Seeks to clarify ambiguity regarding the concept of reflection as it applies to teaching and learning in higher education. Provides an in-depth analysis and synthesis of selected theoretical approaches and explores the implications of reflection for practice. (EV)

Examines the value of reflection as a meaningful way of approaching learning about teaching in order to develop a better understanding of teaching and teacher education. The article explains that an appropriate focus on experience in teacher education can be influential in developing effective reflective practice and that effective reflective…

Uses a scene glimpsed in a university cafeteria (cafeteria workers listening intently to the story another worker is telling them) and a stroll through the campus to reflect on how much professors are storytellers. Finds that the work of teaching is very similar to narrating. (BT)

This article provides some strategies that might help a teacher in dealing with a new course or new content, or just get the year off to a good start. The following strategies are described: (1) Review the new content; (2) Seek help from every resource; (3) Capitalize on what you know; (4) Be organized; (5) Remember the basic science processes;…

Storytelling has developed as an extremely efficient staff development strategy employed to break the silence that surrounds the cultural differences in schools by portraying such differences as important elements of teaching and learning. The author suggests that various ways that pursue people to confront their ideas and assumptions, reveal…

Getting personal requires that teachers do what they can to give life to their talents and dreams. Doing so means thinking about what they value in teaching and searching out practices that bring success and satisfaction. Getting personal asks that teachers trust their instincts and intuitions and requires that they learn from what they do. The…

The author writes that teachers need strong managerial skills, but teaching also requires that practitioners be visionaries as well. He suggests that the part of the teaching profession that makes one a visionary lies in organizing a classroom that promotes reflective thinking, empathy, and broader global identification, encouraging cross-cultural…

Alf Coles and Barry Orr reflect on what it looked like when Alf taught a year 7 lesson. In this article, Alf was asked by Barry (student) if he would take a lesson with the Y7 class that he had taken over from another teacher in the department in order to see what someone else might do with his lesson plans. Alf describes what some moments with…

This article recommends the teaching journal as a method of instructional improvement. Drawing on teacher education literature, the article reviews the concept of reflective teaching and then describes uses of the teaching journal for college instructors in descriptive, comparative, and critical dimensions. Teaching journals can improve the…

This article explores Jacques Ellul's challenges to Christian educators in a society permeated with technique or technological thinking. Responses to the three challenges Ellul puts forth to believing Christians, and, specifically, to Catholic Christian school educators, integrate a process of contemplative practice. This process integrates…

The following five core ideas explain how learning organizations function as wholes. The core ideas are central when school is examined as a learning organization. Personal mastery, mental models, team learning, shared visions and system thinking offer different angles to examine the organization. (1) Personal mastery. Without personal commitment,…

Teachers' ways of knowing tend to be understood through academic ways of thinking and writing. This article sets out to take a closer look at the way seven school teachers understand and describe how they know, reflect, and act in the midst of teaching. In particular, through the combined voices of these teachers I aim to take a closer look at the…

Over three years this study investigated the use of an asynchronous web-based conference to facilitate the reflective thinking of 35 intern teachers using a conceptual framework from the literature on teacher reflection, computer-mediated communication, and social cognition. Content analysis of the interns' online messages revealed significant…

In the Web site of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), an organization committed to fighting political indoctrination in higher education, a complaint center allows students to report instances of ideological bias. With SAF chapters at more than 180 campuses nationwide and legislation about students' academic freedom under discussion in several…

For decades a substantial body of research on teacher reflection and action has been conducted. This research contains a wealth of information on teachers' thinking about their daily work in classrooms. But what do these studies tell us about the linkage between thought and action in actual teaching? How do they contribute to our understanding, or…