illustrations
2.2 A strengths- based reflective strategy 33
3.1 Different questions, different conversations 55
4.1 Discovering your strengths 69
4.2 The disclosure of strengths 70
4.3 A self- regard questionnaire 72
4.4 Ten positive emotions for your positive portfolio 73
4.5 Flipping it as a reflective practice 80
7.1 The PMI framework 140
7.2 The PAP Framework 140
8.1 Ideal models of partnership 167
ix