ESLetter Article

October 2005

Carol R. Rodgers (State University of New York, Albany) has written extensively on the role of reflective teaching groups within professional development movements. She encourages teachers to form collaborative groups that investigate their classroom practice. In the following text excerpt, Rodgers describes how teachers’ groups help teachers to ‘slow down and attend to student learning in more rich and nuanced ways’.

              “First, I believe that the most productive starting place for teachers'

professional development is their own classroom experience. While supplementary input from research on teaching and learning is important and even critical to teachers' development, the primary text for reflection must be their experience as teachers and learners. No matter how many good ideas and best practices exist, I cannot "stick them onto” teachers. Without keeping their experience central, I can get no foothold into their learning as teachers. As David Kolb (1984) notes, transformative growth comes through reflection on experience where such ideas and practices illuminate teachers' practice rather than usurp it.

Second, I have also found that a process of reflection that is rigorous and

systematic and therefore distinct from ordinary thought, (Dewey, 1933) slows down the teaching/learning process, revealing rich and complex details and paves the way for a considered response rather than a less thoughtful reaction (Johnson, 1998). As teachers gain skill in this kind of extended reflection, they become more able to respond thoughtfully in the moment. I have also found that they simply become more interested in and curious about the work they do. They begin to wonder and to want to slow things down so they can satisfy their curiosity about their students' learning.

Third, I have found that the formation of a community of respect among teachers is c ritical to creating an environment for successful reflection aswell as successful teaching and learning. Reflection demands community and the diverse perspectives on practice that community brings.”

Rodgers, C. (2002a). Voices inside schools: Seeing student learning—Teacher change and the role of reflection. Harvard Educational Review, 72(2).