Running Head: REFLECTIVE PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION

REFLECTIVE PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION

Reflective Planning and Instruction

Olivia Martin
Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2015

REFLECTIVE PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION

Introduction
To be a teacher is to be a life-long learner. When a teacher stops growing and enhancing
their knowledge and practices they become burned out and ineffective. To that end, being a
reflective planner is a great asset to any educator. Being a part of the growth and development of
students necessitates a teachers need to grow and develop. Not only is self-reflection important,
implementation of that reflective process is imperative.
Rationale for Selection of Artifacts
To prove my competence in this area, I have selected two venues in which I used to
reflect on my teaching practices and then two results of that reflection. Firstly, I have chosen a
portion of my journal from my student teaching experience. During this time, I was encouraged
to keep a weekly reflective journal on my time at both placements. During this journal entry, I
reflected on the happenings of the week and the big things I learned about myself as an
educator and about teaching in general. At the end of each journal entry, I closed with some
reflections, based on my experiments, on things that I need to work on and things to look
forward to. In each instance, I used this list of reflective critiques to adjust my practices and
instruction in the classroom. This journal, I realized that I needed to work on my time
management during instruction and, as a result, created a daily schedule that included a check-off
list for my day-to-day tasks. I have included an example of one of these schedules as my second
artifact.
I found another venue for successful reflection within my lesson plans. I used the last
section of my lesson plans for serious reflections on individual instructional times and practices.
This provided me with a more concentrated, specific way of adjusting my instructional practices

REFLECTIVE PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION

from lesson to lesson, not just week to week. For my third artifact, I have included a copy of a
lesson plan on day one of a unit on theme. At the bottom, I reflected on the things that went well
and that I would change the next time I taught the lesson or concept. As my final artifact, I
included the next days plan for that unit with the adjustments made in the plan according to the
reflections on the prior lesson plan.
Reflection on Theory and Practice
Throughout my time at Regent University, there has never been a class, assignment,
conversation, or even textbook that did not, at the very least, encourage self-reflection on some
level. Whether it be on our ideas of education, our practices and strategies, our classroom
management, how we would even speak to our teachers, in every interaction, reflection was
encouraged for our own personal growth.
This is something I highly value about my time preparing myself to become an educator
at Regent University. I did not understand how valuable this concept was until I had to reflect in
the moment of instruction and adjust my lesson based on those moment by moment reflections.
This quick thinking is something that every teacher needs in their tool bag and is a concept that
Regent has been successful in helping its students to grow in.
Realizing that the students we are teaching are constantly growing and changing, we, as
educators, must continue in that pattern of reflection and growth to be as effective as possible. I
remember the words of Paul to his student Timothy in 1Timothy 4:16, Keep a close watch on
how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation
and the salvation of those who hear you. (NLT) Just as Paul encouraged Timothy, teachers must
be aware of their planning and instructional practices to effectively help their students.