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Reflective Teaching Practice
About this course
The capstone of Level 1 draws on everything in courses 5.1 to 5.9. It is a practical course on turning daily teaching into learning: why and how to reflect, simple frameworks such as Gibbs' cycle and Schön's reflection-in-action, collecting honest evidence from your own classroom, giving and receiving peer feedback, and finishing with a personal growth plan you can start next week.
Learning outcomes
- Explain why reflection turns experience into learning and use a short routine to reflect on one lesson
- Apply Gibbs' six-stage cycle and the in-action / on-action idea to a real classroom moment
- Collect small, honest pieces of evidence from your own class and separate facts from interpretations
- Take part in a peer observation: agree a focus, record facts, and give and receive feedback respectfully
- Write a one-page personal growth plan that links back to courses 5.1-5.9 and says how you will know it worked
Session plan
Why Reflect: From Experience to Learning
Explain why experience alone does not guarantee learning, and use a five-minute routine and the lenses of courses 5.1-5.9 to reflect on one real lesson.
Reflection Frameworks: Gibbs and Schön
Use Gibbs' six-stage cycle on a real classroom moment, tell reflection-in-action from reflection-on-action, and keep description apart from judgement.
Collecting Evidence from Your Own Classroom
Plan a one-week evidence collection with two simple tools, record what you find as facts, and keep facts apart from interpretations.
Peer Observation and Feedback
Agree an observation focus, record facts without verdicts, and give and receive feedback with the 'fact, effect, question' pattern.
Your Personal Growth Plan
Choose one growth goal from your reflections, write a one-page plan that links to courses 5.1-5.9, and test the plan with a partner using a checklist.
Assessment
| Weight | Exemplary looks like | |
|---|---|---|
| Reflection cycle exercise | 30% | Moves through all six Gibbs stages on a real lesson, keeps description separate from judgement and ends with a small, dated action |
| Evidence and peer feedback | 30% | Designs a one-week evidence plan with two tools, states facts apart from interpretations, and gives feedback that is specific and linked to the agreed focus |
| Final personal growth plan | 40% | Names one student-centred goal, three dated steps, a source of support and the evidence of progress, and links the goal to specific courses in 5.1-5.9 |
Required readings
- Short articles on why reflective practice is more than thinking after class
- University guides to Gibbs' reflective cycle and to peer observation of teaching
- Evidence overview on effective teacher professional development and goal setting
AI integration
AI tools can help you tidy reflection notes, suggest questions to ask yourself or draft the wording of a growth plan. They cannot know your pupils, they cannot see your lesson and they can sound sure while being wrong, so the thinking and the decisions stay with you. Never enter pupils' names, marks or personal data. See course 5.9 (AI Literacy for Teachers) for the full routine. No activity here needs technology.