REFLECTIVE PRACTICES IN TEACHING NATURAL SCIENCE

1. TOPIC: RELEVANCE
OF REFLECTIVE
PRACTICES IN TEACHING
NATURAL SCIENCE

2. INTRODUCTION
Reflective practice is the capacity to reflect on action so as to
engage in a process of continuous learning. According to one definition
it involves. Paying critical attention to the practice values and theories
which inform everyday actions, by examining practice reflectively and
reflexively. This leads to developmental insight.
Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice based
professional learning. Settings where individuals learning from their
own professional experiences, rather than from formal teaching or
knowledge transfer, may be the most important source of personal
professional development and improvement.
In this seminar 1 included and studied about the ‘Relevance of
Reflective Practices in teaching Natural science, in this seminar
contains the definition of reflective practices, features of reflective
practices and the relevance or importance of reflective practices.

3. CONTENT
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Reflective practice was introduced by ‘Donald SC bon in his
book. The reflective practioner in 1983. However, the concepts under
laying reflective practice are much older.
John Dewey was among the first to write about reflective
practice with his exploration of experience, interaction and reflection.
Other researchers such as Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, William James and
Carl Jung were developing theories of human learning and
development. Marcus Ayrelius’ Meditations has also been described as
an example of reflective practice.
Dewey’s works inspired writers such as Donald sec tion and
David Bound to explore the boundaries of reflective practice. Central
to the development of reflective theory was interest in the integration
of theory and practice, the cyclic pattern of experience and the
conscious application of that learning experience.

4. DEFINITIONS OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
 Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to
improve the way you work. It is very useful for health
professionals who want to carry on learning thought their lives.
 Reflective practice is the capacity to reflect on action so as to
engage in a process of continuous learning
 Reflective practice is the habitual and judicious use of
communication, knowledge, technical skills, reasoning,
emotions, values and reflection in daily for the benefit of the
individuals and communities being served.
 Frame the problem of the situation the practioner determine the
features to which they will attend the order they will attempt to
impose on the situation, the directions in which they will try to
change it. In this process, they identify both the ends to be
sought and the means to be employed.
 Reflective practice is a process by which you stop and think
about your practice, consciously analyse your practice, decision
making and draw on theory and relate it to what you do in
practice.
 Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice based
professional learning settings were individuals learning from
their own professional experiences rather than from formal
teaching or knowledge transfer, may be the most important
source of personal professional development and improvement
further it is also an important way to be able to bring together

5. theory and practice. Through reflection you are able to see and
label schools of thought and theory within the context of your
work.
FEATURES OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
 Reflective teaching implies an active concern with aims and
consequences, as well as means and technical efficiency.
 Reflective teaching is applied in a cyclical or spiralling process,
in which teachers monitor, evaluate and revise their own practice
continuously.
 Reflective teaching requires competence in methods of evidence
based classroom enquiry, to support the progressive
development of high standards of teaching.
 Reflective teaching requires attitudes of open mindedness,
responsibility and whole heartedness
 Reflective teaching is based on teacher judgement, informed by
evidence – based enquiry and insights from other research.
 Reflective teaching, professional learning and personal
fulfilment and are enhanced through collaboration and dialogue
with colleagues.
 It enables teacher to creatively mediate externally developed
frame works for learning and teaching.

6. STEPS / STAGES
The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and
become a more proactive and qualified professional. Engaging in
reflective practice should help to improve the quality of care you give
and close the gap between theory and practice.
GIBB’S REFLECTIVE CYCLE
Gibb’s reflective cycle is process involving six steps
Description
What happened
Feelings
What did you think and feel about it?
Evaluation
What are the positives and negatives
Analysis
What sense you make of it?
Conclusion
what else could you have done
Action plan
What will you do next time
It is a ‘Cycle’ because the action you take in the final stage will
feed back into the first stage beginning the process again

7. Des cription
(What Happend)
Feelings
(What were you
thinking and feeling)
Evaluation (What was
good and bad about
the experience)
Analysis
(What sense can you
make of the
s ituation)
Action Plan
(If i t arose again what
would you do ?)
Conclusion
(What else could you
have done)
The concept of Reflective practice centers around the idea of
lifelong learning in which a practitioner analyses experiences in order
to learn from them reflective practice is used to promote independent
professionals who are continuously engaged in the reflection of
situations they encounter in their professional works. Several models
of reflection exist and are used to draw lessons out of experiences.

8. The Different models of reflective practice are given below
(a) Single and double loop learning model by Argyris and schon
(1978)
(b) Kolb’s reflective practice model (1975)
(c) Gibb’s Reflective practice Model (1988)
(d) Johns Reflective practice Model (1995)
(e) Brookfield Reflective practice Model (1998)
(f) Rolfe’s Reflective Model (2001)
(g) Ganshirt (2007)

9. Benefits
 Increased learning from a experience for situation
 Promotion of deep learning
 Identification of personal and personal, professional Strengths
and areas for improvement
 Identification of educational needs
 Acquisition of new knowledge and skills
 Farther understanding of own belief, attitudes and values
 Encouragement of self motivation and self directed learning
 could act as a source of feedback
 Possible improvement of personal and clinical confidence
Demerits
 Not all practitioners may understand the reflective process
 May feel uncomfortable challenging and evaluating own
practice
 Could be time consuming
 May have confusion as to which situation / experiences to reflect
upon
 May not be adequate to resolve clinical problems

10. RELEVANCE OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE IN TEACHING
NATIONAL SCIENCE
 Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the class
room, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it
works- a process of self observation and self evaluation
 Reflective practice is help to collecting information about what
goes on in our class room, and by analysing and evaluating the
information, we can identifying and explore our own practices
and underlying beliefs.
 It may them lead to changes and improvements in our teaching
 Reflective practice is there for a means professional
development which begins in our class room
 Reflective teaching implies a more systematic process of
collecting, recording and analysing our thoughts, observation as
well as those of our students, and then going on to making
changes
 If a lesson went well we can describe it and think about why it
was successful
 If the students did ‘nt understand a part or portion, we
introduced we need to think about what we did and why it may
have been under
 If students are misbehaving what were they doing, when and
why?
 Reflective practice is help to modify our teaching methods and
to know about the following facts

11.  How much do you talk
 What about are instructions and explanations clear?
 How much time does you all cate to student talk?
 How do you respond to student talk?
 How do you come across to the students
 It helps to improve our teaching method
 It give more confidence to teach natural science very effective
 It give motivation it our teaching method
 It give opportunity to share more knowledge about the natural
science to students
 It emphasis the way of teaching

12. CONCLUSION
Reflective teaching is a cyclical process, because once you start
to implement changes, then the reflective and evaluative cycle begins
again. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? How effective is it?
How are the students responding? How can you do it better? As do
something different ways or you may just decide that what you are
doing is the best way. And that is what professional development is all
about.
Reflective practice is help to modify our teaching method,
communication to the students, presentation etc. It develops or improve
the teaching process. We can make our teaching more critically
analysing and evaluating our own practices and it give opportunity to
improve our teaching.

13. REFERENCE
 Tony liver sidge, Marttcochrane Bernie Kerfoot
(2009) Teaching Science, Developing as a Reflective
Secondary Teacher
 Jessy Mathews (2008)
Teaching of Natural Science- Theory, perspectives and
practice
 .http://www.learing technologies.co.uk/
 .www.Google.com