This document outlines a community recreation leadership course on critical reflection taught by Tyler MacDonald. The 3 hour course consisted of introductions, a lecture on critical reflection methods, group workshops applying the methods, workshop presentations, and a wrap-up. The objective was to inspire leaders to use critical reflection to ensure their teaching style and materials are effective. Methods discussed included teaching logs, role model profiles, and gathering student feedback.

1. Instructor: Tyler MacDonald
Course Date: June 22, 2013
Location: East Gwillimbury Community Centre
19000 Leslie ST.
Sharon, Ontario

2. Activity Time Objective
Introductions 9am – 9:15am Learn who is in the class and their
background
Review of Critical
Reflection Methods
9:15am – 10:15am Review critical reflection methods:
 What is it and why critical
reflection
 Graduate Study Programs
 Professional Development
Workshops
 Conference Attendance
 Teaching Logs
 Teacher Learning Audits
 Role Model Profiles
 Survival advice memos
 Videotaping
 Students’ Eyes
 Other (classroom dynamics,
collaboration)
 Summary
Break 10:15am – 10:30am

3. Activity Time Objective
Workshop 10:30am – 11:10am Groups will review current method of
teaching, relate it to critical reflection
methods and develop thoughts on
how to use materials.
Workshop
Presentations
11:10am – 11:50am Groups will present results of the
workshop on critical reflection
and introspection and thoughts
for future teaching.
Wrap-up 11:50am – 12 noon Summarize of participant
workshop presentations and
roundtable discussion on
thoughts on the session.
Handout student Critical Incident
Questionnaire for completion.

4.  Today’s Instructor – Tyler MacDonald, Brock
University Undergraduate student in Recreation and
Leisure
 Three hour session on Critical Reflection to inspire
Community Recreation Leaders to consider using
critical reflection to help ensure that your teaching
style and the materials you are attempting to teach
are actually reaching the participants.
 Introductions - go around the room and have
everyone introduce themselves, talk briefly about
their leadership role and their objectives for today.
 Hand out copies of slides so participants can take
notes

5. Lecture

6.  What is Critical Reflection?
 Critical Reflection Points.
 Why critical reflection?
 Autobiographical Lenses
 Graduate Study Programs
 Professional Development Workshops
 Conference Attendance
 Teaching Logs
 Teacher Learning Audits
 Role Model Profiles
 Survival advice memos
 Videotaping
 Peer Observation
 Students’ Eyes
 Other (classroom dynamics, collaboration)

7.  “no matter what one’s class, race, gender, or
social standing, I shared my beliefs that
without the capacity to think critically about
our selves and our lives, none of us would be
able to move forward, to change, to grow”
 “Engaged pedagogy has been essential to my
development as an intellectual, as a
teacher/professor, because the heart of this
approach to learning is critical thinking”

8.  Sincerity of teaching doesn’t mean success
 Cultural, psychological, and political complexities
 Power of human relationships (between students and
teachers)
 Means teaching not innocent
 Innocent teaching means naïve teaching – that is assuming
that what you are teaching is what is being received.
 Reflection means hunting for assumptions
 Assumptions such as adults are self-directed learners, it is
good to encourage students to take control over
designing, conducting, and evaluating their learning, and
learning contracts increase student self-direction may not be
correct.
 In Community Recreation Leadership if you are aware of these
potential scenarios you can be more successful when leading
activities through a “reflective process”.

9.  The assumption that visiting a small group during group
work is respectful is not necessarily true.
 Cutting lectures down to a minimum is good to reduce
passivity is not always good as it can take away from
engaging in the ideas.
 Participants like group discussion is not always true given
power dynamics and communication inequities.
 Don’t always assume participants want community leaders
to downplay their position of superiority
 Don’t assume that if you have been teaching longer you
are the more experienced leader as you could be repeating
actions that aren’t helpful without some sort of critical
reflection.
 This is a key point for a community leader to understand
and therefore to always be searching for ways to improve.

10.  Helps community leader take informed action on
their teaching habits and content
 Helps rationalize the practice
 Helps avoid self- criticism if you think
participants aren’t learning
 Provides some grounding in teaching and how its
going
 It can help to liven up the classroom with new
teaching styles and concepts
 It can help with trust between participants and
leaders if done properly – participants will see
community leaders are trying to improve and
leaders will see where possible improvement lies

11.  Our autobiography based on our experiences
 Our student’s eyes
 Our colleagues eyes and experiences
 Theoretical literature
 All of these methods will provide critical
review of teaching methods, styles and
results that can be improved on and can
result in continuous improvement.

12. Graduate, professional development & conference
attendance, teaching logs, teaching learning audits, role
model profiles, survival advice memos & videotaping

13.  One of the three autobiographical methods to be
critically “self-reflective”.
 Our Professors have the power and control our
fate.
 Reminds us of affect of power and that we should
use to good educative effect going forward
 Keeping a learning journal of graduate study
experience will provide insights for your own
teaching
 Having reflected on your professor’s “good” and
“bad” actions will be to your advantage going
forward and it will help you ensure you don’t
reproduce the same power dynamics.

14.  Concerns professional development
opportunities for faculty – e.g.
workshops, presentations, and institutes
 Opportunity to experience what your students
do.
 Want practitioners to be experienced, “been
around the block” to speak to typical
situations, and for them to stand for something.
 It allows for thought on educator’s words and
actions being consistent, on their offering
something important, and that they look at
opportunities to do things differently.

15.  Attendance at these sessions can be valuable or
they can be “a waste of time”
 Can be used as a learning exercise to dissect
regardless of whether they were valuable or not.
 In other words if it was a learning experience why
was it and how can it be applied to your teaching
 If it was a waste of time, why was it and therefore
what will you do differently when putting
together course materials and community
recreation programs
 Conference learning logs are good to record
these ideas and use to our benefit going forward.

16.  Weekly record of events that are memorable
 Its about documenting what has given you as a leader
pleasure, or stress, or puzzlement
 Its usually about keeping a log of your reactions or
interpretations of events
 Makes you realize what you assume about teaching – good
or bad
 Idea is to keep it weekly and spend up to 30 minutes on it
 Types of questions when writing are related to when you
felt connected during the week, when you felt
disconnected, what situations caused you grief, and what
situation most surprised you?
 As a community leader this type of log can help you reflect
on programs you may be running and perhaps what you
think went right or wrong and it could alert you to areas
you require more skills in.

17.  Reflective tool to encourage leaders to view themselves as
adult learners
 Usually done at end of term or annually
 It involves thinking back and documenting what you
learned about yourself, students, your teaching, changes
in your assumptions
 Allows you to think about what learnings are brand new
versus refinements
 What triggered what you learned – a crisis, directive,
personal dissatisfaction, desire to experiment, some
chance event or other?
 Process gets you into habit of thinking of yourself as a
learner, makes you aware of how much you are learning,
and provides a sense of where you have changed.
 Can contribute to better community programs and greater
enrollment

18.  Talking about instructors you admire and why
 Its about people we admire regarding abilities and
qualities and how you could emulate their leadership
 Think back over your career in the community and in
school and write down those you most admired
 Write down what it is that you admired about these
leaders/teachers.
 What abilities of these people would you like to
borrow?
 Remember you usually admire people who do things
easily that you can’t – this helps you to know where
you are struggling and why.

19.  Way to discover knowledge and assumptions
 Pretend you are leaving your leadership role
and must provide successor advice on how to
succeed
 Reveals knowledge you take seriously and
assumptions that most influence you
 Document what you need to survive in role,
what needs to stay afloat, what you wish you
had been told when you started and things
you suggest your successor avoid thinking,
doing or assuming.

20.  Can be good but shocking way to see yourself as
a leader
 You will see your bad or good or odd habits such
as looking at the floor, not finishing
sentences, repeating certain phrases, mixing up
your material, see whether we smile at all, seeing
reaction to student comments or
criticisms, whether you speak to loud or too soft
 This can be a good exercise for a community
recreation leader to ensure that the programs we
are communicating make sense given our
objective is always to increase enrollment.

22.  Colleague observation can be most helpful
 Some may fear this due to competition and as a community leader
you may not want others to see your weaknesses.
 Choose carefully who you ask to observe you
 Ensure they have a variety of community leadership experience
 They are good communicators
 They are considered as someone who wants to help struggling
leaders
 Ask around for the right community leader
 If you use this critical reflection method tell your students who is in
the classroom observing and why – want outside observation to
improve your leadership/teaching skills going forward
 Provide your peer observer some instruction on specific areas you
want feedback on – am I confusing – am I fair to all participants – am
I working hard to ensure full participation?
 Tell observer that you will do the same for them
 Make sure all feedback is actionable and has examples to explain
the observation – good or bad

24.  Knowing how our leadership style is perceived by
our participants can shape our efforts so desired
results are achieved.
 Best way to unearth power dynamics in the
classroom.
 Traditional method to gather information occurs
when all sessions are done for a course –
problem is you can’t action on it as its after the
fact
 There are a few methods that can be used to
gather student observations which can be more
immediate and actionable.

25.  More immediate methods of gathering actionable
student observations during the session include:
◦ Run a specific exercise to see student participation and
then gather information through a critical incident
questionnaire immediately following the session.
◦ Student Learning Journals – weekly process that allows
students to think about how they learn allows the instructor
to see their teaching through a student’s eyes and see what
they find helpful versus confusing. Can become a monthly
journal provided to instructor who can use it to make better
choices.
◦ Troubleshooting – time as beginning of every class to talk
about course, how it is going and what can be improved.
◦ Participant Learning Portfolios – allows participant to be
self-reflective and instructor is provided useful information
about how the students are learning. Students are provided
instructions on content to help with consistency.

27.  CIQ – one page form handed out each week
 Five Questions
 Not about what they liked or didn’t like but rather focused
on significant happenings that were important to them
 Questions concern:
◦ Moment you felt most engaged?
◦ Moment you felt most distanced?
◦ Action of instructor or student you found most helpful?
◦ Action of instructor or student you found confusing?
◦ What from the class surprised you the most?
 Alerts instructor to confusions or ambiguities that could
be causing student problems
 Gives instructor time to course correct
 Teaches students to be reflective

28.  Collaborative critical analysis to help instructors
address problems they face.
 Three phased approach where instructors reflect
on their experience for responses to common
problems they experience.
 Done with groups of instructors working together
 Three phases are:
◦ Problem formulation – identify most pressing problems
they face each day and agree on most pressing
◦ Individual & Collective analysis of problem – individuals
review the problem on their own and then collectively
with the group and create a best/worst experience
matrix as a learner, colleague, and teacher
◦ Compile Suggestions for Practice

30.  Many methods and opportunities to reflect and
gain feedback to better your instruction
 They are all useful tools that can be used
individually or together to help you with your
community leadership practice going forward
 They all have pros and cons in terms of helping
improve instruction and taken together are an
excellent way to critically reflect and improve
 The list can be overwhelming but helpful in
giving you options to explore and think about
 The exercise we will do next will help you to
think about how you could use any one of them
to improve your leadership in the community

32.  Objective:
◦ To brainstorm in small teams these various “critical reflection activities” described
earlier.
◦ Prepare the group’s thoughts on which critical reflection activities would you like to
pursue and why
◦ For the activity rated number one – explain why your team suggested it is the most
useful tool for a community leader and provide material on this activity about your
team. For example if you have chosen survival advice as #1 then provide what that
advice is.
 You have been placed at a table of 5 folks and this is your group – therefore 6 groups
 Everyone must participate and each group to appoint primary roles of leader, a recorder
of the information and the presenter of the information
 Everyone must listen, participate, and question but eventually one presentation per group
is required
 Remember each group should have secondary roles of questioner, silent observer, and
active listener.
 This is similar to “circle of voices” process (Broofield, p. 153) where you have a problem
poser, reflective analyst, devil’s advocate, detective, theme spotter, and umpire.

33.  Each group will be given 7 minutes to present
their thoughts
◦ Group1
◦ Group 2
◦ Group 3
◦ Group 4
◦ Group 5
◦ Group 6
 Total of 42 minutes of presentations

35.  Critical Incident Questionnaire
◦ Will make course better going forward
◦ Anonymous
◦ Please leave at the door when leaving
◦ Past forms have helped to improve content of this course
 Questions are:
1. At what moment today did you feel most engaged with what
was happening?
2. At what moment today did you feel most distanced from what
was happening?
3. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took in class today
did you find most affirming and helpful?
4. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took today did yo
find most puzzling or confusing?
5. What about today surprised you the most? (This could be
something you reacted to, something someone did or anything
else that occurs to you).
6. Would you recommend this class to others? Why or why not?

36. Instructor: Tyler MacDonald

37.  Brookfield, Stephen D. (1995). Becoming a
Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
 hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to Transgress –
Education as the Practice of Freedom.
Routledge: New York.