Entrance Slip: On Becoming a Reflective Teacher

Despite the differences in the frame of reference from when this was written, this article speaks very strongly to me. All of the questioned posed and the methods suggested seem very intuitive to me but it affected me deeply because while because of my personal background, this reflection practice is intuitive to me, not everyone would agree based on their own backgrounds as a teacher candidate. The issues such as time constraints and having diverse classrooms and teachers has remained the same. In my previous profession in oil and gas operations and production, the continuity of projects requires constant reflection on what has been done in order to evaluate the effectiveness of previous actions and decide how to move forward. This iterative process is simply ingrained into every aspect of my life, and I can confidently relate to the wholeheartedness portion of this piece. Certain points seem extremely dated to me, within my own privileged and diverse frame of reference in 2017, such as considering the cultures of others, especially around holidays, referring to and using multiple sources, the concept of inclusiveness, and the entire section regarding the worthiness of reflective teaching, especially in the context of whether it is a realist/desirable goal. As a staunch advocate of iterative reflection in order to improve future practices, this section, while having extremely good points, did seem pedantic to me. While I feel I already espouse the ideals of the authors of this piece, it is a good reference to the practice of reflective teaching. It poses many excellent questions which I could personally use to critically think and use to guide my reflective teaching practice, especially in staying aware of my own biases and any "hidden curriculum" I could be pushing in my own classrooms.