Reflectiveness

A reflective teacher is constantly evaluating the effectiveness of his instruction. He is always striving toward the larger goals of education while finding ways to improve the means of achieving them. Knowing that he is held accountable for the achievement of his own students, he must find ways to reach everyone. He notices when his teaching strategies are not effective on all of his students. He asks questions about how he is teaching versus how his students learn.
How do we go about reflecting on our own teaching? Possible ideas include observing students' scores, asking for students' feedback, recording or filming instruction, and keeping personal notes.
Unfortunately, just because a teacher is reflective, does not mean he will grow to be more effective. In order to come up with new strategies, he must reflect on what has worked in the past and what has not worked. Using a constructivist approach, he recalls how his students best learned past concepts and decides to use teaching strategies that will play to his students' strengths. This takes a great deal of creativity and problem solving, and occasionally very quick thinking. Not only does is a good teacher reflective of his own teaching, but he encourages reflectiveness in his students as well all other teachers.
The following websites as well as many others provide more information and ideas regarding reflective teaching:
Shaping the Way We Teach English: Reflective Teaching
The Reflective Teaching Model
Reflective Teaching: Exploring Our Own Classroom Practice