This core text is an introduction for beginning secondary teachers on developing the art of critical reflective teaching throughout their professional work.

This book offers a detailed examination of reflective practice in teacher education. In the current educational context, where reflective practice has been mandated in professional standards for teachers in many countries, it analyses research-based evidence for the power of reflective practice to shape better educational outcomes. The book presents multiple theoretical and practical views of this often taken-for-granted practice, so that readers are challenged to consider how factors such as gender and race shape understandings of reflective practice. Documenting approaches that enhance learning, the contributions discuss reflective practice across the globe, with a focus on pre-service, in-service and university teachers. At a time when there is pressure to measure teachers’ work through standardised tests, the book highlights the professional thinking that is integral to teaching and demonstrates ways it can be encouraged in beginning teachers. Aimed at the international community of teacher educators in schools and universities, it also includes a critical examination of methodological issues in analysing and evaluating reflective practice and showcases the kind of reflective practice that empowers teachers and pre-service teachers to make a difference to students.

Philosophers have warned of the perils of a life spent without reflection, but what constitutes reflective inquiry - and why it’s necessary in our lives - can be an elusive concept. Synthesizing ideas from minds as diverse as John Dewey and Paulo Freire, theHandbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry presents reflective thought in its most vital aspects, not as a fanciful or nostalgic exercise, but as a powerful means of seeing familiar events anew, encouraging critical thinking and crucial insight, teaching and learning. In its opening pages, two seasoned educators, Maxine Greene and Lee Shulman, discuss reflective inquiry as a form of active attention (Thoreau’s "wide-awakeness"), an act of consciousness, and a process by which people can understand themselves, their work (particularly in the form of life projects), and others. Building on this foundation, the Handbook analyzes through the work of 40 internationally oriented authors: - Definitional issues concerning reflection, what it is and is not; - Worldwide social and moral conditions contributing to the growing interest in reflective inquiry in professional education; - Reflection as promoted across professional educational domains, including K-12 education, teacher education, occupational therapy, and the law; - Methods of facilitating and scaffolding reflective engagement; - Current pedagogical and research practices in reflection; - Approaches to assessing reflective inquiry. Educators across the professions as well as adult educators, counselors and psychologists, and curriculum developers concerned with adult learning will find the Handbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry an invaluable teaching tool for challenging times.

An increasing number of educators are arguing for conceptually sound reflective or inquiry-oriented teacher education programs. The argument is based on the fact that reflective teaching is possible and the belief that teachers should develop habits of consciously informed action. Those who promote reflective teaching argue for teacher empowerment within a self-renewing profession. Reflective Teacher Education offers case studies from seven universities that have organized teacher education programs around the concept of reflection. The cases represent public and private institutions, and alternative and traditional models of teacher preparation. The studies represent efforts to transform the entire professional education component rather than individual courses or isolated strategies. The volume also considers reflection as a conceptual orientation, commenting on its power to inform and improve teacher education, and assessing the implementation of reflection in these specific programs. The six critiques raise intriguing questions about the possibility and desirability of reflective reform efforts by viewing the cases from varying perspectives—development, cognitive, feminist, social reconstructionist, and post-modern.

This unique book provides the reader with a mini-library of over one hundred readings containing: --both classic and contemporary readings--international contributors--material drawn from books and journalsAn essential reference resource in its own right, Readings for Reflective Teaching also contains numerous cross-references to Andrew Pollards Reflective Teaching.

Reflective Teaching is the definitive textbook for reflective classroom professionalism. It offers support for trainee teachers, mentors, newly qualified teachers and for continuous professional development. This second edition has been revised and updated to enhance classroom use.