Introduction to Critical Reflection and Action for Teacher Researchers provides crucial direction for educators looking to improve their teaching and maximise learning. While many students can grasp the basic elements of researching their practice and can write about practitioner research, some need guidance and assistance to reflect meaningfully on their teaching practice so as to articulate their educational values. This book provides this guidance. By exploring how to engage in an authentic, practical and personalised framework, the book encourages critical reflection and action on educational practice. Moving through the process of reflecting on practice, engaging in critical thinking and planning and taking action, it helps the reader to subsequently generate educational theory from their own personal learning. Examples from the authors’ experiences illustrate the issues raised in each section, with ‘Pause and Reflect’ activities, guidelines for conducting a research project and annotated further reading available for every chapter. Introduction to Critical Reflection and Action for Teacher Researchers is based on the idea that reflection is in itself a deliberate action and something we must live - it is key to understanding our practice and is a core component of action research. This book is a valuable guide for teachers, trainee teachers and researchers interested in reflecting on and enhancing their teaching practice.

"In Critical Reflection on Research in Teaching and Learning, the editors bring together a collection of works that explore a wide range of concerns related to questions of researching teaching and learning in higher education and shine a light on the diversity of qualitative methods in practice. This book uniquely focuses on reflections of practice where researchers expose aspects of their work that might otherwise fit neatly into 'traditional' methodologies chapters or essays, but are nonetheless instructive - issues, events, and thoughts that deserve to be highlighted rather than buried in a footnote. This collection serves to make accessible the importance of teaching and learning issues related to learners, teachers, and a variety of contexts in which education work happens. Contributors are: David Andrews, Candace D. Bloomquist, Agnes Bosanquet, Beverley Hamilton, Henriette Tolstrup Holmegaard, Klodiana Kolomitro, Minna Körkkö, Outi Kyrö-Ämmälä, Suvi Lakkala, Rod Lane, Corinne Laverty, Elizabeth Lee, Narelle Patton, Jessica Raffoul, Nicola Simmons, Jee Su Suh, Kim West, and Cherie Woolmer"--

A practical guide to the essential practice that builds better teachers. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher is the landmark guide to critical reflection, providing expert insight and practical tools to facilitate a journey of constructive self-critique. Stephen Brookfield shows how you can uncover and assess your assumptions about practice by viewing them through the lens of your students' eyes, your colleagues' perceptions, relevant theory and research, and your own personal experience. Practicing critical reflection will help you… Align your teaching with desired student outcomes See your practice from new perspectives Engage learners via multiple teaching formats Understand and manage classroom power dynamics Model critical thinking for your students Manage the complex rhythms of diverse classrooms This fully revised second edition features a wealth of new material, including new chapters on critical reflection in the context of social media, teaching race and racism, leadership in a critically reflective key, and team teaching as critical reflection. In addition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to align with today's classrooms, whether online or face-to-face, in large lecture formats or small groups. In his own personal voice Stephen Brookfield draws from over 45 years of experience to illustrate the clear benefits of critical reflection. Assumptions guide practice and only when we base our actions on accurate assumptions will we achieve the results we want. Educators with the courage to challenge their own assumptions in an effort to improve learning are the invaluable role models our students need. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher provides the foundational information and practical tools that help teachers reach their true potential.

In exploring the image of children and environments and thinking about ways in which pedagogy empowers children to be active and inquisitive learners in early learning environments, Empowering Pedagogy for Early Childhood Education is intended to create dialogue about how learning and development take place. The text introduces the reader to research and perspectives from many disciplines, and attempts to provide a contemporary view of how early learning programs, when designed to support children's authentic interests and embrace their sense of wonder, can empower children to be inquisitive, lifelong learners.

Learning Critical Reflection documents the actual learning experiences of social work students and practitioners. It explores how a more in-depth understanding of the process of learning, combined with an analysis of how to critically reflect, will help improve the learning process. The contributors are all professionals who have learnt, in a formalised way, how to critically reflect on their practice. They speak in depth, and with feeling, about their experiences, how downsides and upsides worked together to transform the way they understood themselves, their professional identity, and their practice. Existing literature about critical reflection is reviewed, identifying the details of learning, and pulling no punches in recognising the difficulty and complexity of becoming transformed through this learning process. The editors of this book also contribute their own reflections on learning how to teach critical reflection and include the findings of a research study conducted on students’ learning. Edited by two experienced educators, this book showcases the process of learning, from the perspective of the learners, in order that educators and students, managers, supervisors, and frontline practitioners alike, may make the most of opportunities to critically reflect in both educational and workplace settings. It should be considered essential reading for social work students, practitioners, and educators.

This book provides a research-based guide to using ePortfolios to develop critically reflective teachers capable of transformative learning for educational equity. It begins with a conceptualization of critical reflection in teacher education, then analyzes the social discourse of prospective teachers' teaching practice through their ePortfolio reflections, triangulated by classroom teaching observations and interviews. The results of the research show that prospective teachers’ reflections are performative and do not typically trigger transformative learning, in large part because of discrepancies in the structures of the ePortfolio, the goals of the teacher education program, and the mentoring and supervisory practices. With this analysis in hand, the book turns to practical questions, providing a transformative framework along with examples and tips for teacher educators to use the author’s methods to understand and analyze prospective teachers’ reflection and support their transformative learning.

This unique collection on Research in Teaching and Learning explores particular research approaches and brings to the forefront challenges, questions, and considerations specific to the methods used and not just the disciplinary areas in which the research was conducted.