Reflective Essay On Evidence Based Practices

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Having recently graduated from a Postgraduate Diploma in Education I am aware of the benefits of reflecting to continually improve your practice. However, I have become complacent in my efforts to do this on a continuous basis. This course has allowed me to re-evaluate where I am as a teacher, and where I want to be and how I want to avoid becoming trapped in the “ritualized routines of teaching” (Nuthall 2005, p.925). Over the last few weeks I have been keeping a reflective diary, recording aspects of my teaching and my analysis of the literature I have been reviewing.
Rationale
Over the last few weeks I have been conscious of the time constraints that I face in relation to covering the course content in a “densely packed curriculum” (Missingham …show more content…

After studying literature and research related to this area I have been able to choose an approach that will improve my current educational practice. It is through this reflective practice that I realised I have fallen into a traditional form of lecturing where I am giving the students information that they should remember, instead of encouraging an active learning environment where students can “create their own understanding through interaction with others” (Missingham and Matthews 2014, p.413). My Action Plan will focus on the effectiveness of collaborative learning (Johnson, Johnson and Smith 1998; Gomleksi 2007; Hsiung 2012) and how it can be used in my lectures. Having worked as an engineer I understand the importance of team-working and I think that using collaborative methods in my lectures will benefit these engineering students in preparing them for work-life, a view also supported by (Gomleksi 2007, p. 621). The action plan will be in the form of a Jigsaw activity, to allow students to work together in a manner that allows them to maximize their own and their peers learning. Millis and Cottell (1998) as cited in Weidman and Bishop (2009) maintain that, although the jigsaw method was originally developed for the K-12 level, it could also be used in higher