PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional Development

Professional Development

Reflective practice enhancing professional development

Reflective practice is a space that, by decision of its sponsors, adopts an open, free and vigorous in the transfer of knowledge among professionals. Reflective Practice challenges to encourage, train to promote professional development through the diversity of approaches, methodological pluralism and complementarily. Everything contributes to advancing the development of teacher reflexivity and quality training methodologies of interest to Reflective Practice.

Reflective practice of teachers is the reflection of teaching action, which explains the process of continuous learning. Reflection determines the paying of critical attention to the theories and values of teaching which is related to daily actions, by examination of reflective practices. This process of insight leads to the insight and professional development. Reflective practice is pivotal for practice-based professional learning. This makes the teachers learn from their own professional experience and the knowledge they transfer to students. Reflective practice is a continuous process where self understanding and approach takes place. It is widely applied in the teaching profession. It is taught from various disciplines to the professionals as a learning process. Its aim is to enhance the abilities for communication and information of impartial decisions (Osterman 2008, 5).

In the teaching profession, reflective practice is important to study one's own teaching methods. It helps to determine by the teachers what work best for their students. It also works with the ethical considerations to be conducted in classrooms. Reflective practice helps in improving the teaching process. This is done when the teachers use reflective practice knowing that both teaching and learning are complex process. There is no single approach towards learning and teaching. The teachers get help from reflective practice as they reshape their experiences and present scenarios and related them. The reflection-in-action derived from Schon help teachers to make the professional knowledge which will be achieved from their experience in the classroom an open part of decision-making. Reflective practice moves the teachers from their basic skills to the modification level where they can change their teaching skills suiting the requirement of contexts and situations. Teachers are able to build and establish new, improvised strategies. Through reflective practice, teachers are able to move forward from their theories into a new, empirical world. According to Larrivee, teachers should establish a classroom based on reflective practitioner rather culture of control.

It is necessary to grasp the complexity of a school by a performance that falls into three critical areas: a) classroom practice (direct contact with people whose development we have an obligation to promote), b) beliefs and representations of the various professionals the center, making explicit the "culture center" to transform, if necessary, and c) interpersonal and organizational relationships, i.e., the micro politics of each center. The vision of educational practice that is based on the national reform implies that most teachers reflect on their own practice, build new roles within the classroom and new expectations on student outcomes. The problem of professional development policies is not just to support teachers in acquiring new skills or ...