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Reflective Practice Is Best Practice


Our faculty are doing groundbreaking work leveraging our new professional development model, the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David’s School™ (TBI) to enhance their teaching, optimize our boys’ engagement and learning, and continue their professional growth as lifelong learners. In so doing, we ensure the use of mission-driven, evidence-based tools and strategies in the classroom. 

At last Friday’s PA Meeting, Director of Teaching and Learning Jamie MacNeille, TBI Visiting Scholar Ric Campbell, Research Coordinator Tori Gilbert, and Director of Supervision and Evaluation Nora Sundar were joined by seven faculty members across disciplines and grades (Jarrett Culotta, Sophie Firestein, Leslie Geary, Frankie White Levin, Kevin Neylon, Cathy O’Neill, and Kate Samuels ), who have engaged in reflective practice within the three branches of TBI: Onboarding/Mentoring, Supervision and Evaluation, and Research Programs, which all operate under our common, customized professional development framework.

These seven faculty members offered a deeper look into how reflective practice shapes their teaching, promotes their continued learning as educators, and enhances student learning.

  • A newer teacher (with Saint David's for a year and a half), who was paired with one of our master teachers (in her 38th year at the school), found great value in reflecting on various approaches she was taking in her class. The symbiotic nature of the collaboration between these two teachers as they unpacked their thinking together, discussing what was going well and what could be improved, was noted by the master teacher who appreciated the opportunity to stay curious about her own practice and to continue to grow professionally as well.
  • Reflection and goal-setting now form the heart of the milestone review process for teachers. The faculty benefit from writing reflections on their teaching, making their thinking visible, which in turn allows the supervision and evaluation team to offer thoughtful support and evaluation. One teacher's reflections focused on breaking boys' thinking down into a systematic process. Another teacher reflected on which of the several games he incorporated into his teaching were successful in meeting the desired outcome of enhanced learning and transitivity. 
  • Reflection plays a large role in the school's ongoing school-wide accountability action research study. Teachers learn from their students each day through the work the boys produce and their class participation, the research the teachers consult, and the personal reflection they engage in individually and collaboratively. 
  • Our newest action researcher, a head coach, will conduct a study around competitive anxiety to identify strategies that work best for boys, both individually and for teams as a whole. He will present this June at the International Boys' Schools Coalition conference in South Africa and share specific, successful strategies with his fellow coaches that can guide their work with each boy.

As Ric pointed out at the beginning of the session, "Learning is less about acquiring facts than it is about developing the skills and gaining the knowledge that cultivate critical thinking ability." These words enunciate the overarching purpose of our program of studies, which emphasizes the questions over the answers, sustained effort over quick achievement, and process over rigor for its own sake.  

What makes a school great are its teachers: their expertise and the strength of authentic teacher-student relationships. The faculty who presented on Friday, as well as the many others who are engaging in reflective practice, are going above and beyond, taking their teaching to the next level. They care deeply about our boys and TBI motivates them to continue to grow in their profession. 

 Our school-wide theme this year is to excel, which asks each boy to become better each day than he was the day before - to be his own personal best with a strong sense of self that aligns with his values. The school, too, aspires always to that same standard, and our reflective practice program is one of the ways in which we are committed to it.  Through TBI we are igniting a dynamic, research-informed learning environment for the 21st century. Ut viri boni sint. 


www.saintdavids.org


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