Reflective Practice
Reflective practice is central to my evolution as an artist-teacher-researcher, supporting a critically responsive and inquiry-based pedagogy. This section brings together learning artefacts, critical incidents, and thematic reviews shaped by Brookfield’s Four Lenses and experiential reflection. Drawing on constructivist values and DEIS classroom contexts, it traces how adaptive professional identity is shaped through cycles of action, evaluation, and transformation.
Combined Learning Artefact:
Inquiry, response and reflection on Planning, Teaching and Assessment
This report responds to the collection of learning artefacts from my first school placement as conducted through my inquiry as an artist-teacher-researcher.
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The rationale for the collection and evaluation of these learning artefacts is to strengthen my position as a rigorous researcher in support of my teaching practice.
This requires a commitment to the careful examination and critical analysis of the evidence of my own planning, teaching, learning and assessment systematically and in alignment with the cyclical process of planning, acting, evaluating and improving.
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Implementing strategies of thorough reflection using Brookfields model enhances my level of inquiry from a multifaceted perspective which in turn facilitates my ability to implement my concluding actions in my teaching practice.
Looking Back:
Reflecting and Reviewing reoccurring themes from Teaching Practice
Over the course of my Professional Master of Education (PME) in Art and Design, my perspective on teaching has evolved significantly. Initially approaching my practice through an idealised lens, deeply rooted in constructivist principles and my belief in the transformative power of teaching.
However, as I moved through my school placements, particularly my second placement in a DEIS school , I encountered new experiences of the complexities of the real classroom context, which challenged and further transformed my preconceived ideals, beliefs and expectations.
Critical Incident Report:
Identifying, Analysing and Reflecting on a Critical Incident
Analysis of critical incidents is one of the approaches of teacher professional development. A critical incident is any unplanned event which takes place during the class. It is something we interpret as a problem or challenge in a particular context, rather than a routine occurrence. The incident is said to be critical because it is valuable and has some meaning. In other words, incidents happen but critical incidents are created because of their importance. Teachers can critically analyse any of their lessons and can make a particular event critical by reflecting on it. The teachers ask not only what happened but also why it happened. They then use the incidents for future reference. (Joshi, 2018)
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This Report draws on video footage from a lesson which was used to support my process of identifying and analysing a critical incident form my own teaching practice.
Orientation to the Profession:
Inquiry into the role of Artist-Teacher-Researcher
I consider this process of reorientation to be my adapted version of Joseph Campbell's monomyth or the hero's journey as I begin this journey out of the current comforts of my relatively predictable safe world of knowing, into the unknown world of the artist-teacher- researcher, I become increasingly more disorientated, which perhaps needed to happen in order to authentically come out the other side. As an artist, I spent a great deal of time trying to reorientate myself in the art world, whereby the orientation to my profession referred solely to that of a practising artist. However, I chose a different calling, an unknown, and now beginning the process of reorientating myself to this new multifaceted role of an artist-teacher- researcher, and this is what I called the call to adventure.
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This audio-visual presentation captures the knowledge, literature, theory and personal accounts that converge in a cycle of inquiry into my new profession as an artist-teacher-researcher