Montclair State University - Carnegie Committee - FAQ Hooks

Reflecting on Teaching and Learning

In the classical work of Dewey, we find that experience is meaningless without reflection and that reflective thinking means "turning a subject over in the mind and giving it serious and consecutive consideration". It enables us to act in deliberate and intentional fashion. Learners and teachers bend the metaphorical light of their experience back into their thoughts illuminating the activity and changing it in the process. Indeed, the best practices in teaching involve such reflection.

A model and a method of reflection upon teaching is evident in the work of John Dewey, "The Recitation and the Training of Thought" Chapter 15 in How we think. Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath, (1910): 201-213. Dewey's analysis deconstructs the process of learning and its participants, teacher and learner.

We can reflect upon our own teaching to great advantage. By using:

Discussion groups - in which we participate in colloquia with our colleagues to share teaching experiences, to develop standards of excellence, to analyze our teaching and curricula, and to adjust our methodology to greater effect;

Teaching portfolios - which collect student work product as a reflection of our methodology; peer mentoring in which our senior, more experience, or more gifted colleagues help us to develop and to shape our educational tools.