Reflection and Its Importance in Teaching

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Reflection is Essential in Teacher Education

Professionalization has become a very important issue in the field of early childhood education. Reflection on one's own work is a key component of being a professional (Schon, 1983) and is essential to teacher education. Teachers must examine their beliefs, assumptions and biases regarding teaching and learning, and determine how those beliefs influence classroom practice. Preservice teachers should examine any cultural baggage they may carry in order to evaluate its appropriateness in teaching. Furthermore, since teaching is often an uncertain, dynamic and complex practice, teachers must make constant judgments about appropriate goals, teaching methods and students' learning.

Problems in education have no fixed answers. No teacher education program can prepare teachers for all the situations they will encounter. Teachers themselves will make the final decisions from among many alternatives. Such judgments may be good or poor. Therefore, it is important for teachers to constantly reevaluate their decisions. Reflection improves a teacher's ability to make appropriate and sound judgments and, therefore, become an empowered decision-maker.

Finally, recent research on teacher education raises concerns about teacher education programs' tendency to encourage acquiescence and conformity to the status quo of both schooling and society (O'Loughlin, 1992). These studies also note that teacher education programs too often espouse utilitarian perspectives in which teaching is separated from its underlying educational, social or ethical domains and the technical aspects become an end in themselves rather than a means toward some broader educational purpose. Constant reevaluation of teaching practices in light of new evidence allows a teacher to question assumptions about teaching and learning, and prevents teaching from becoming a...