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World Learnings SIT Graduate Institute Certificate in Skills and Principles of Language Teacher Training Overview
World Learnings SIT Graduate Institute Certificate in Skills and Principles of Language Teacher Training is designed for the professional development of English teacher-trainers. The course consists of approximately 60-hours of face-to-face workshops with an additional 30 for the planning of workshops, written assignments, and reading. Questions to be addressed What are English language learners expected to be able to do in a language classroom? How can teachers support learners in achieving their goals? How can teacher-trainers support teachers in developing their practice? How can teacher-trainers collaborate to establish broadly consistent practices in observing teachers & in providing feedback on those observations to stakeholders? Goals and Objectives By the end of the two-week course participants will be able to demonstrate: 1) Knowledge and awareness of Self and others within the trainer community: a) Articulate their own professional roles and responsibilities, identify strengths and challenges and plan for their own professional growth. b) Rigorously reflect on their work with developing teachers. c) Collaborate effectively with colleagues to support everyones learning. 2) Knowledge and application of the principles of adult learning and experiential learning: a) Describe key elements that help and hinder adult learning and manifests itself in workshops and in teacher learning b) Describe the stages of the experiential learning cycle and how each stage manifests itself in workshops and in teacher learning c) Analyze and develop workshops based on the ELC and principles of adult learning 3) Design implement, reflect, and modify training sessions: a) Plan, adapt, improve, deliver, & reflect on teacher training & development workshops to support teachers working within their contexts b) Evaluate textbook materials & adapt them as necessary to be coherent with their training needs and goals. 4) Observation and feedback skills: a) Observe peers& evaluate to what degree they are able to implement the principles introduced in their trainings b) Provide feedback to peers, both orally & in writing that connects to the principles and competencies of their training and to reflect on this feedback c) Provide formal written feedback to teachers and other stakeholders 5) Create and sustain aspects of teacher training and development programs: a) Demonstrate understanding of teaching and assessment in teacher-training & development programs b) Describe difference between training and development and contexts in which each can be effectively applied. c) Outline key elements leading to high teacher uptake of feedback. d) Describe key elements of successful community building within a group of teachers and administrators.

Questions to consider before, during and after the course: 1. Why am I interested in teacher training/development? 2. What do I believe is my role as a teacher trainer/developer? 3. What aspects of teacher training/development seem natural to me? 4. What aspects of teacher training/development are challenging to me? 5. What questions do I have about teacher training and development? 6. What are some key moments in my own learning about how to teach English? 7. What are some key moments in my own learning about work with developing teachers? 8. Who has been influential in my learning to work with developing teachers? 9. What do I know about adult learning theory and how it plays out in my work? 10. What helps my learning and growing as a teacher and a trainer? 11. What do I know about the experiential learning cycle and how it plays out in my work? 12. What do I know about workshop design? 13. What do I know about observation and feedback? 14. What are the best/worst experiences I have had as a teacher with observation and feedback? 15. What are the best/worst experiences I have had in working with developing teachers? 16. What do I know about materials and resources for working with developing teachers? 17. What are key aspects of an effective teacher training program? Of a teacher development program? 18. What leads to teacher uptake of feedback? 19. What are some aspects that help build a successful community of teacher-learners in an educational institution? 20. How do I communicate with teachers in a way that supports their learning? 21. 22. 23.

Skills and Principles in Language Teacher Training Basic Schedule (Subject to change with notice)
Week one Monday Who are we? What are we bringing to this experience? What is the difference between training and development and why is it important to be aware of this? How might we communicate with each other in a way that benefits everyone? Tuesday What is adult learning theory, reflective practice and the experiential learning cycle? How do they relate to teacher learning? Wednesday What skills might I use to facilitate teacher learning? What kinds of questions can I ask to create a thoughtful learning environment? What goes into a thorough workshop plan? How can I make my objectives SMARTA? Read and create visual to report on a Thornbury session (Articles are electronic) Thursday What do other people put into their trainer plans? What am I going to teach next week? What do I need to learn about what I am going to teach? How can I make my objectives SMARTA? What steps am I going to do in my workshop? Friday Are my objectives SMARTA? What aspects of ALT, RP and ELC have I incorporated into my steps? What else do I need to learn about what I am going to teach? What does effective Observation and feedback involve? What is my credo as a teacher trainer? What did I learn this week?

Guiding questions

Week one homework

Read Principles of adult learning Read: one of Rodgers articles intensively, One extensively. Practice Compassionate communication with 2 peers

Read creating thoughtful classrooms by Art Costa And Bena Kallick Read selections from Facilitating with Heart by Martha Lasley

Write goals/objectives and basic steps for workshop plan Read: feedback article

Read articles of choice TBA Write detailed plan for training session and prepare materials for Monday /Tuesday run-throughs

Week two Guiding questions

What does effective Observation and feedback involve? How was my experience giving or taking workshops? What feedback can I offer my peers? What might I change about my own workshop?

How was my experience giving or taking workshops? What feedback can I offer my peers? What might I change about my own workshop?

How can I serve teacher learning? Workshop day!!!

How did my workshop go? What have I learned by giving and observing workshops? What have I learned on this course? Final assignment

How can we synthesize our learning? What have we learned from each other? What next?

Week two Adapt workshop Homework plan and prepare all materials for workshops

Adapt workshop plan and prepare all materials for workshops

Safe travels!!!

hot reflection on workshops

Week one Sunday Evening Homework: 1. Read Alfie Kohns article. Choose three ideas that resonate with you and be prepared to share them tomorrow. 2. Read 8-10 pages about Non-Violent Communication. a. Highlight your readings and bring that to class. b. Bring a list of 3 ideas you agree with and 3 questions you have about it. c. Consider the following question: What role might non-violent communication have for teachers? Teacher trainers? Administrators? Students? 3. Bring your pre-course task with you tomorrow morning. You do not need to print it. You can bring it on your computer. We will talk about your experience of doing the task and you will share some of your answers with your peers. 4. Skim and scan the materials for this course. Read the final course assignment. What do you have to turn in on the last Friday of the course? 5. Sleep well!! Schedule for Monday- Thursday of week one: 7:30-9:00 am: Breakfast 9:00- 11:30 am : time to read, write, and do homework (this could change slightly. I will let you know!) 11:30-12: 30 lunch 12:30 6:30 pm: Workshops Friday 7:30-9:00 am: Breakfast 9:00- 12:30 am: workshops 12: 30 lunch 1:30 4:30 pm: Workshops
If for any reason you need to reach me (Mary) these two weeks, my cell phone number is 8863-5744. The schools number is 2468-0167.

Feel- Bad Education

3/ 23/ 10 8:39 PM

they teach have much occasion to smile?) But in pointing this out, I fear that Im appearing to accept an odious premise namely, that joy must be justified as a means to the end of better academic performance. Not so: Its an end in itself. Not the only end, perhaps, but a damned important one. Thus, anyone who has spent time in classrooms that vibrate with enthusiasm needs to keep such memories alive in all their specificity to serve as so many yardsticks against which to measure what weve lost: 6-year-olds listening to a story, rapt and breathless; teenagers so immersed in an activity that they forget to worry about appearing cool; those little explosions of delight attendant on figuring something out. I am convinced that historians will look back at our era of ever-higher standards and increasingly standardized instruction as a dark period in American education. What were we thinking, they will ask, shaking their heads, when we begrudged children the right to spend their days in a place that provides deep satisfactions and occasional giggles? How did we allow this to happen? In a news report about what has been stripped away from childrens education in order that they can spend more time on test preparation, a spokesman for a large school district defended such policies on the grounds that they were handed down from above. "We havent had recess in years," he acknowledged. "They say this is the way its going to be, and we say, Fine." Why are our schools not places of joy? Because too many of us respond to outrageous edicts by saying, "Fine."

Copyright 2004 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with citation information (i.e., name of the periodical in which it originally appeared, date of publication, and author's name). Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact Us page.
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http:/ / www.alfiekohn.org/ teaching/ edweek/ feelbad.htm

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Key Assumptions and Intentions of NVC

I. Assumptions Underlying the Practice of Nonviolent Communication Following are key assumptions that NVC practice is based on. Many traditions share these assumptions; NVC gives us concrete, powerful tools for putting them into practice. When we live based on these assumptions, self-connection and connection with others become increasingly possible and easy. 1. All human beings share the same needs: We all have the same needs, although the strategies we use to meet these needs may differ. Conflict occurs at the level of strategies, not at the level of needs. 2. Our world offers sufficient resources for meeting everyone's basic needs: The scarcity experienced by so many people arises because we have not designed our social structures to meet everyone's needs. We can attribute any apparent scarcity to a current systemic limitation, a crisis of imagination, or a lack of skills for fostering connection. All actions are attempts to meet needs: Our desire to meet needs, whether conscious or unconscious, underlies every action we take. We only resort to violence or other actions that do not meet our own or others' needs when we do not recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. Feelings point to needs being met or unmet: Feelings may be triggered but not caused by others. Our feelings arise directly out of our experience of whether our needs seem to us met or unmet in a given circumstance. Our assessment of whether or not our needs are met almost invariably involves an interpretation or belief. When our needs are met, we may feel happy, satisfied, peaceful, etc. When our needs are not met, we may feel sad, scared, frustrated, etc. All human beings have the capacity for compassion: We have an innate capacity for compassion, though not always the knowledge of how to access it. When we are met with compassion and respect for our autonomy, we tend to have more access to our own compassion for ourselves and for others. Growing compassion contributes directly to our capacity to meet needs peacefully. Human beings enjoy giving: We inherently enjoy contributing to
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others when we have connected with our own and others' needs and can experience our giving as coming from choice. 7. Human beings meet needs through interdependent relationships: We meet many of our needs through our relationships with other people and with nature, though some needs are met principally through the quality of our relationship with ourselves and for some, with a spiritual dimension to life. When others' needs are not met, some needs of our own also remain unmet. Human beings change: By virtue of the constantly unfolding nature of needs and strategies to meet them, all of us are dynamic processes, not static entities. Choice is internal: Regardless of the circumstances, we can meet our need for autonomy by making conscious choices based on awareness of needs. The most direct path to peace is through self-connection: Our capacity for peace is not dependent on having our needs met. Even when many needs are unmet, meeting our need for self-connection can be sufficient for inner peace.

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II. Key Intentions when Using Nonviolent Communication We hold the following intentions when using NVC because we believe that they help us contribute to a world where everyones needs are attended to peacefully. Open-Hearted Living 1) Self-compassion: We aim to release all self-blame, self-judgments, and self-demands, and meet ourselves with compassion and understanding for the needs we try to meet through all our actions. Expressing from the heart: When expressing ourselves, we aim to speak from the heart, expressing our feelings and needs, and making specific, do-able requests. Receiving with compassion: When we hear others, we aim to hear the
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2)

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feelings and needs behind their expressions and actions, regardless of how they express themselves, even if their expression or actions do not meet our needs (e.g. judgments, demands, physical violence). 4) Prioritizing connection: We aim to focus on connecting open-heartedly with everyones needs instead of seeking immediate and potentially compromised solutions, especially in challenging situations. Beyond "right" and "wrong": We aim to transform our habit of making "right" and "wrong" assessments (moralistic judgments), and to focus instead on whether or not human needs appear met (need-based assessments).

5)

Choice, Responsibility, Peace Taking responsibility for our feelings: We aim to connect our feelings to our own needs, recognizing that others do not have the power to make us feel anything. This recognition empowers us to take action to meet our needs instead of waiting for others to change. Taking responsibility for our actions: We aim to recognize our choice in each moment, and take actions that we believe will most likely meet our needs. We aim to avoid taking actions motivated by fear, guilt, shame, desire for reward, or ideas of duty or obligation. Living in peace with unmet needs: We aim to work with our feelings when we experience our needs as unmet, connecting with the needs rather than insisting on meeting them. Increasing capacity for meeting needs: We aim to develop our internal resources, particularly our NVC skills, so we can contribute to more connection and greater diversity of strategies for meeting needs. Increasing capacity for meeting the present moment: We aim to develop our capacity to connect in each moment with our own and others needs, and to respond to present stimuli in the moment instead of through static stories about who we and others are. Sharing Power (Partnership) Caring equally for everyones needs: We aim to make requests and not
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demands, thus staying open to the other's strategies to meet their needs. When hearing a "No" to our request, or when saying "No" to anothers request, we aim to work towards solutions that meet everyones needs, not just our own, and not just the other persons. Protective use of force: We aim to use the minimum force necessary in order to protect, not to educate, punish, or get what we want without the others agreement, and only in situations where we find that dialogue fails to meet an immediate need for physical safety. We aim to return to dialogue as soon as we have re-established a sense of physical safety.

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Chapter 5 Speaking the Language of Peace

By Carolyn Duffy Chapter 5, Speaking the Language of Peace, deals with developing effective communication skills in order to carry out positive interactions in every day social situations as well as in conflict situations. For a foreign language learner, communicative competence involves knowing the rules of social behavior as well as the rules of language. In this chapter, students will explore the language needed for pro -social behaviors such as cooperation, collaboration, affirming others, and expressing feelings clearl y in ways that do not accuse others - in other words, the language of peace. The activities presented in this chapter are meant to give students practice in speaking and listening attentively in an atmosphere of caring and encouragement. Teachers can use the proposed lesson by itself or expand it by adding additional activities in related lessons. The Internet Resources in this chapter provide many ideas for additional lessons that will help students to develop their awareness of behaviors that foster peace and practice language skills that promote positive social interactions.

Background Information
Learning and practicing communication skills within the framework of peace education means establishing a positive classroom atmosphere in which students work together in cooperative ways. Educators who believe that a peaceable classroom is an opportune place to instill attitudes, values, and knowledge that promote peace and non-violence have identified experiences such as cooperative learning, conflict resolution, structured controversy, and school mediation as the core of any comprehensive effort to create a peaceful school environment. 1 Kriedler (1984) has developed a selfassessment exercise for teachers about responses to classroom conflicts. 2 This exercise helps teachers to look at their own peacekeeping strategies in the classroom and identify ways that they can expand their repertoire. As teachers model the skills and the attitudes that promote a peaceable learning community, their students attitudes and values are positively enriched and shaped. In addition to the powerful effect of modeling peaceful behaviors in the classroom, explicit teaching of positive communication skills helps learners to focus directly on pro-social attitudes and behaviors and the language that accompanies them. Barbara Birch (1993) calls for teaching pro-social communicative competence in the ESOL classroom and defines such competence to include schemata building through setting up appropriate situations and activities in the classroom. For example, a "rescue" schema for prosocial competence includes being aware of others needs, knowing what kind of help to offer, and having expectations about what results will be. 3 Other pro-social schemas are awareness of a limited or lacking resource, willingness to share or donate that resource, and an understanding of the consequences of the sharing or donation. Birch includes cooperation, tolerance, acting fairly, and resolving conflicts creatively as topics for classroom instruction. Pro-social knowledge structures can be developed in the classroom through reading literature or watching movies with pro-social messages. Follow-up activities, which include analysis and personal reflection on the pro-social themes, give students opportunities to practice pro-social behaviors and language in a safe and structured setting. Discussions of stories and movies can lead to role play, drama activities, dialogue construction, and personal writing, which give learners experiences in practicing pro-social behaviors. The goal of this instruction is to establish behaviors and language in the classroom that will become an intrinsic part of the learners attitudes and values after they leave the classroom. The following list is a selection of the most common pro-social behaviors and communication skills that have been identified by peace educators for classroom instruction and practice. The first two entries are themes in previous chapters of the Peace Education volume.

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Speaking for a purpose. We understand that the perceptions of others may be different from our own and that what is said should serve a mutual productive purpose, such as clarification of the situation. Conflict resolution skills are important for clarifying situations. Listening attentively and reflectively. Listening to others in order to understand the whole message (the emotions, perceptions, and context as well as what was said) is an important stage in effective communication. Reflection of the whole message back to the speaker communicates that he or she has been understood. Promoting self-esteem, dignity for oneself, and respect for the feelings and rights of others. Use the language of acknowledging, labeling, and affirming pro-social behavior (e.g., generosity, being considerate, helpfulness) in the classroom in your interactions with students. 4 Also, encourage students to use pro-social behaviors in the classroom. A basic starting point is to provide language activities that show students the functions of thanking, apologizing, welcoming, and other pro-social norms of behavior. This can be done through dialogues, role-plays, modeling, and other activities. Speaking about yourself instead of about the other person . It is more effective to describe an issue in terms of its impact on you rather than in terms of what the other side did or why you think they did it. Practice the use of "I" statements instead of "you" statements to clarify facts and feelings in practice situations, skits, and dialogues. Speaking with positive emotional expression. Sometimes when we are angry or highly involved in discussing an issue, we say things that do not promote effective communication. Speaking clearly and firmly so that the other person understands - but without negative emotion - involves making statements without blaming, name-calling, raising ones voice, or demanding. It means avoiding "put-downs" and the use of "loaded" negative language. We can help students to be more aware of negative emotional language and its effects on communication by analyzing scripts for instances of its use. Discussing alternative language that would clarify and improve the understanding of the listener will help learners to be more sensitive in choosing what they say and how they say it. After analyzing and discussing the scripts, students can write and act out both positive and negative versions of dialogues that contain emotional expressions, paying attention to the non-verbal as well as verbal expressions they choose to use. Understanding possible barriers to effective communication and how to diffuse them. Possible barriers to communication are the behaviors of interrupting, dominating the discussion, criticizing, judging, teasing, and using emotional language. Learners need to be able to analyze the discourse of conversations in order to identify these communication "pitfalls". Further instruction on alternate behaviors for similar situations will help learners to communicate more effectively.

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Week One: Monday

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 processing questions Initial thoughts/descriptions

What struck you? What did you notice? /How did you feel? What happened that is interesting for you to think about?

Describe/ANALYZE
What helped your learning

PLAN ACTION

What about this activity would you do again with us?

What hindered your learning? When did you feel uncomfortable or what did you not like and why?

What would you change about this experience for yourself? For ourselves?

What learning styles were included in the task design? What affect did this have on learning? How were principles of adult learning addressed? What affect did this have on learning? Which stages of the experiential learning cycle were included? What affect did this have on learning? How did the Sequencing and staging of tasks affect your learning? What do you notice about the structure of the activity? How did it affect your leanring?

Could this be used with your teachers? trainees? How? What would you do the same with your teachers in your context? What would you adapt for your teachers in your context? How could you adapt this activity for different Contexts, topics, concepts, or needs?

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What do you notice about the content of this activity? How did it affect your learning?

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Which question was most interesting to you? Why?

Which question brought up something emotional for you? How? Which question was the most frustrating for you? Why?

Which question made you stop and think twice about your answer? Why? Which question was your favorite question? Why? Choose one question for the person on your right to answer

Share any thought you had while working on this section. Choose any question and give your own answer.

Choose one question for each person to briefly answer

Stand up and stretch And ask your trainer a question

Strive for balance in the Which question was simple, participation. Ask someone who easy or quick for you to has not offered as much to share answer? a thought that struck them, OR, do this yourself if you have not had the chance to offer as much as others.
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A LETTER TO MYSELF.

What would I like to tell myselfnow, at the beginning of the course??? What am I thinking about now at the beginning of the course? How am I feeling? Why am I here? What brought me here? What am I excited about? What do I hope might happen? What am I nervous about? What do I expect to happen these two weeks? What am I afraid might happen on this course? What things in my life brought me here to this course? What has happened to me in the last 24 hours? What strengths do I bring to this experience? What challenges do I bring? What would I like to be able to do by the end of this course? What would I like to be thinking or feeling by the end of this course? What do I think of the course so far? What else would I like to say to myself right now?

This letter is completely private. You are the only person that will read the letter. When you finished your letter, please put it in an envelope and put the envelope in our envelope. We will ask you to reread the letter at the end of the course as a way of seeing and assessing your experience here!

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Requests for support for learning What might you want and need in order to have a successful learning experience these next two weeks? It would help my learning these two weeks if I.

It would help my learning these two weeks if my peers.

It would help my learning these two weeks if my trainer.

It would help my learning these two weeks if everyone.

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Becoming a Teacher Educator K Graves / Spring 2006 Scenario at one end What is the focus of the session?

Scenario at other end

Who initiates?

What is the role of the teacher educator?

What is the teacher educators view of the teacher?

What is the role of the teacher?

What are the outcomes of the session?

What are the advantages of this way of working?

What are the disadvantages?

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Becoming a Teacher Educator

K Graves / Spring 2006 The training-development continuum TRAINING What is the focus? Who initiates? What is the role of the teacher educator? WHAT, HOW knowledge, skills teacher educator expert explains methods, curriculum models techniques lacks something needs something implements DEVELOPMENT WHY awareness, attitude teacher asks questions listens/understands plants ideas suggests alternatives resource partner expert investigates initiates change reflects not always concrete not always observable teacher security from finding own answers independence self-confidence willingness to try new things teacher confusion outcomes difficult to evaluate change takes time

What is the teacher educator's view of the teacher? What is the role of the teacher? What are the outcomes? What are the advantages?

concrete observable measurable outcome new skills, knowledge teacher security from relying on teacher educator dependency

What are the disadvantages?

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The Training Development Continuum in Teacher Education: Some Practical Applications

Kathleen Graves School for International Training When planning presentations, workshops, and seminars for teachers, the training/development framework is useful for examining, understanding, and exploring options for what teacher educators do. In this article I would like to look at the reasons a teacher educator would choose a training or a development focus, or both, with practical examples. I do not find it useful to view training and development as dichotomous. They are different, but they do not need to be in opposition. They both serve necessary, complementary, and even interdependent functions in teacher education. While it is possible to adopt a strict training approach, such an approach is, ultimately, incomplete because it ignores the expertise of the teacher. A development approach on the other hand, can and should include both training and development strategies. Much has been written about training and development (see in particular Freeman 1982, 1989, Larsen-Freeman 1983, 1991, Richards 1990, Woodward 1991). For the purposes of this article I shall define training as being focused on discrete skills and knowledge, which are transmitted by the teacher educator as expert, with concrete, measurable outcomes. The educator's "primary functions are to provide ideas and suggestions, to solve problems, and to intervene and point out better ways of doing things." (Richards 1990) Development, on the other hand, is focused on the teacher's awareness and attitude, her understanding of her practice, and the needs and changes she identifies. The teacher educator "endeavors to start the teacher on a process of reflection, critique and refinement of the teacher's practice." (Freeman 1989) Thus the teacher is viewed as an expert on her own practice, and the outcomes are not necessarily observable, measurable or predictable. In order to understand what training and development might look like in practice, I will describe four scenarios for a presentation on techniques for working with textbook dialogues. These scenarios move across a continuum from training to development, with Scenario 1 closest to the training end, and Scenario 4 closest to the development end. Scenario 1 is a description of an actual presentation given by a teacher I shall call Regina. Regina, an EFL teacher from a Central American country, had developed a number of interesting ways to work with textbook dialogues. She was excited about them and wanted to share them with other teachers. She prepared and presented the following presentation for her colleagues in a teacher training course.

**From the August 1991 issue of The Language Teacher, publication of the Japan Association of Language Teachers. Scenario 1: She divided the participants into small groups and indicated they were to take the role of learners. To maximize time, she had each group do a different technique, which involved some sort of task such as unscrambling a dialogue or inventing a humorous dialogue between famous people. When finished, each group explained their task to the others and read the completed dialogue. They did two rounds of techniques. At the end, Regina handed out descriptions of each technique.

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From a training perspective, her presentation was very effective. Regina has carefully delineated the techniques to be taught; by experiencing the techniques the participants have a clear sense of how to use them, moreover the participants enjoy themselves. She has imparted knowledge and skills to her colleagues and they have something concrete to take away. Her guiding question in preparing the presentation is "How can I effectively show the participants what I know how to do?" A clear advantage of Scenario 1 from a management point of view is the control the educator exercises over time, content and outcome. The potential disadvantage of her presentation is that while the participants have something concrete to take away, it is not clear whether they have something concrete to apply. Regina has no clear way of knowing whether these techniques are new to the participants, whether they are useful or appropriate for their teaching context, or whether they meet some need. In order to know whether the techniques are in fact useful for the participants, she would need to move in the direction of the development end of the continuum. She would need to widen her focus to include the participants. The following questions might guide her in planning a different scenario: How can I find out what the participants already know about the subject matter? How can I ensure that this is useful to them?
Scenario 2: First, she asks the participants "What are some problems you encounter in working with textbook dialogues?" Then she has them experience some of the techniques. Following that, she asks them to determine some ways in which the techniques helped them with the problems they had indicated and/or to generate alternatives which might fit their own teaching situation. Finally, she gives them her guidelines in developing techniques, or she asks them to share some of their own techniques.

In the above scenario, she is making use of training strategies, the presentation of techniques, as well as development strategies, asking the teachers to see them in the light of their own practice and needs. She is still working from the question How can I effectively show what I know how to do?while also working with the questions How can I find out what they already know about the subject matter? How can I ensure that this is useful to them? In order to work on the development end of the continuum, in which the teacher investigates and reflects on her practice and generates her own solutions, Regina would need to shift away from the question regarding transmission of skills and knowledge, and work with other questions. How can I work with what the participants know? How can I tap into their capacity to understand their needs and generate their own solutions? In answering those questions, her presentation would undergo further modifications.
Scenario 3: First, she asks the participants "What are some problems you encounter in working with textbook dialogues?" Then, she gives them a list of the guidelines she uses in designing techniques for working with dialogues. She elicits refinements of the guidelines from them. She gives them a sample dialogue, and a problem to solve: Using the guidelines, can you generate some techniques for working with the dialogue? After they have done the task, they share their techniques. Regina may at this point provide examples of her own. Finally, she asks them to draw conclusions about how to design techniques for working with dialogues and how these might help in dealing with the problems listed in the beginning.

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In this last scenario, as in Scenario 2, Regina starts with the teacher's identifying problems and needs. However, whereas in Scenario 2 she provides answers to the problems, in Scenario 3 she provides the teachers with guidelines for designing their own techniques. She asks them to generate their own answers. If she gives answers, they are seen as further examples, not as definitive models. One could say that by providing her guidelines as a model, she is transmitting knowledge and is not fully at the development end of the continuum. To be fully at the development end, where the participants are identifying both problems and solutions, she might choose Scenario 4.
Scenario 4: First she asks the participants to think of a successful technique they have used in working with a textbook dialogue. She then asks them to determine what made it successful. She lists their answers and from these derives a set of guidelines for designing techniques. Then she asks them to think of problems they have had in working with textbook dialogues. She lists the problems. She gives them a sample dialogue and asks them to choose one of the problems and to design a technique which might deal with the problem, based on the list of guidelines. Finally, she has them draw conclusions as in Scenario 3.

If we compare Scenario 1 and Scenario 4, we note that in the latter, the teacher educator has put all of the initiative in the hands of the participants. While Scenario 1 could be more or less replicated with various groups of participants, Scenario 4 might look different depending on who the participants are and the guidelines, questions and techniques they generate. In Scenario 1, the focus is on subject matter: textbook dialogues. In Scenario 4, the focus is on the participants' work: their practice, reflections on their practice, and their capacity to develop and change. From a management point of view, Scenario 4 would likely require more time than the other scenarios. The teacher educator would need to focus the contributions of the participants, and the outcomes of the tasks would be less predictable. The following framework summarizes the questions examined above. Some of the questions can lead to either training or development strategies, depending on which focus the teacher educator chooses.

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Questions which determine a training focus or a development focus in teacher education:

Trainin g Strat eg ies 1) Ho w can I effectiv ely s how th e part icipan ts wh at I know or kn ow h ow t o do? 2) Ho w can I find o ut wh at th ey know ab out th e su b ject matter?**

Develo pmen t Strategies

3) Ho w can I wo rk wit h what th ey know?

4) Ho w can I ens u re th at . . .

th is s ubject matter is u sefu l to th e participan ts?

th e work they do is us eful to th e participan ts?

5) Ho w can I tap in to their cap acity to unders tand th eir n eeds an d generate th eir own s olutions? * * If I have ch os en a train ing fo cus , the an swer to question 2 will lead t o #1. If I h av e chos en a d ev elo pment fo cu s , th e ans wer t o q ues tio n 2 will lead to # 3. (Grav es, 1991.)

A teacher getting started in teacher education might opt, as Regina did, for a training focus because of the control she can exercise over the subject matter. Training strategies are useful because they can provide concrete skills and knowledge. Such strategies are effective when both educator and teacher recognize that the teacher does not simply add or replace skills and knowledge, but integrates them into her understanding and practice. This recognition implies a development approach: that teachers need to make sense of the input in terms of their practice--which may include rejecting it-- and to develop in ways meaningful to them. To work with a development approach, a teacher educator must be willing to acknowledge and work with the teacher's expertise. Development strategies allow her to do so. Ultimately, in order to be effective as teacher educators, we need to employ both training and development strategies. Doing so enables us to work with the expertise of the teachers we teach, 39

while at the same time making available our own expertise. Knowing when to focus on training and when on development is the crux--and challenge-- of teacher education. References Freeman, D. (1982) Observing teachers: three approaches to in-service training and development. TESOL Quarterly 16: 21-8. Freeman, D. (1989) Teacher training, development, and decision making: A model of teaching and related strategies for language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (1), 27-46. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1983) Training teachers or educating a teacher?In J. Alatis, H.H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.), Georgetown University roundtable on languages and linguistics (pp. 264-274). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1991) Punctuation in Teacher Education. Plenary delivered at the International Conference on Teacher Education in Second Language Teaching, City Polytechnic, Hong Kong Richards, J. C. (1990) Beyond Training: Approaches to Teacher Education in Language Teaching. The Language Teacher, XIV (12), 3-8. Woodward, T. (1991) Models and Metaphors in Language Teacher Training: Loop Input and Other Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

40

Compassionate Communication Basics

The intention of Compassionate communication is to create: 1. Human connections that empower

compassionate giving and receiving 2. Relationships and structures that support compassionate giving and receiving. (www.cnvc.org) Key terms: Feelings: Words that describe our emotional state or body sensation. They are connected to something that happens, but arise because of a universal human need that is either met or unmet. (see list provided!) Needs: Words that describe life-serving energy that motivates and sustains us. (see list provided!) EMPATHY: 1. Intentional kindness towards oneself and/or others by taking into account ones feelings and needs and then intentionally acting to help get those needs met. 2. Empathy is presence. Pure presence to what is alive in a person at this moment, bringing nothing in from the past. Being present and getting in with the energy that is coming through you in the present. It is not a mental understanding. Marshall Rosenberg 3. Empathy is when the other person feels the connection to with what's alive in you. Compassion: Acting that come from an intention of empathy and in a way that we are contributing to the wellbeing of self and other(s).

41

Exploring my experiences:
Moments I recall/remember or notice Feelings I was having in those moments Universal human needs/values that motivated those feelings

I feel good/alive / connected when 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2.

I dont feel so good, alive or connected when 3. 4. 3. 4. 3. 4.

Where do feelings come from? What is the stimulus for our feelings? We are trained to think that the cause of our feelings is something that happened.but..
1. Something (X) happens. 2. Feelings arise because I have needs, universal human needs. 3. If, when X happens, my needs are met, my feelings are usually pleasant/positive. 4. If, when X happens my needs are not met, I often have unpleasant or negative feelings. ******I have feelings because I have needs (universal human needs) not because X happens or doesnt happen.***** 5. Once I know what my needs are, I can brainstorm strategies about what I can do to get my needs met, or what I might ask of others to do to help me get my needs met 6. I make a REQUEST (of myself or of another) to help me get my needs met. This needs to be a concrete action! 42

FOUR CHOICES/OPTIONS that I have for responding when something happens: FILTER
Hear/see/think through the lens of judgment Hear/see/think through the lens of non-judgment (observation)

Response:
1. BLAMING THE OTHER 3. Genuine curiosity and EMPATHY TOWARDS THE OTHER and act with compassion 2. BLAMING ONESELF 4. Genuine curiosity and EMPATHY TOWARDS ONESELF and act with compassion

Practicing the four choices

Sample:

What happened: I was giving instructions to the students and they didnt respond the way I wanted them totwo were talking, one was looking at his cell phone and 3 just didnt respond. FILTER
Hear/see/think through the

Possible Responses:
Towards the other Towards myself
I am a bad teacher! Why cant I do the simplest thing.. give instructions? I was really feeling angry and sad.. I was excited about the activity and was looking forward to them having the chance to be creative and to communicate.. and if they didnt get the instructions, they wouldnt get the juice out of the activity. I really value clarity, creativity and My students are lazy!! They didnt want to understand and werent listening I wonder how they were feeling? What were their needs? The ones talking might have had a need to connect with someone.. I wonder if some felt frustrated because they couldnt understand and have a need for competence and feeling a sense of accomplishmentor perhaps they felt stressed because they wanted to do what I was saying but just couldnt get itand they have a need for

lens of judgment and BLAME

Hear/see/think/feel through the lens

of non-judgment (observation), genuine curiosity and empathy

43

learning.. and they also probably know that if they dont get the instructions, they might not get the same learning opportunities

interconnectedness!!

What happened:

FILTER
Hear/see/think through the lens of judgment and BLAME Hear/see/think through the lens of non-judgment (observation), genuine curiosity and empathy

Possible Responses:
Towards the other Towards myself

What happened:

FILTER
Hear/see/think through the lens of judgment and BLAME Hear/see/think through the lens of non-judgment (observation), genuine curiosity and

Possible Responses:
Towards the other Towards myself

44

empathy

Harvard Educational Review

Volume 72 Number 2 Summer 2002 ISSN 0017-8055 Copyright 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved.

Voices Inside Schools

Seeing Student Learning: Teacher Change and the Role of Reflection
CAROL R. RODGERS State University of New York at Albany rodgerca@sover.net Abstract In this article, Carol Rodgers describes a four-phase reflective cycle that she uses in her professional development work with teachers. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Hawkins, Carini, and Seidel, Rodgers explores the roles of presence, description, analysis, and experimentation in helping groups of teachers slow down and attend to student learning in more rich and nuanced ways. She also encourages teachers to solicit structured feedback from their students so they can begin to distinguish between what they think they are teaching and what students are actually learning. Ultimately, Rodgers argues that supportive and disciplined reflective communities of teachers can help teachers understand that their students learning is central, and that their own teaching is subordinate to and in service of that goal. (pp. 230253) In a recent issue of the Harvard Educational Review, Anne McCrary Sullivan (2000) explored the nature of attention, its development, and its critical role in learning, teaching, and research. As a poet, she suggested that art and artists can offer us a model of aesthetic sensibility an ability to see from which we as teachers, teacher educators, and researchers might learn. Such a sensibility, she argues, demands a high level of consciousness about what one sees . . . a fine attention to detail and form: the perception of relations (tensions and harmonies); the perception of nuance (colors of meaning); and the perception of change (shifts and subtle motions) (pp. 221222). This kind of engagement is not dissimilar to what those of us in education and educational research might bring to bear on our work. This ability to see the world, to be present to it and all its complexities, does not come naturally, but must be learned. McCrary poses the question of whether it is indeed possible to teach habits of attending, and if so, how. In this article, I build upon and extend McCrarys idea that learning to pay attention in teaching, learning, and research matters. In particular I focus on how teachers can, through a structured process of reflection, become present to see student learning: to discern, differentiate, and describe the elements of that learning, to analyze the learning and to respond, as John Dewey says, intelligently.1 I offer a framework for reflection that I have used in my professional 45

development work with teachers to develop their skills of attending to and responding to students learning. The framework outlines a process of extended inquiry that slows down teachers thinking processes and asks them to observe carefully and describe in detail as an artist might selected situations within the classroom. After describing the scene, teachers ascribe meaning to what they see before moving on to decide on the best course of action. This process, which I call the reflective cycle, grows out of Deweys (1933) origi nal work on reflection.2 The reflective cycle has evolved out of my work in three venues: first, as a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY); second, as a facilitator of inservice teacher seminars in the Teacher Knowledge Project (TKP), a federally funded professional development project operated out of the Center for Teacher Education, Training, and Research at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont; and, finally, as a professional development advisor to a small public school in southern Vermont. The TKP grew out of my earlier work with the professional development of mentor teachers and later was extended to groups of experienced K12 teachers in all subject areas. The classes at SUNY met three hours a week for fourteen weeks, the TKP seminars met for a total of fifteen to thirty hours over the course of a year, and the public school group met once a month for two hours. The reflective cycle is a process that I use in each of these contexts. The power of the reflective cycle seems to rest in its ability first to slow down teachers thinking so that they can attend to what is rather than what they wish were so, and then to shift the weight of that thinking from their own teaching to their students learning. The shift, when it happens, is a profound one that results in relief and even exhilaration when they finally see that, as one teacher said, This isnt about me! It is, of course, about the teacher and her teaching, but only as they stand in relationship to the students and their learning. I have two goals when using the reflective cycle in my work with teachers. The first is to develop their capacity to observe skillfully and to think critically about students and their learning so they learn to consider what this tells them about teaching, the subject matter, and the contexts in which all of these interact. The second goal is for them to begin to take intelligent action based on the understanding that emerges. The content for the seminars is the teachers own practice. However, before moving to the text of their own teaching practice, I invite teachers to examine themselves and each other as learners. Through various exercises that place teachers in the position of learners, they are able to make a visceral connection to what it means to learn something. These activities serve as a way to open up their awareness to the complex nature of learning and also to build community. From there, teachers move to observing students learning and reflecting upon the implicati ons for their own teaching. Teachers bring instances of learning and teaching to the seminar in the form of cases (Shulman & Mesa-Bains, 1993), videotapes, descriptive reviews (Himley, 2000), and student work (Seidel, 1998). It is the process of close observation and subsequent reflection on what has been observed that sets this work apart from other professional development efforts, and that supports teachers in learning to see and to respond to the prismatic dimensions of learning that they encounter on a daily basis. Principles Underlying the Reflective Cycle Before I describe the four phases of the reflective cycle in detail, I will set forth several principles that have guided me in this work with teachers. First, like many others (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Thompson & Zeuli, 1999; Zeichner & Liston, 1996), 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 46

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 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, allowing for appreciation, and paving 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 critical to creating an environment for successful reflection as well as successful teaching and learning. Reflection demands community and the diverse perspectives on practice that community brings (Dewey, 1938). Also, because the gathering of different perspectives is a necessary step, I seek to welcome rather than dismiss diverse points of view, to broaden rather than narrow the conversation. Norms for discussion, generated by participating teachers, also guide the ongoing formation of community. One norm I encourage is mutual respect for each others stories. Because teachers stories are at the heart of our work, it is essential that we value and respect those stories. I have found that teachers often feel their stories are insignificant or that they expose their deficiencies rather than reveal the complexity and richness of their work. Another norm that I impose is the prohibition of giving advice, especially right after a problem is presented. Because the reflective process challenges teachers to describe and analyze experience before jumping to conclusions, solutions tend to present themselves after the careful work of description and analysis, just as the possible meanings of a painting present themselves after careful attention to form, texture, color, light, shadow, and composition. Fourth, I encourage teachers to value student feedback as critical to understanding students learning. While teachers can perceive much through close observation of learning, a great deal more is hidden in the minds and hearts of students themselves. Most teachers rarely take the time to engage their students in conversation about their learning. Furthermore, students may need to learn how to give useful feedback. Yet such dialogue and the subsequent awareness are invaluable to both teachers and learners because, more than anything else, feedback shifts teachers attention to students learning (Duckworth, 1987). Once students begin to reveal the truth about their experience as learners, it is difficult for a teacher to pretend that learning is happening when it is not. For example, a teacher recently told the story of a class that was fully engaged in an activity. Yet through feedback she discovered that although they were, in fact, engaged in the activity, what they gleaned from it had little to do with her objectives for their learning. Finally, and most importantly, I believe that student learning should guide teaching. Teachers classroom practice must be seen as an integrated, focused response to student learning rather than as a checklist of teaching behaviors. When learning is central, teaching becomes subordinate to it (Gattegno, 1976), taking its cue from what students already know and how they know it. Teaching is therefore implicated by learning. That is, in order to know what students know and how they know it, teachers have to create activities, a curriculum, and a learning environment that reveal learning rather than just answers, which represent only the very end of the learning process. Once a teachers attention is on her students learning, she is free to respond to it rather than being chained to a lesson plan that may or may not fit the learning. The Reflective Cycle Reflection can happen in the midst of experience (reflection-in-action) or outside an experience (reflection-on-action) (Schn, 1983). Kenneth Zeichner and Daniel Liston (1996) describe 47

reflection-in-action as framing and solving problems on the spot (p. 14), encountering unexpected student reactions or perceptions while we are teaching and adjusting our instruction to take these into account. Reflection-on-action, however, comes either before or after a given situation. Generally, the latter comes more easily to teachers. In fact, reflection-on-action, where the process is purposefully slowed down, coached, and carried out in the company of others, becomes practice for reflection-in-action an isolated, in-the-moment enterprise. It is human nature to leap to conclusions about what is happening in any given situation especially for teachers, who have to react quickly and almost simultaneously to multiple events (Lampert, 1985). Reflection keeps at bay this tendency to interpret and react to events by first slowing down to see, then describing and analyzing what happened, and finally strategizing steps for intelligent action that, once carried out, become the next experience and fodder for the next round of reflection. I have identified four phases in the process of reflection, which grow out of Deweys concept of reflection (1933).3 (For an extended treatment of Deweys work, see Rodgers, 2002.) Although there is a certain linearity to these phases, one may move both forward and backward through the process, especially between description and analysis (see Figure 1). Presence in Experience: Learning to See My goal for reflection is not dissimilar to most educators goals, no matter what their orientation. Ultimately, reflection must aim at improved student learning. This can best happen if teachers are present to students learning and able to respond with the best possible next instructional move.4 The first phase of the reflective cycle focuses on this ability to be present. The more a teacher is present, the more she can perceive; the more she perceives, the greater the potential for an intelligent response. As I stated earlier, I view presence as inclusive of several disparate acts that together comprise the whole process of reflection seeing learning, differentiating its parts, giving it meaning, and responding intelligently in the moment and from moment to moment. It also implies a particular stance or way of being. Below, I try to capture the essence of what it means to be present. In her HER article, McCrary asked, What does it mean to attend? How does one learn to pay attention? I ask similar questions: What does it mean to be present in the classroom? How does a teacher develop the capacity for presence? Presence is not easy to capture or describe. Being present is not the same as having a presence, though the first often leads to the second. It is a way of encountering the world of the classroom (or nature, a piece of music, or another person), but it also includes a way of acting within it whereby the action that one take s comes out of ones sensitivity to the flow of events. McCrary characterizes the disposition of the artist in a way that captures the nature of presence. The teacher, like the artist, attends with his or her whole organism, inquiring, testing with the body as well as the mind, sensing and seeing, responding and retesting [performing] a multitude of functions . . . simultaneously registering complexity, then sorting, finding pattern, making meaning (2000, p. 226). A classic example of this in the classroom, and one that causes the nave viewer to conclude that teaching is easy, is a teachers ability to attend to a single learner while simultaneously casting her attention, like a net, over the entire group. In a similar vein, Robert Tremmel (1993) likens presence to a state of mindfulness. He writes that mindfulness is the ability to pay attention right here, right now, and to invest in the present moment with full awareness and concentration (p. 433). A colleague of mine, Jack Millett, notes that teachers cannot be planning their next class or be preoccupied with what they are going to do next and still be present and watching what is happening (quoted in Johnson, 1998, p. 8). Being present, he says, is being learning centered, where a teacher ob serves what the learner is doing and responds in a way that serves the continuity of that learning. 48

Dewey talked about the teacher being alive both to students bodily expression of mental condition and to their words. He writes: The teacher must be alive to all forms of bodily expression of mental condition to puzzlement, boredom, mastery, the dawn of an idea, feigned attention, tendency to show off, to dominate discussion because of egotism, etc. as well as sensitive to the meaning of all expression in words. He must be aware not only of their meaning, but of their meaning as indicative of the state of mind of the pupil, his degree of observation and comprehension. (1933, p. 275, italics in original) Not being present in the classroom manifests itself as simply covering the material, and, as Millet puts it, moving students through activities assuming they are learning (quoted in Johnson, 1998, p. 7). David Hawkins (1974) describes students who buy into such an assumption as manipulating [teachers] into believing that theyre being attentive because theyre not making any trouble (p. 53). In my work with teachers I am constantly bumping up against teachers assumption that if students are engaged this means that they are learning. When presse d to define engaged, teachers describe students as having fun, being on task, and getting work done. But are students learning? When a teacher is fully present to students learning, they dont assume. Instead, they are being what Hawkins calls a good diagnostician, aware of what and how students are understanding. In Eleanor Duckworths (1987) words, they are understanding students understanding (p. 83) with each intervention and adjusting their understanding according to the results of that intervention. The question is less one of being satisfied with the appearance of learning (engagement) than it is of knowing, through a process of inquiry, what students are learning and how they are learning it. Without being present to the learning, a teacher is unable to provide what Hawkins calls that external loop, that external feedback, which [the learner] couldnt provide for himself (1974, p. 55). While the teacher may be present, it is the action that a teacher takes in response to what is perceived that matters. As I have tried to grasp and articulate the essential nature of presence, I have come to feel that it includes two qualities that are not generally associated with attention or awareness, which I see as more detached and less personal than presence. These two qualities are generally taboo in academic circles, namely love and passion. By love I do not mean romantic or sexual love, but a kind of wide-open acceptance of the other that is free of judgment and filled with honor for their capacities as learners. For me, passion means not only a passion for my subject matter but for the human endeavor of learning. There is energy and curiosity associated with passion that, in my experience, keeps one alert to and engaged with a particular situation or person. I feel it in my own work with teachers as I am alert to their shifts in understanding. For example, I find myself longing to know how they will make use of their students feedback. This longing to connect with students learning is a part of what it means to be present. As suggested above, an important prerequisite for presence is a deep knowledge of subject matter. Dewey helps us to understand why. In How We Think he writes: The teacher must have his mind free to observe the mental responses and movement of the student. . . . The problem of the pupils is found in the subject matter; the problem of teachers is what the minds of pupils are doing with the subject matter. Unless the teachers mind has mastered the subject matter in advance, un less it is thoroughly at home in it, using it unconsciously without need of express thought, he will not be free to give full time and attention to observation and interpretation of the pupils intellectual reactions. (1933, p. 275, italics in original) Or, as my then 12-year-old son Jonathan once put it, describing a teacher who didnt know her subject matter, She taught too much from the book and not enough from herself. In other 49

words, the subject matter had not been internalized learned by the teacher. When a teachers attention is on the book, on the lesson plan, on listening for the right answer instead of listening to students thinking, on worrying about where students should be instead of where they are, then it is not on the learning, and presence is absent. While these skills and attitudes do not necessarily represent the sum total of presence, they contribute to an understanding of its essential character and to our understanding of the state of being and skills that constitute presence. The process of description, analysis, and experimentation described in the rest of this article is, in essence, a description of a way for teachers to be present to students learning. It is by practicing this process outside the moment reflecting on action that teachers are able to employ the various components in the moment and reflect as the action unfolds. Description: Learning to Describe and Differentiate We learn to see a thing by learning to describe it. (Williams, quoted in Himley & Carini, 2000, p. vi)) I define description as the process of telling the story of an experience. It is the differentiation and naming of an experiences diverse and complex elements so that it can be looked at, seen, and told from as many different perspectives as possible. It should be clear from the discussion of presence that what a teacher is able to describe is largely dependent upon what she has been able to apprehend in the experience. I have found that description is perhaps the most difficult stage of the reflective cycle for teachers because it asks them to withhold interpretation of events and postpone their urge to fix the problems embedded therein until they can mess about with the details of the stories. In his essay Messing about with Science, Hawkins (1974) talks a bout the virtues of children taking time to examine and become familiar with natural phenomena. They need time, he argues, to wander and sniff in the academic maze (p. 176). The same is true for teachers. They need the time and space to explore and to be surprised by the multiple elements present in any teaching/learning situation. It has been argued, and rightly so, I believe, that the very act of telling a story is an act of interpretation (Labov, 1972). The point of this phase of the cycle is, through collaboration, to dig up as many details as possible, from as many different angles as possible, so that one is not limited to the sum of ones own perceptions. Yet the urge to fix problems and move on is powerful among the teachers I work with. The discipline of description, which I initially impose and which they later impose on each other, forces them to slow down, to look, and to see the variety and nuance present in such moments before leaping into action. Below I describe various ways that I have helped teachers to develop their descriptive skills and to learn how to gather descriptive data from their own classrooms. Description versus Interpretation A prerequisite to being able to describe an experience is being able to distinguish between description (what one sees) and interpretation (ascribing meaning to what one sees). The work of Patricia Carini of the Prospect Center in North Bennington, Vermont, and Steve Seidel, director of Harvards Project Zero, has reinforced my belief in the importance of teachers coming together in groups to learn how to carefully describe classroom events.5 I have worked with teachers on being able to discern the two through progressively more complex exercises. Initially I ask teachers to describe an object a shell, an orange, a stone much the way McCrary asked her students to describe everything they saw in a small area of grass. Like McCrary, I push them to go back and generate more details, even when they feel they have said all they possibly could say about the object. From here we move on to describe a picture. I use an ambiguous photograph or painting that piques teachers curiosity and ask them to write down everything they notice.6 Then I have them go back and sort out which of their observations are descriptive 50

and which are interpretative. If they interpret, I ask how they know, and then ask if there could be other ways to interpret the same evidence. Invariably, other teachers are ready with alternative interpretations based on the same evidence. Finally, I show them a video clip from a class of elementary schoolchildren, which documents an emotional incident that occurred with a group of first through fourth graders during a role-play activity of Mahatma Ghandi and the salt tax protests (Merton & Dater, 2000). In deciding who should be Ghandi, the boys of the group are oblivious to one of the girls who also wants to be Ghandi. While discussing the incident later, the girl, age nine, breaks down in sobs at having been denied the role by the boys. My students, who become very caught up in the drama of the incident, have to work hard just to describe the sequence of events rather than leap to conclusions and judgments about the girls behavior and what the teacher in the video should have done. Some common reactions I have heard include, Shes just a crybaby who wants to manipulate the teacher. The teacher shouldnt have let that happen. She has no control. In the course of our discussions, however, they learn much from each other about what they missed, overlooked, or made up entirely. They also begin to realize that the conclusions and judgments that they have already formed about the characters drive much of what they notice. I have found that exploring the source of those interpretations often leads students to confront their unexamined assumptions about teaching, learning, their students, subject matter, school, and ultimately fundamental values that they hold. This can be a delicate moment in our work together. I try to keep in mind that the teachers I work with are also learners, and to be present to what I call the edge of their learning. With the male teacher who judged the girl in the video as a crybaby, I asked him to slow down and describe what he saw (a girl who appeared very upset and was crying). Then I asked him what the girls crying might mean. I encouraged him to explore an alternative explanation, and then another one. When he had no more explanations to offer, I opened it up to the rest of the class. The women in the class were eager to share still more possibilities. By simply asking them to describe and offer alternative explanations, I convey to them that there are no right or wrong interpretations, which, I believe, decreases the risk of exposure inherent in moments like these. Over the years, teachers have told me that this exercise and others like it cause them to slow down in the moment and consider alternative ways of seeing and responding to the events that they are witnessing. Moments Once students have understood (at least intellectually) the distinction between a description and an interpretation, we spend several sessions practicing describing moments from their own classrooms. The primary objectives are to slow down and see, to notice when they are jumping to conclusions, and to understand what prior knowledge, experience, values, assumptions, needs, desires, fears, and so forth might be driving their interpretations and the actions teachers take in their own classrooms based on these interpretations.7 A moment, to use Anne Lamotts (1994) image, is a one-inch frame (p. 17) that describes in as much detail as possible something specific that happened. I ask them to choose a moment from their classroom that they found puzzling, troubling, or exciting. A moment can include any or all of the classroom elements teacher, students, subject matter, and context, and their intersecting dynamics. I strive to limit the scope of what teachers describe and to get them to look at individuals and details rather than painting the whole group and scene with broad strokes and primary colors. This is crucial, because students understand and learn as individuals, not as a group. Too often I hear teachers make comments like, They dont want to learn or They just dont care. Taking such a monolithic view allows them to depersonalize students and, in effect, releases them from having to relate to students as learners. The fact is, there is no such thing as they, and the sooner teachers see beyond they to the individuals in their classes, the sooner they can connect with each learner. 51

Teachers bring their moments to class and share them with the group. The groups task is to ask the presenting teacher as many questions about the moment as they can, with the aim of helping the teacher to stay grounded in the descriptive details of the actual events. The group works to coax the teacher beyond the boundaries of her own necessarily limited perceptions by fleshing out the details, filling in the missing pieces, and looking at the incident from a number of different standpoints. Teachers in the group are also invited to contribute similar moments from their own lives, but they must keep in mind that the purpose of their contribution is to shed light on the description being shared. As teachers write up more moments, their peers questions and stories become internalized and their own descriptions grow richer and more complex. A teacher once said to me, Now I have all these voices [of my peers] inside of me that keep me company through the moments of my day. Charlie, a teacher in one seminar, offered this written description of a moment from a sixth-grade science lesson.8 This was her first time describing a moment and reveals how teachers often struggle to distinguish between description and interpretation. Throughout this excerpt, one senses Charlies judgment, frustration, thwarted expectations, and fatigue, as well as her tendency to analyze a moment before she has fully seen it. In effect, she wants students to be other than where they are and judges them for not being there. She characterizes one girl in particular as uptight and high pressure. She also spends time focusing on her own actions, justifying them in the face of students resistance: I was roaming around the room, looking over shoulders as students tried to complete the activities at the three stations. I was trying to make sure each student was participating where possible (we have several ESL students who are really challenged by science class because theres a lot of reading and writing). I was noticing a lot of pairs were confused by station one. I was getting frustrated by the number of times I had to get students to slowly reread the procedure, check the materials list, because they couldnt follow the procedure without having the correct materials. One moment involved working with a very uptight, high-pressure, school board chair[s] daughter who was so sure the procedure couldnt be done, she was ready to give up. Asking her to reread it was only making her shut down more. I felt myself becoming more frustrated as she continued to deem the assignment impossible and stupid. I did not want to just give answers or do the work for the students. I felt it was important for them to discover they had the resources to work each station if they would slow down and think. I think my students would look back on the activity as fun because they were working with friends and eventually they all got it, but it was not fun for me. To help Charlie slow down and focus on description, I asked the other teachers to respond with questions that asked her to fill out the details of the moment. In the exchange they asked Charlie if it was an activity that happened on a regular basis, if there were a culminating task for which the students were supposed to use their results, how the students eventually got it, what the school board chairs daughter was able to do, and if students were familiar with scienti fic procedure. By putting comments in the form of questions, the group helps the presenting teacher expand the details of what happened and keep her interpretations multiple and tentative. This type of discussion gives teachers like Charlie the opportunity to paint a fuller picture before others jump to conclusions and start to give advice, an impulse that inevitably shuts down the process of inquiry. As teachers experiment with these new skills, I participate by asking similar questions and monitoring their contributions, making sure they stay within the bounds of description. If they venture into interpretation by ascribing meaning to the events, I ask them to substantiate those interpretations with descriptive details and evidence. Feedback 52

Another way I encourage teachers to see beyond the limits of their initial perceptions and become better at describing and differentiating classroom experiences is through the use of students feedback.9 Below I share two kinds of feedback that I find useful during my work with teachers ongoing and structured. Ongoing feedback is related to the concept of presence that I described earlier, and involves teachers attending to information that is available at every minute in the classroom, including all elements of and interactions between the teacher, students, subject matter, and context. When a teacher is present to what is happening in the classroom, she is present to ongoing feedback. Reflection-in-action is reflection in the midst of this kind of feedback. In contrast, structured feedback lets a teacher consciously step away from the ongoing feedback by posing specific questions to students about their learning (or lack thereof). In my own teaching practice, these questions vary, but often take the following forms: What do you think youve really learned? How do you know that youve learned it? Can you describe how you learned it? What helped your learning? What hindered your learning? How did you feel? Even when I observe what seems like learning, rather than having to guess at whether students have learned, I still may need to check it out with them by asking. While students answers reference my teaching, I am not asking for advice or critique. Rather, I am asking them the authorities on their learning about that experience, an experience that I can observe but about which they can also tell me a great deal, information to which I otherwise have no access. I make a point of helping students distinguish between what they learned, what I taught, and what they did. It takes some practice to distinguish among the three. It is one way that teachers and students begin to understand the difference between learning a subject and covering it. It can often be difficult for teachers to seek feedback from students because it feels risky. Knowing this, we do several practice rounds in the seminar before teachers try it in their own classrooms. One activity is called The Teaching Game, where everyone is assigned to teach a 10-minute lesson to a group of three or four of their student peers (Freeman, 1993). These are simple lessons requiring little preparation, done right in the class. Teachers have taught simple dance steps, knot tying, origami, math shortcuts, and so on. At the end of their lesson, they must ask the questions described above of their peers. They are not allowed to respond to students answers, only to paraphrase them or to ask probing questions or questions for clarification. Otherwise they write down what students tell them. This is done as a way of training teachers to listen to what students experiences have been, rather than to defend or explain what they, as teachers, have done. Recently a teacher did a 10-minute sign-language lesson, teaching her students the alphabet. When she asked them for feedback, they told her that theyd learned the first one or two letters of their names. From this, the teacher realized that this brief exposure to the alphabet did not enable them to learn all twenty-six letters. The feedback forced her back to the place of a beginning learner, looking at the subject matter and its mastery through their eyes. Returning to my student Charlie, four months after her first entry she wrote a second entry that described the impact that both structured and ongoing feedback had on her teaching: It is interesting to me to see how this idea of feedback is becoming so important to me and how naming it has put it much more into my consciousness. I think whats different is I realize when I interpret [ongoing] feedback I need to consider lots of different possibilities for what Im seeing. When Im acting like a burnt-out teacher, my interpretations of students actions tend to be negative. However, when I am open to other interpretations, I become much more humane to my students. . . . I dont have to assume that [ongoing] feedback (like students asking what page were on) means the student is not interested in learning. . . . When I grade a math test and a student gets a low score, likewise there are lots of ways to interpret that low score and I need to ask the 53

student [for structured feedback]. . . . I like the way [another teacher in the seminar] says we can find out if students are learning rather than just finding out if were teaching. This entry was exciting to me because it showed evidence of ways that Charlies efforts to see her students learning, to be sensitive to multiple interpretations of their behavior, and to gather their feedback on both put her in partnership with her students. It demonstrated that she was, in fact, becoming more present in the classroom and therefore better able to respond effectively to what she observed. All of the information gathered through structured feedback is data that allows teachers to more fully describe the situations in their classroom data that can only be gotten by asking. As reflective practitioners, it is essential that teachers not only learn to see but that they learn to see through their students eyes. In effect, teachers and students become partners in inquiry. It has been my experience that the use of structured feedback often represents the turning point in teachers awareness of the centrality of students learning. Structured feedback pulls back the curtain and reveals the multiple truths about students learning. As a result, teachers are compelled to see ongoing feedback students learning differently, becoming at once more aware of and more curious about it. One consequence is that tests diminish in importance since more information about students academic progress is revealed through ongoing and structured feedback than through tests. In addition to helping teachers move through the reflective cycle, structured feedback can go a long way in creating a community of inquiry in the classroom. But it also can raise unsettling questions for both teachers and students. For example, teachers may ask themselves if there is a difference between what the teacher taught (i.e., what students were supposed to learn) and what they actually learned. What does it mean to learn something when can you say, Ive learned? What does the teaching have to do with learning? What role do other students play in students learning? How do students feel about the subject matter? What is the effect of group dynamics on learning? One of the most compelling aspects of description whether through differentiating it from interpretation, focusing on moments, or seeking student feedback is that teachers begin to realize that certain ways of structuring curriculum, activities, and the physical classroom itself offer more opportunities to observe learning than others. Those who only lecture, those who spend most of their time telling, and those who have a poorly organized or chaotic structure have descriptions that are far less robust than those who create opportunities for observation of students experiments, constructions, and mistakes. When they create opportunities to observe students learning, they begin to perceive and paint pictures with nuance, detail, and tone fuschias, golds, and azures instead of blocks of primary color. Analysis of Experience: Learning to Think Critically and Create Theory Once descriptions are rendered, teachers can move into the next phase of the reflective cycle: analysis. Analysis involves generating a number of different explanations for or conjectures (Ball & Lampert, 1999) about whats going on and settling on a theory or hypothesis that one is willing to test in action. It is the phase where meaning-making happens. Although it comes after description, there is often a dialectical relationship between the two. During the analysis, it is sometimes necessary to return to the descriptive phase and seek more data, which in turn may point toward different analyses. Below I discuss various approaches I use with teachers to help them analyze their teaching practice, including their students learning. Grounding Analysis in the Text of Experience It is my firm conviction that the theory that is generated about teaching and learning must be grounded in the text of teachers experience that is, in the evidence that arises from the 54

description of practice. In turn, this evidence needs to be looked at from various perspectives and rigorously questioned so that explanations and theories are not allowed to stand on selective data. I am currently an advisor to a professional development project with faculty at a small, progressive public school in southern Vermont. We have been meeting for two hours a month since September 2001. The majority of our work has involved describing and interpreting a single artifact: one sheet of paper on which school rules are listed. Teachers and students developed the list some years ago; since then there has been some faculty turnover. To understand some of the values and principles that comprise the heart of the schools identity, the faculty, including the principal, decided to describe these rules. This discussion moves beyond the boundaries of classroom learning, yet gets right to the heart of kids learning experiences in the hallways and on the playground, as well as teachers experiences trying to regulate those experiences. We first tilled the ground for reflection by telling stories from the early days of the school, watching a movie a local filmmaker had made about its first principal and ruminating together on the word home.10 We then read the rules aloud and got our first impressions off our chests. These included statements like The safety rules seem to be met inconsistently or We have rules about things that in other places would be against the rules and The rules demand a great deal of responsibility on the part of the students. From there we backed up to read carefully through each rule, describing what it was saying. Three months later we are still only on the second rule. The first rule was only five words long: No running in the halls. As we attempted to describe the rule we immediately got involved in determining what was actually meant by no running and by running itself. Did no running mean no running ever? Teachers recognized that they ran did this rule just apply to students? And what qualified as running, anyway? In an attempt to describe, we found ourselves interpreting. So teachers went back to their experience for more evidence. What about the basketball lay-up move the junior high kids did? Did that count as running? Was dancing running? What about going up or down the stairs two at a time? This discussion led to an analysis of the nature of a rule. What did it mean to enforce a rule? Did it apply 100 percent of the time? Always in the same way? The group also noted that parents were players in the whole question of rules and came at them from at least two angles. For example, if there is a problem with kids throwing apples, the school community could solve the problem by cutting down the apple tree, or they could use the incident as an opportunity for the students to learn about acceptable behavior. Over the weeks, the discussion evolved into one about why rules exist in the first place. We determined that rules were guidelines for behavior but not necessarily what teachers wanted students to learn. What the teachers really valued was not obeying the rules but that students pay attention to the space between us that is, that they become aware that their actions had an impact on others, even those who werent present at the time. Other values included safety, school stewardship, and taking responsibility for ones own actions. As we contemplated the nature of rules, the faculty also affirmed its appreciation of the value of freedom for its kids. This prompted me to bring in Deweys short chapter on Freedom in Experience and Education (1938). We spent a two-hour session describing one sentence of the chapter: The ideal aim of education is creation of the power of self-control. The group determined that the power of self-control is distinct from self-control, since it focuses on students power of self-determination rather than on their ability to control themselves. This in turn led to deeper insight about the kind of learning that the teachers wanted to nurture in their students about helping them find within themselves the power of self-determination with appropriate attention to and care for those with whom they must live. The faculty since has renamed the school rules school rules, recess rules, and life rules. 55

Even as I write these words, I am moved by the stunning complexity and power that lie beneath the surface of things. While the process was slow in terms of the rules we covered, the depth of understanding that emerged from the iterative processes of description and analysis was, I felt, rich beyond any idea of quantity. Developing a Common Analytical Language A second critical point about analysis is the need for the group of teachers to generate a common language about teaching and learning. In the process of turning over evidence and asking what is going on, I frequently run into words that seem to carry shared meaning, but when we scratch the surface of the word different meanings emerge. As I mentioned earlier, a word like engagement may hold multiple meanings for the teachers arou nd the table. What does it mean to be engaged in the first place? Have fun? Stay on task? Does it necessarily include learning? Learning itself is another of these words. Unveiling the nuances of the words and concepts we use to talk about teaching and learning is as important as revealing the nature of teaching and learning themselves. If there is as yet no common language across education, there does need to be a common language within a community of inquiry. Teachers and facilitators need to assume the responsibility of asking each other to define what they mean by words or terms that we assume are commonly understood. A common language can be forged by the group or borrowed from existing frameworks drawn from research, philosophy (e.g., Deweys attitudes (1916/1944, 1933),11 from Hawkins I, Thou, and It (1974) or Noddings notion of caring (1992), from art (one of Pollacks paintings representing order derived from chaos served as a framework for one group) or even literature. Below I explore Hawkins I, Thou, and It paradigm as an effective source of common language. Unearthing Assumptions In clarifying what teachers mean by what they say, we uncover many of the assumptions that drive our actions as teachers, learners, teacher educators, and researchers. This process of unearthing assumptions is a third critical aspect of analysis. Some scholars claim that meaning resides not in the text of an experience but in the reader (Ball & Lampert, 1999; Rosenblatt, 1978). Careful consideration of the theoretical and emotional ground from which interpretation of experience arises is essential to careful analysis. If indeed we teach who we are (Palmer, 1998), such scrutiny can involve scary and delicate personal work. The facilitator and group must be supportive but also willing both to push and be pushed by one another to risk exploring the territory of assumptions assumptions that grow out of teachers very identities. For example, one young teacher, when faced with the possibility that teaching does not necessarily cause learning, felt that her very identity as a teacher was threatened. If teaching doesnt cause learning, she mourned, then what am I for? The process often uncovers dissonance between espoused theories (who wed like to think we are) and theories in use (who our actions show us to be) (Argyris & Schn, 1974). At this point the need for a community with strong leadership and shared norms is especially critical. One example of a teacher whose assumptions were distorting what she was able to see was Anna (a pseudonym), who taught refugee women who had recently arrived in the United States. As an activist, Anna was committed to issues of social justice. Wishing to raise her students awareness of workplace issues and rights, she had given them several relatively sophisticated magazine and newspaper articles on sexual harassment. But her students did not seem as committed as she was. In fact, they showed themselves to be positively indifferent to issues that Anna felt were so important to their well-being. Her analysis of their behavior was that they were lazy and resistant. As she described the issue and then responded to questions posed by the group, it became clear that, rather than being recalcitrant, the students actually did not possess the basic vocabulary and pronunciation necessary to understand the pieces she had given them to read. The meaning she made of her experience suddenly shifted from seeing her students as lazy and 56

resistant to ill-equipped. Annas assumptions, that these students were lazy, that they were equipped to dig into sophisticated topics, that they were or should be as passionate about issues of social justice as she was, had to be owned by her before she was ready to meet her students where they were, rather than stew in frustration that her students were not in the place where she wanted them to be. Using Frameworks While it is essential to investigate personal theories and assumptions, it is also necessary to give careful attention to theories from outside the immediate community of inquiry. The introduction of paradigms and frameworks from research on teaching and learning provides a fourth approach to expanding ways of naming and understanding experience. One of the most useful frameworks I have employed has been Hawkins (1974) I, Thou, and It paradigm. Hawkins describes the I as the teacher, the Thou as the learner, and the It as the subject matter that draws the I and Thou together to form a dynamic nexus. In my work I think of this triangle of elements as held in tension by the force field of context/s the classroom, school, community, and outward, even to the levels of nation and globe. Hawkins framework has divided the complicated universe of teaching and learning into manageable categories, providing teachers with a common language without losing the inherent complexity in the process. The visual aspect of the framework along with its simplicity lends itself to creative manipulation. For instance, Anna might have painted her situation as one where the connection between the I and the It was strong, but between the I and Thou was weak, or where the It for the teacher (sexual harassment) was different from the It for the students (English vocabulary and grammar). Below, a Chinese teacher of English talks about how his view of teaching and learning has changed as a result of his work in my class at Albany, using the I, Thou, and It paradigm as a way of framing the shift in his thinking: The worst thing for me is that I never really thought about teaching and learning. [In this class] I began to change my idea of teaching [to consider that] what really matters is not how much we teach, it is how much the students learn. To improve our teaching, we need to know more about our students [including] their learning styles, what helps them learn, what hinders their learning. In the triangle I, Thou and It, I just paid attention to the I and It; I did not pay any attention to Thou, in whom the learning happens. The only way to improve my teaching is to know more about students learning. (personal communication, December 2000) I accepted where he was in his learning and was pleased by his insights. This student, who has a doctorate in teaching English, is from China, but he is not different from teachers from the Albany area who are chained (or who chain themselves) to Regents exams and standards testing, and are encouraged to see students as completers of tasks and takers of tests.12 They see students as people with lives outside the classroom, but seeing them as learners is something new. Theoretical concepts can be drawn from any piece of research that is relevant to the inquiry being done. If a group is focusing on a particular theme school rules, for example readings within that area can lend depth to the discussion. What is important is that the weight of the theory of experts is balanced by teachers experience, and is not necessarily taken at face value. Description and analysis represent what Dewey (1916/1944) called the reorganization and reconstruction of experience (p. 76). Such reflective work allows one to direct the course of similar future experiences, he says, and leads toward intelligent action. One example of this is the steps that teachers are taking with the rules at their school in Vermont. Experimentation: Learning to Take Intelligent Action 57

Experimentation is the final as well as the initial phase of the reflective cycle because it doubles as the next experience. In fact, experience and experiment have the same Latin root, experiri, which means to try or to test (American Heritage Dictionary, 1973, p. 252). It takes a group time to get to this phase. The suggestions for action that characterize this phase come only after the hard work of description and analysis, and are based on well thought out and mutually constructed theory. This is why the action is seen as intelligent rather than routine (Dewey, 1938). The first step toward action takes place within the group, where teachers proffer different strategies for dealing with the classroom problem or question at hand. These ideas for action differ from advice. The latter can feel coercive while the former feels more like an offering. One silences, while the other is generative. Advice can sound like, You should do . . . , whereas ideas for action are couched in language like, What would happen if you . . . ? or Once I tried . . . But at some point the ideas for action that teachers settle on must be tested in action. Like Michael Huberman (1995), I have found that description, analysis, and ideas for action are necessary but incomplete. As he writes, although conceptual knowledge or understanding is essential, it is not sufficient. . . . It is still possible to understand and yet not be able to do. Professional development has to come to grips with this challenge too (p. 357). As such, I consciously build in check-in time, if not a written report, in follow-up sessions to see how these tests have gone. It is easy for teachers to abandon perfectly good ideas because they didnt work the first time, or to be satisfied with the ideas but reluctant to carry them out. By requiring experimentation and enjoining teachers to bring their stories back to the group, I am able to encourage them to take risks, to describe and analyze their experiments, and to plan for second, third, and fourth tries, each of which is text for further reflection and offers an opportunity to practice being present to the dazzling intricacy of teaching and learning. Conclusion One day I observed an artist effortlessly arranging some two dozen Aquarelle crayons in their case by hue. I marveled at how one color blended neatly into the next, aware that I lacked whatever skill he possessed. He was seeing something in those colors that I was not. Driven by curiosity and a desire to see what he was seeing, for the next several months I paid close attention to colors. For example, I asked myself what other colors were present in the different shades of red. I eventually began to see that some reds had more blue in them, making them closer to purple, while other reds had more yellow in them, making them closer to orange. Where before I would have seen them all as vaguely red, I could now begin to name the other colors present in them. Slowly the world of color opened up for me, becoming at once clearer and more complex. Teachers, too, need to see in more than just one color, in other words, to discern the complex shades of teaching and learning. When teachers start to see in more nuanced ways, they start to differentiate their teaching from their students learning. Once they see this distinction they become more sensitive to the fact that good teaching is a response to students learning rather than the cause of students learning, becoming more curious about and aware of learning as they do so. In this article I have presented a framework for reflective inquiry into practice that offers teachers and teacher educators a way to learn to see and be present to students learning. It involves teachers in a process that moves from experience to description to analysis to action. I outline a number of methods for gathering the data necessary for description, from moments, to Prospects Descriptive Reviews, to dialogues with students that gather feedback on their learning. These methods are often the vehicles that bring teachers to their breakthrough moments when they see that, in the words of one teacher, We can find out if students are learning rather 58

than just finding out if were teaching. In turn, these insights send teachers back to the classroom with different eyes, looking for and seeing different things. I suggest that, in the context of a supportive and disciplined community of reflection, teachers can formulate explanations for what they see that come from their own knowledge of teaching, learning, and subject matter, from each other, and from research. After weighing various explanations carefully, they can choose a course of action that will, because of the time and consideration taken, be intelligent action. I am satisfied that while teachers are with me and with each other in our community of reflection their practice changes for the better. It is not clear to me that, once that community is gone, change persists. I am not oblivious to the tremendous contextual forces that teachers operate under tests, standards, tenure that can undo this work in much less time than it took to develop it. More work must be done to trace the effects of this kind of reflective professional development on teachers practice and its elusive connection to students learning. Evidence from teachers own accounts suggests that it does affect the ways they think about their teaching, their students, and their students learning, as well as what they actually attend to what they see in the classroom. But it is clear that further research must be done to see whether a change in how teachers think and in what they attend to in the classroom actually alters what they do over time, and how that is connected in turn to students learning. It is hard to imagine that once a teacher has seen the stunning array of colors present in students learning he or she would turn back to the monochromatic world of teaching as the delivery of a product. Teachers involved in this kind of reflective professional development discover that life in the classroom cannot be scripted. It is therefore harder, but it is also full of passion and breathtaking color. Notes 1. John Dewey (1938) contrasts intelligent action with routine action. Routine action is automatic and unconsidered, while intelligent action results from thoughtful reflection of the type outlined in this article. 2. I have also been influenced by David Kolbs work with experiential learning and my many years of work with colleagues at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. 3. These four phases were originally developed with my colleagues Jack Millet and Claire Stanley of the School for International Training and first presented at the 33rd Annual TESOL Convention in New York in 1999. 4. I do not mean to imply here that learning depends on teaching. In fact, this is one assumption I seek to disabuse teachers of early on. We learn to do plenty in life without a teacher or without a reflective teacher, and plenty more in spite of some teachers. What is important here is that effective teaching depends on awareness of students learning. 5. Carini (1979) and her colleagues at the Prospect Center have developed the Descriptive Review, a detailed process for description of children and childrens work that looks closely at one child at a time, detailing the childs physical presence and gesture, disposition and temperament, connections with other people, strong interests and preferences, and modes of thinking and learning (Himley & Carini, 2000). By looking closely at one child, one sees the multiple dimensions of all children, develops a seeing eye, and grows more sensitively attuned to who [children] are and are becoming, so that, recognizing them as persons, we can assist and support their learning better (p. 57). 6. I have found The Circle of Life: Rituals from the Human Family Album (Cohen, 1991) to be an excellent source of photographs. I have also used paintings by Brueghel, OKeefe, Tissot, and Picasso. It helps if the paintings and photos are ambiguous in meaning, leaving room for a range of interpretations. 7. There are other techniques for gathering descriptive data, including video clips from teachers own classes, case studies (e.g., McAninch, 1993; Merseth, 1996; Shulman & Mesa-Bains, 1993), 59

visual thinking strategies from museum education (e.g., Arnheim, 1989; Perkins, n.d.; Yenawine, 1991), as well as techniques used by writers to describe dialogue, setting, people, and action (e.g., Lamott, 1994; Ueland, 1987). The Tuning Protocol developed by David Allen (1998) provides yet another way to look closely at student work, similar to The Collaborative Assessment tool. (Unlike with the Collaborative Assessment or the Descriptive Review, judgment is built into the Tuning Protocol with the addition of warm and cool feedback.) In addition, the Primary Language Record (Falk, 1998) provides a framework for documenting students experiences, work, and learning strategies, as well as a scale that describes progress in literacy learning. All of these activities work on exercising teachers ability to perceive and portray the discreet aspects of the learning that unfolds around them all the time. They also provide the data from which further analysis can be made. The richer the description, the more complex and varied the data, the potentially more profound the analysis, and, thus, the more fertile the ground for taking action. 8. Written permission has been obtained for all teacher and student work included in this article. Unless otherwise indicated, their real names have been used, also with their permission. 9. I am indebted to my former colleagues at the School for International Training for their deep understanding and skillful use of feedback, and to the original work done on feedback by Caleb and Shakti Gattegno. The terms ongoing and structured feedback were coined by Donald Freeman and Kathleen Graves (Broderick, 1981). 10. Reflection on a word is a process Carini uses to prepare the ground for descriptive review. It is meant to evoke certain associations, images, and memories that somehow speak to the person or issue at hand. For our group, the idea of the school as a home-like place provoked the reflection. Often a question accompanies the description. Our question was, How do we know when were home? 11. Deweys attitudes, whole-heartedness, open-mindedness, and responsibility (1933, pp. 28 31), and the forgotten attitude, directness (1916/1944), have served as anchors in talking about dispositions for learning. 12. All New York State high school students must pass the Regents exams in order to earn a high school diploma. References Allen, D. (1998). The tuning protocol: Opening up reflection. In D. Allen (Ed.), Assessing student learning: From grading to understanding (pp. 87104). New York: Teachers College Press. American Heritage dictionary of the English language. (1973). New York: American Heritage. Argyris, C., & Schn, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Arnheim, R. (1989). Visual thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ball, D. L., & Cohen, D. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional development. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 332). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ball, D. L., & Lampert, M. (1999). Multiples of evidence, time and perspective. In E. C. Lagemann & L. S. Shulman (Eds.), Issues in education research: Problems and policies (pp. 371398). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Broderick, V. (1981). Looking at learning. JALT Newsletter, 5(7), 1415. Carini, P. F. (1979). The art of seeing and the visibility of the person. Grand Forks: University of North Dakota, North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation. Cohen, D. (Ed.). (1991). The circle of life: Rituals from the human family album. New York: Harper Collins. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. 60

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier Books. Dewey, J. (1944). Democracy and education. New York: Free Press. (Original work published 1916) Duckworth, E. (1987). The having of wonderful ideas and other essays on teaching and learning. New York: Teachers College Press. Falk, B. (1998). Looking at students and their work: Supporting diverse learners with the Primary Language Record. In D. Allen (Ed.), Assessing student learning: From grading to understanding (pp. 4065). New York: Teachers College Press. Freeman, D. (Ed.). (1993). New ways in teacher education. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Gattegno, C. (1976). The common sense of teaching foreign languages. New York: Educational Solutions. Hawkins, D. (1974). The informed vision: Essays on learning and human nature. New York: Agathorn Press. Himley, M., & Carini, P. (2000). From another angle: Childrens strengths and school standards. New York: Teachers College Press. Huberman, M. (1995). Networks that alter teaching: Conceptualizations, exchanges, and experiments. Teachers and Teaching, Theory and Practice, 1, 193211. Johnson, W. (1998). Teachers in the classroom: An interview with Jack Millett. Language Teacher, 22(6), 78. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PTR Prentice Hall. Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird. New York: Pantheon Press. Lampert, M. (1985). How do teachers manage to teach? Harvard Educational Review, 55, 178 194. Liston, D., & Zeichner, K. (1996). Culture and teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McAninch, A. (1993). Teacher thinking and the case method: Theory and future directions. New York: Teachers College Press. McCrary, A. S. (2000). Notes from a marine biologists daughter: On the art and science of attention. Harvard Educational Review, 70, 211227. Merseth, K. (1996). Cases and case methods in teacher education. In J. Sikula, T. J. Butter, & E. Guyton (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 722744). New York: MacMillan. Merton, L., & Dater, A. (2000). The world in Claires classroom. Marlboro, VT: Marlboro Films. Noddings, N. (1992). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to ethics and moral education. New York: Teachers College Press. Palmer, P. J. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teachers life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Perkins, D. (n.d.). The intelligent eye: Learning to think by looking at art (Occasional Paper No. 4). Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum Publications. Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey. Teachers College Record, 104, 842866. Rosenblatt, L. M. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of literary work. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Schn, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Shulman, J., & Mesa-Bains, A. (Eds.). (1993). Diversity in the classroom: A casebook for teachers and teacher educators. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 61

Seidel, S. (1998). Wondering to be done: The collaborative assessment conference. In D. Allen (Ed.), Assessing student learning: From grading to understanding (pp. 2139). New York: Teachers College Press. Thompson, C. L., & Zeuli, J. S. (1999). The frame and the tapestry: Standards-based reform and professional development. In L. Darling-Hammond, & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning professional: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 341375). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tremmel, R. (1993). Zen and the art of reflective practice. Harvard Educational Review, 63, 434458. Ueland, B. (1987). If you want to write. Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press. Yenawine, P. (1991). How to look at modern art. New York: HN Abrams Press. Zeichner, K., & Liston, D. (1996). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Bio: Carol Rodgers is an assistant professor in the department of Educational Theory and Practice at the State University of New York at Albany. Her research interests span the history of progressive teacher education, reflective practice in contemporary programs and schools, and inquiry into how teachers learn to see student learning. Her previous publications include Communities of Reflection, Communities of Supportpublished in Research on Professional Development Schools: the Teacher Education Yearbook, VIII, ATE Pub.

Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking ABSTRACT Thinking, particularly reflective thinking or inquiry, is essential to both teachers and students learning. In the past 10-15 years numerous commissions, boards, and foundations as well as states and local school districts have identified reflection/inquiry as a standard towards which all teachers and students must strive. However, while the cry for accomplishment in systematic, reflective thinking is clear, it is more difficult to distinguish what systematic, reflective thinking is. There are four problems associated with this lack of definition which make achievement of such a standard difficult. First, it is unclear how systematic reflection is different from other types of thought. Second, it is difficult to assess a skill that that is vaguely defined. Third, without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it has lost its ability to be seen, and therefore has begun to lose its value. And finally, without a clear definition, it is difficult to research the effects of reflective teacher education and professional development upon teachers practice and students learning. It is the purpose of this article to restore some clarity to the concept of reflection and what it means to think, by going back to the roots of reflection in the work of John Dewey. I look at four distinct criteria which characterize Deweys view and offer them as a starting place for talking about reflection, so that it might be taught, learned, assessed, discussed and researched, and thereby evolve in definition and practice, rather than disappear. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In this article Carol Rodgers re-examines Deweys original conception of reflection, drawing on his work in Democracy and Education (1916), How We Think (1933), and Experience and Education (1938). In the past 10-15 years numerous commissions, boards and foundations, (among them, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS)), as well as states and local school districts, have identified reflective practice as a standard towards which all teachers and students must strive. John Dewey is mentioned consistently in books and articles written on reflection, teacher education, and student learning, but an extensive examination of what he actually meant by reflection is missing from the contemporary literature. In fact, over the past 15 years, reflection has suffered from a loss of meaning. In becoming everything to everybody it has lost its ability to be seen. It is the purpose of this article to bring some clarity to the question of what it means to reflect on ones teaching. Rodgers addresses four problems associated with the lack of a clear definition of reflection. First, it is unclear how systematic reflection is different from other types of thought. Does mere participation in a study group, or the keeping of a journal, for example, qualify as 63

reflection? If a teacher wants to think reflectively about/inquire into her practice, what does she do first? How does she know if she is getting better at doing it? To what should she aspire? This leads to a second, concomitant problem: how is a skill that is vaguely defined to be assessed? With the demand for portfolios, for example, that demonstrate reflective thought and practice, what, exactly, are we looking for as evidence of reflection? Are personal ruminations enough or are there specific criteria that can guide assessment? An inherent risk in an imprecise picture of reflection is that, in an age where measurable, observable learning takes priority, reflection is easily dismissed precisely because no one knows what to look for. Even worse, it can be reduced to a checklist of behaviors. Third, without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it is difficult to talk about it. The lack of a common language means that talking about it is either impossible, or practitioners find themselves using terms that are common but hold different meanings, or are different but have over-lapping meanings (e.g. reflection, inquiry, critical thinking, meta-cognition). Finally, without a clear sense of what we mean by reflection, it is difficult to research the effects of reflective teacher education and professional development (e.g., inquiry groups, reflective journals, or book clubs) upon teachers practice and students learning. In an attempt to address this lack of clarity, the author returns to the roots of reflection in Dewey. She looks at four distinct criteria that characterize Deweys concept of reflective thought. These four criteria include the following: First, reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. It is the thread that makes continuity of learning possible, and ensures the progress of the individual and, ultimately, society. It is a means to essentially moral ends. With this criterion the author explores the definition of a meaningful or educative experience. An educative experience has two criteria. It must involveinteraction between the individual and his or her environment, and it must have the element of continuity. The relationships and connections that an individual perceives and makes within and between experiences are what give meaning to experiences that would otherwise be meaningless. Such connections subsequently allow the individual to move into future experiences with greater awareness, understanding, and purpose, providing direction and therefore assuring growth. Secondly, reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. Under this criterion, which forms the heart of the article, the author synthesizes the steps in the reflective process as conceived by Dewey and outlined in How We Think. As Dewey defines it, reflection is a particular way of thinking and cannot be equated with mulling something over. Such thinking, in contrast to reflection, is, in a word, undisciplined. Rodgers identifies six phases of reflection, offering extensive explanations and examples of each. The six phases include: 1) an experience; 2) spontaneous interpretation of the experience; 3) naming the problem(s) or the question(s) that arises out of the experience; 4) generating possible explanations for the problem(s) or question(s) posed; 5) ramifying what has been selected in (4) into full blown hypotheses; and 6) experimenting or testing the selected hypothesis At the end of the process one feels that the meaning one has ascribed to an experience fits, makes sense, and can be relied upon in future experiences. More often than not, of course, once one has tested ones theories in action, more questions, more problems, more ideas arise. In this sense, reflection comes full circle, part of a dialectical process: the testing becomes the next experience, and experiment and experience become synonymous. If one takes the process of reflection seriously, it is impossible for it not to change how one acts in the world. 64

Third, reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others, and requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others. The community also serves as a testing ground for an individuals understanding as it moves from the realm of the personal to the public. It also provides a forum wherein the individual can put form to what it is he or she was thinkingor feelingin the first place. One of the interesting by-products of working in a supportive community is that it allows teachers to acknowledge their inter-dependence in a world that scorns asking for advice and values, above all, independence for both students and teachers. Dewey, always leery of dualisms, recognized that teachers and students need both the support of the community and the ability to act independently within the larger world. Finally, reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others. Dewey believed that the attitudes that the individual brought to bear on the act of reflection could either open the way to learning or block it. Awareness of our attitudes and emotions, and the discipline to harness them and use them to our advantage, is part of the work of a good thinker, he argues. He recognized the tendency in all human beings to see what we wish were true, or what we fear might be true, rather than to accept what evidence tells us is so. Reflection that is guided by attitudes of directness, whole-heartedness, open-mindedness, and responsibility stands a much better chance of broadening ones field of knowledge and awareness and serving the communities within which one lives. Rodgers concludes that by adhering to the essential rigor inherent in Deweys definition of reflection, teachers and educational reformers achieve several ends. First, the process of reflection requires teachers to confront the complexity of teaching and learning. Any action the teacher takes will therefore be considered rather than impulsive. In like fashion, once teachers learn to think reflectively, they can teach their students to do the same, for teachers teach best what they understand deeply from their own experience. From there they can encourage their students to confront thoughtfully the phenomena of their world. Second, because reflection is a particular, defined way of thinking, it can be practiced, assessed, and perfected. Once reflection can be talked about with precision by both teachers and researchers (as well as students), it cannot be so easily dismissed as soft, no r lost in the flurry of vaguely defined movements. Rodgers argues that reflection is not a bandwagon issue or a fad whose time has come and gone, but perhaps the most essential piece of what makes us human, of what makes us learners. Finally, with a clear language of reflection, there can be reflection on reflection, including research on the impact of reflection on both teachers practice and students learning. It is in these ways, as Dewey knew well, that there will be growth in our learning about how to think, to teach, and to learn. Dewey would urge us to reflect carefully upon his theory of reflection in light of our collective experience, changing that theory as our experience and accumulated knowledge dictatethinking to learn. Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking By Carol Rodgers The essential pointthe inner intentthat seems so seldom grasped even by teachers eager to embrace the current reforms is that in order to learn the sorts of things envisioned by reformers, students must think. In fact, such learning is almost exclusively a product or by-product of thinking. Thompson & Zeuli, 1999 Introduction 65

Thompson and Zeulis words are as true for teachers as they are for students. In the past 10-15 years numerous commissions, boards and foundations, (among them, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS); the National Commission on Teaching and Americas Future (NCTAF); the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE); the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), as well as states and local school districts, have identified reflection/inquiry, what Thompson and Zeuli would call thinking to learn, as a standard towards which all teachers and students must strive. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) fourth proposition of accomplished teaching is exemplary of many of these standards: Teachers [must be able to] think systematically about their practice and learn from experience. [They must be able to] critically examine their practice, seek the advice of others, and draw on educational research to deepen their knowledge, sharpen their judgment, and adapt their teaching to new findings and ideas (paraphrased in the report of the National Commission on Teaching and Americas Future, 1996). However, while the cry for accomplishment in systematic, reflective thinking is clear, and the logic that students and teachers must think to learn is undeniable, it is useful to revisit what it is we mean by reflection and thinking. How is the kind of thinking which Thompson and Zeuli and the NBPTS call for different from other modes of thought? It is the purpose of this article to bring some clarity to the question of how teachers must thinkand reflectin order to be able to think to learn. To do so, I return to the work of John Dewey. Dewey is mentioned consistently in books and articles written on reflection, teacher education, and student learning, but an extensive examination of what he actually meant by reflection is missing from the contemporary literature. In fact, over the past 15 years, reflection has suffered from a loss of meaning. In becoming everything to everybody it has lost its ability to be seen. There are four problems associated with the lack of a clear definition of reflection. First, it is unclear how systematic reflection is different from other types of thought. Does mere participation in a study group, or the keeping of a journal, for example, qualify as reflection? If a teacher wants to think reflectively about/inquire into her practice, what does she do first? How does she know if she is getting better at doing it? To what should she aspire? This leads to a second, concomitant problem: how is a skill that is vaguely defined to be assessed? With the demand for portfolios, for example, that demonstrate reflective thought and practice, what, exactly, are we looking for as evidence of reflection? Are personal ruminations enough or are there specific criteria that can guide assessment? Third, without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it is difficult to talk about it. The lack of a common language means that talking about it is either impossible, or practitioners find themselves using terms that are common but hold different meanings, or different but have over-lapping meanings (e.g. reflection, inquiry, critical thinking, meta-cognition). Finally, and no less importantly, without a clear sense of what we mean by reflection, it is difficult to research the effects of reflective teacher education and professional development (for example, inquiry groups, reflective journals, or book clubs) upon teachers practice and students learning, an essential question which must be addressed. An inherent risk in an imprecise picture of reflection is that, in an age where measurable, observable learning takes priority, it is easily dismissed precisely because no one knows what to look for. Or worse, it is reduced to a checklist of behaviors. Dewey reminds us that reflection is a complex, rigorous, intellectual and emotional enterprise that takes time to do well. He gives us a way to talk about reflection and reflective practice so that it does not fall into disuse and instead becomes richer and more complex as a result of that conversation. He provides us with a touchstone, a taproot, from which the conversation can flow and to which it can return when it gets lost or muddled. 66

Below, I look at four distinct criteria that characterize Deweys view of reflectiv e thought and offer them as a starting place for talking about reflection, so that it might be taught, learned, assessed, discussed and researched, and evolve in both meaning and usefulness. In doing so, I acknowledge the risk inherent in delineating reflection. I do not seek to codify it or cement it or have it added to yet another list of standards to be met and tested. My purpose is, quite simply, to provide a clear picture of Deweys original ideas so that they might serve as we improvise, revise, and create new ways of deriving meaning from experiencethinking to learn. Deweys Criteria for Reflection Nearly 100 years ago John Dewey articulated his concept of how we think in a book by the same name (How We Think:1933)i. He identified several modes of thought (including belief, imagination, and stream of consciousness) but the mode he was most interested in was reflection. Nearly a century later the details of his concept of reflection (which, for the purposes of this paper, I will equate with inquiry) are still not familiar. Although his work is frequently cited, with many teacher education programs claiming to turn out reflective practitioners, and although many curricula claim to be inquiry-based, a thorough exploration of the process and purpose of reflection as he outlined it is scant or missing altogether. Scholars of Dewey (e.g., James W. Garrison, Maxine Greene, Anthony G. Rud, Jr., Nel Noddings), who tend to be philosophers rather than practitioners, have addressed these questions, but it is not clear that practitioners (teachers and teacher educators) refer to this literature in constructing their own approaches. Any student of Dewey knows that an encounter with his prose can be work. In an effort to make his thinking more accessible, I have distilled from his writing four criteria that I feel characterize his concept of reflection and the purposes he felt it served. These four criteria include the following: 1) Reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. It is the thread that makes continuity of learning possible, and ensures the progress of the individual and, ultimately, society. It is a means to essentially moral ends. 2) Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. 3) Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others. 4) Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others. Criterion #1: Reflection as a meaning making process This criterion is loaded with several important sub-criteria, each inseparable from the others and part of a coherent, if complex, whole. Connection among pieces that together form a whole, in fact, echoes Deweys view of reflection. In order to understand in depth what this criterion means and to arrive at the centrality of reflection, it is necessary to examine its pieces separately. I start with the whole: Deweys view of the purpose and meaning of education. It is critical to understand that for Dewey the purpose of education was the intellectual, moral, and emotional growth of the individual and, consequently, the evolution of a democratic society, the worth of which is measured by: the extent to which the interests of a group are shared by all its members, ... the fullness and freedom with which it interacts with other groups, ...[and the extent to which it] makes provision for participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life... (1916: 99) 67

Such a society is democratic, he argued, and needed a brand of education which would give the individual a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder (1916: 99). Dewey defined education as that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases [one's] ability to direct the course of subsequent experience (1916: 74). Dewey essentially defines education as a verb rather than a noun. In doing so, he has also given us a definition of learning. Within this definition, which echoes throughout Deweys later works, one encounters the interactions, habits of mind, fullness and freedom, and social relationships articulated above. In an effort to understand all that is contained in the definition, I will systematically examine the terms contained therein, beginning with Deweys notion of experience. An experience, according to Dewey, can be broadly conceived. It is more than simply a matter of direct participation in events. It could be that, or it could be something as ephemeral as interacting with objects which [one] constructs in fancy (1938:43). It could also be the solitary reading of a book or a discussion with others. What is important is that there is interaction between the person and his or her environment. The environment, Dewey argues, is whatever conditions interact with personal needs, desires, purposes, and capacities to create the experience which is had (1938:44). An experience, then, is not an experience unless it involves interaction between the self and another person, the material world, the natural world, an idea, or whatever constitutes the environment at hand. Dewey goes on to point out that because an experience means an interaction between oneself and the world, there is a change not only in the self but also in the environment as a result. The effect is dialectical with implications not just for the learner but for others and the world. Through interaction with the world we both change it and are changed by it. Interaction, then, is the first important element of experience. The second, which is inextricably linked to the first, is continuity. The concept of continuity is central to an understanding of Deweys notion of learning and teaching, and is implied by the term subsequent experience found in the definition above. Dewey speaks of continuity on both a broad and a narrow scale. Broadly, it is the m arch of civilization, what he calls social continuity. The continuity of any experience through renewing of the social group, he writes, is a literal fact. Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life (1938:39). He attributes the advances in science and technology, law, as well as more civilized ways of interacting with one another, to the fact of continuity. (The contemporary reader must forgive Deweys Euro-centric view of what counted as civilized. He frequ ently refers to savages in contrast to more civilized peoples, words that make us cringe today.) More narrowly conceived, continuity means something very close to what Piaget meant by schema building. That is, we make sense of each new experience based upon the meaning gleaned from our own past experiences, as well as other prior knowledge we have about the world what we have heard and read of others experiences and ideas. Dewey writes: What [an individual] has learned in the way of knowledge and skill in one situation becomes an instrument of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow. The process goes on as long as life and learning continue (1938:44). Interaction and continuity, the elements of experience, are the x and y axes of experience. Without interaction learning is sterile and passive, never fundamentally changing the learner. Without continuity learning is random and disconnected, building toward nothing either within the learner or in the world. If experiences are the basis of ones learning, however, they are not necessarily always constructive, or educative experiences. According to Dewey there are both educative and mis-educative experiences. A mis-educative experience is one that arrests or distorts 68

growth. A close reading of Dewey also conveys that a mis -educative experience leads in a callous, insensitive and generally immoral direction. He gives the example of a child who learns how to manipulate his parents. He may in fact become, as many children do, an exceptionally talented manipulator. The child may well demonstrate real, and more and more refined, skill at getting exactly what he wants from others. The result of such does not lead towards growth as Dewey defines it, nor does it contribute to the greater good of society. It does not reveal new perceptions of bearings or connections which lead to a broadening of ones moral understanding of self and the world. A mis-educative experience can also be one that leads someone into routine action, thus narrow[ing] the field of further experience, and limiting the meaning-horizon (1916:78). Routine action suggests that one acts without an awareness of the effect of on es actions on the environment (including others). One is therefore closed to the impact that the environment might have on him or her. Thus the cycle of growth which results from two-way interactions is halted. Routine habits, Dewey points out, possess us rather than having dominion over them. The former suggests lack of awareness and self-serving motives; the latter awareness, and the desire to contribute to the larger good. An educative experience, on the other hand, is one that broadens the field of experience and knowledge, brings awareness to bear, and leads in a constructive direction, towards intelligent action. It is characterized by forward movement rather than stagnation. Intelligent action is considered rather than impulsive, and is shaped by data garnered from experience at one end, and ones goal or purpose (one that serves society) at the other. It is the aim of progressive education, wrote Dewey, to take part in correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation, not to perpetuate them (1916:119). Experiences alone, however, even educative ones, are not enough, claims Dewey. What is critical is the ability to perceive and then weave meaning among the threads of experience. Experience is not primarily cognitive, Dewey asserts. That is, an experience is not the same as thought. Rather, it is the meaning that one perceives in and then constructs from an experience that gives that experience value. An experience exists in time and is therefore linked to the past and the future. [T]he measure of the value of an experience lies in the perception of relationships or continuities to which it leads up. It includes cognition in the degree in which it is cumulative or amounts to something, or has meaning (1916: 140). And here, at last, we come to the role of reflection. The function of reflection is to make meaning: to formulate the relationships and continuities among the elements of an experience, between that experience and other experiences, between that experience and the knowledge that one carries, and between that knowledge and the knowledge produced by thinkers other than oneself. In discovery of the detailed connections of our activities and what happens in consequence, the thought implied in cut and try [sic] experience is made explicit. Hence the quality of the experience changes; the change is so significant that we may call this type of experience reflective that is, reflective par excellence (1916:170). The creation of meaning out of experience is at the very heart of what it means to be human. It is what enables us to make sense of and attribute value to the events of our lives. Dewey ascribes the act of meaning making to the soul. He ponders, What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worthwhile, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur (1938:49)? 69

Let us return for a moment to Deweys definition of education: that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases [one's] ability to direct the course of subsequent experience. Reflection is that process of reconstruction and reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience. (The steps in this process are outlined in detail below.) An experience has meaning because of the relationships that the individual perceives. Aldous Huxley once wrote, Experience is not what happens to you, its what you do with what happens to you (cited in Kegan, 1983:11). Dewey might alter this to say that experience is what happens to you; what you do with what happens to you is directly dependent upon the meaning that you make of it. And while the experiences that befall us may be out of our control, the meaning that we make of them is not. To move the discussion to the realm of teaching for a moment, we can say that a reflective teacher does not merely seek solutions, nor does she do things the same way every day without an awareness of both the source and the impact of her actions. Rather, from her practice and her students learning she seeks meaning and creates from this a theory to live by, or that provides structure for the growth of her students and herself. When she seeks solutions she also pursues connections and relationships between solutions so that a theory might grow. This theory guides practice (which includes, but is not limited to problem solving) until it encounters a situation where the theory no longer serves, at which point, through more reflection, it is either revised, refined, or discarded, and a new theory is born. To understand this journey from practice to theory, and around again to practice, it is necessary to understand the process of reflection itself. The next criterion explores that process. Criterion # 2: Reflection as a rigorous way of thinking In How We Think (1933), Dewey explores the process of reflection in great detail. It is complex, and Dewey uses at least thirty different specialized terms in his efforts to describe it. This may be one of the reasons that educators have shied away from tackling his vision of reflection; Dewey was a philosopher, and the urge to leave such efforts to other philosophers is understandable. As a teacher educator, and not a philosopher, I have found it helpful to approach the book with an eye towards my own experiences as well as those of teachers with whom I have worked. In an effort to make Deweys ideas as accessible as possible, I have tried to limit my use of the specialized terms here without losing the essential meaning behind them. As Dewey defines it, reflection is a particular way of thinking and cannot be equated with mere haphazard mulling over something. Such thinking, in contrast to reflection, is, in a word, undisciplined. Dewey mentions three kinds of thought that he distinguishes from reflection: stream of consciousness, invention, and belief. While he clearly values reflection as the road to learning, at the same time he does not dismiss these other kinds of thinking, acknowledging that they often serve up the very questions that reflection can productively tackle. The first of these other kinds of thinking is stream of consciousness thought. It is the thinking all of us are involuntarily awash in all the time. An uncontrolled coursing of ideas through our heads, Dewey calls it (1933:4). This is often the only kind of thinking teachers have time for. Reflective thought, in contrast, comprises definite units that are linked together so that there is a sustained movement to a common end (5). The second kind of thinking is invention. Invention stands in contrast to direct perception of facts it is, in short, imagination. While Dewey contrasts imagination with the rigors of reflection, he does see its importance within reflection. Reflection requires that the thinker draw upon past experience, image-ing other events that are similar to or different from 70

the experience being inquired into. Imagining is therefore a subset of reflection, but cannot be counted as equivalent. The third kind of thinking Dewey identifies is believing. He characterizes this kind of thought as prejudgments, not conclusions reached as the result of personal mental activity, such as observing, collecting, and examining evidence. Even when they happen to be correct [like the belief that the earth is round] their correctness is a matter of accident as far as the person who entertains them is concerned (7). Reflection, in contrast to acceptance of conventional belief, constitutes [a]ctive, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends (italics in original) (9). Dewey cites Christopher Columbus as a reflective thinker, noting that he must have concluded that the world was round rather than flat based on his experience as a navigator. (A questionable example on Deweys part since Columbus contemporaries actually knew full well that the earth was round!) The impulse to reflect is generated by an encounter with, and the conscious perception of, the potential significance inherent in an experience. Not everyone is able to perceive this potential. (How many apples had fallen on heads before Newton perceived the inherent significance of the event?) Thus an additional quality is necessary in the person a quality of being present to the nature of the experience and an openness to its potential meanings. It is the bridge of meaning that connects one experience to the next and that gives direction and impetus to growth. The process of reflection, Dewey claims, moves the learner from a disturbing state of perplexity (also referred to by him as disequilibrium) to a harmonious state of settledness (equilibrium). Perplexity is created when an individual encounters a situation whose whole full character is not yet determined (1916:150). That is, the meaning(s) of the experience has not yet been fully established. The internal experience for the learner is one of disequilibrium and unsettledness. It is a yearning for balance that in turn drives the learner to do something to resolve it namely, to start the process of inquiry, or reflection. An additional source of motivation is curiosity, without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection: [U]ntil we understand, we are, if we have curiosity, troubled, baffled, and hence moved to inquire (1933:132). While curiosity comes naturally to children, a child-like wonder about the world is something that adults often must cultivate in themselves. In my own work with teachers, I have been struck by the importance of curiosity. While many teachers get caught in the web of perplexity, not all of them care, or, more often, feel they have the time to explore why they are stymied. They can revert to blaming either the students or themselves, or they simply give up, figuring theyll never understand and lack the time to do so anyway. Curiosity, in contrast, bespeaks a positive, wide-eyed attitude toward both ones own and others learning. I will return to the other attitudes that Dewey values in the fourth criterion. The process of reflection can be broken down into six phases. Let it be said that Dewey himself is less than clear about these phases and leaves it to the reader to divide them up. For example, in How We Think (1933), he identifies first two and then five phases; in Democracy and Education (1916) he writes of five slightly different phases. He uses terms ambiguously, first making a distinction between, for example, an idea and a suggestion, and then using them interchangeably. Be that as it may, he does make it clear that a reflective thinker moves deliberately from the data of the experience to formulating a theory, to testing his theory about the experience. In an effort at clarity, the words I use to label these phases are my own. The following six phases of reflection, which clearly mirror the scientific method, consistently appear in his writing about the process: 6) an experience; 7) spontaneous interpretation of the experience; 71

8) naming the problem(s) or the question(s) that arises out of the experience; 9) generating possible explanations for the problem(s) or question(s) posed; 10) ramifying what has been selected in (4) into full blown hypotheses; 11) experimenting or testing the selected hypothesis. I have already explored the nature of an experience. I will therefore start with number two. 2) Spontaneous interpretation of the experience. As soon as one is in an experience, as well as after an experience, spontaneous interpretation of what is going on ensues. In the initial phases of reflective thought, this interpretation is involuntary. Things leap to mind. From the feltness of the experience possible meanings suggest themselves. These suggestions, as Dewey calls them, come out of our previous experiences, and are therefore sensible, though not always thoughtful conclusions. To stop the thought process here is irresponsible, Dewey argues, because an interpretation necessarily leads to an action, and an action based on aleapt to conclusion could be an inappropriate, or even a harmful, one. It requires discipline and patience: [A person] may jump at a conclusion without weighing the grounds on which it rests; he may forego or unduly shorten the act of hunting, inquiring; he may take the first answer, or solution, that comes to him because of mental sloth, torpor, impatience to get something settled. One can think reflectively only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching (1933:16). Dewey notes that the first step once one is in an experience is to note or perceive a fact (e.g., a cloud). the seen thing is regarded as in some way the ground or basis of belief in the suggested thing; it possesses the quality of evidence (1933:10). This is a critical point. What one sees, that is what one directs ones attention to, is limited, especially in a classroom setting where it is impossible to see everything. One can, however, develop ones ability to be present, to perceive more rather than less. Experienced teachers seem to have this abilitytheir awareness spreads like a net over the infinite number of facts of classroom life. So the suggestions, inferences, or interpretations a teacher makes depend upon what she perceives and upon her experience, which in turn, Dewey notes depends upon the general state of the culture. In addition, interpretations are subject to the persons own preferences, desires, interests, or even his immediate state of passion (1933:96). This points to the important role that commitment to ones growth and an attitude of open-mindedness play. I discuss this further under the fourth criterion. Dewey was acutely aware of the need to slow down the interval between thought and action in this phase of reflection. Time to reflect is essential, he wrote, especially with the novice. He distinguishes the thought of an expert and that of a novice. It may be that one sign of the experienced teacher is a shortening of the time needed between thought and action. In others words, a veteran teacher may move through all six phases of reflection in a relative instant. A related difference might reside in the depth of the teachers experience. The important and relevant aspects of an experience are quickly recognizable to the veteran, since the connections that have been formulated over time are broad, and the skills one might draw upon to respond are well-developed. A yawning student to an expert may suggest a number of possibilities ranging from fatigue to resistance, with a range of concomitant responses from which to choose. To a novice it may only suggest boredom, eliciting, for example, a selfjudgmental or an angry interpretation Im a boring teacher, or They have no respect! and a reaction that punishes herself or her students, rather than responds to students needs. Schns reflection-in-action is actually present in both the novice and expert. The difference is a question of wisdom garnered through experience being able to select and apply just what is needed when it is needed (1933:65). So an experts spontaneous interpretation may be much wiser than a novices considered response. Yet Dewey would 72

contend that even an experts interpretation is not beyond question. The store of ones wisdom is the result of the extent of ones reflection. It is also often in the slowing down that teachers, especially experienced teachers, begin to discover what it is that they already know what Polanyi and later Shulman called their tacit knowledge. 3) Naming the problem or the question that arises out of the experience. Dewey calls this phase of thought intellectualization, or locating the problem. I choose to think of this step and the preceding one as phases of observation and description of the experience. There is a distancing of the problem as it were getting enough distance so that one can see, like backing away from a painting in order to see the whole picture. In addition, ones first emotional reaction, along with the visible facts of an experience, becomes an object of thought. One moves from an impressionistic sense of things to an articulated idea. [T]here is a process of intellectualizing what at first is merely an emotional quality of the whole situation. This conversion is effected by noting more definitely the conditions that constitute the trouble Formulating the problem or question itself is half the work. As Dewey says, A question well put is half answered (1933:108). There can be a great sense of relief and accomplishment at this stage of the reflective process, because making meaning has begun. It is not a casual process, but a disciplined one which demands that the individual continually ground his or her thinking in evidence and not overlook important data that may not fit his or her evolving ideas. The discipline of description as distinct from interpretation) can bring these facts to light. This phase also demands that the learner align those data and the questions he or she poses; that is, is the question relevant to the datathe text of ones experience? Is there, in other words, integrity to the inquiry process? This is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of the reflection. The question that a learner is able to formulate depends directly upon the completeness and complexity of the data or description that he or she has gathered and generated. The completeness and complexity of the data are in turn made visible according to the extent of the teachers own ability to observe, pay attention, perceive, and be openin short, be presentto all that is happening in the classroom. 4) Generating possible explanations for the problem or question posed. In this phase the individual returns to the suggestions that arose in phase two) either refining them so that they are more like probabilities, or rejecting them as improbable. Dewey calls this the formation of tentative hypotheses. It is the first phase of analysis. The explanations that arise will come from a synthesis of the meaning derived from the current experience with that drawn from previous experiences. In addition, in this case, the learner goes to other sources beyond him or herself. Bringing in other resources, both people and books, is paramount to deepening and broadening the scope of ones understanding. The point here is that a number of possible connections are now being generated, and meaning is beginning to take shape, rather like a sculpture that has undergone its first defining chisel. 5) Ramifying selected hypotheses into full-blown theories. The division between this phase and phase four is difficult to discern; one flows seamlessly into the next. Phase five is a more intense and focused version of phase four, but they both involve analysis. Dewey himself condenses them at an earlier point under the heading of reasoning (1916: 150). It is these two phases, Dewey contends, that set reflective thought apart from other forms of thought. Reconstructing or reorganizing experience means more than just taking swipes at the obvious elements of an experience, the sculptor hacking away at a protrusion on the marble or wood. It means spending enough time with the data of an experience, with the texture and density and grain of it, so that it can emerge in all its complexity. What might have been a reaction based on a simple-minded analysis (phase two), is thus transformed into a possible reflective response based on full knowledge of its ramifications. This phase could be understood as a series of 73

intellectual dry runs through the problem/question and its various conclusions. It provides a platform of reason and understanding from which one can take the next step, intelligent action. Dewey understood the implications of depriving teachers of this phase of reflection. He frequently referred to the intellectual dependency teachers have on other authorities (school boards, textbook publishers, principals, superintendents) to make their teaching decisions for them. As early as 1904 Dewey deplored the willingness of our teaching corps to accept without inquiry or criticism any method or device which seems to promise good results. Teachers flock to those persons who give them clear-cut and definite instructions as to just how to teach this or that (1904:152). He consistently cites the need to develop teachers professionalism. Such professionalism, he argued, grows out of a scientific (reflective) approach to education. As with any learner, teachers who are given a chance to reflect systematically on their experience can come to an understanding of what their students do and why. With these understandings in hand, they are better equipped to articulate their needs and their students needs, to take stands, and to propose actions, both inside and outside the classroom walls. 6) Experimentation. Often those who write about reflection will stop before this final phase, forgetting that for Dewey, reflection must include action. Deweys notion of responsibility, one of the four attitudes he felt were integral to reflection, implies that reflection that does not lead to action falls short of being responsible. Reflection is not a casual affair. Nonetheless, he also understood that the action that one does take is not definitive. That is, it is an experiment, a testing of ones theories. (Appropriately, the words experience and experiment share the same Latin root; the sixteenth-century definition of an experience was to experiment, to put to the test.ii In French, they are still one and the same word, experience.) The consequent action that one takes is intelligent and qualitatively different from routine action because of the thought that has preceded it. A colleague of mine makes the distinction between a reaction and a response. A reaction, he says, is like the snap of ones fingers, an automatic type of [reply] that does not have any assessment or thought to it (Millett, 1998:2). A response, on the other hand, is based upon careful assessment and thought. In fact, the anatomy of a response is hugely complex. It is based on knowledge and awareness of the learner, oneself, the subject matter, the contexts within which we all operate, and the dynamic interactions among all of these. This final phase of reflection is the one that offers the possibility of settledness, a resolution to the disequilibrium. One finally feels that the meaning one has ascribed to an experience fits, makes sense, and can be relied upon in future experiences. More often than not, of course, once one has tested ones theories in action, more questions, more problems, more ideas arise. In this sense the process is dialectical; reflection comes full circle, the testing becomes the next experience, and experiment and experience become, in fact, synonymous. In effect, it may be possible to collapse Deweys six phases into four:iii 1) presence to experience 2) description of experience (This step implies holding at bay spontaneous interpretations Deweys phase twountil analysis, where they can be more closely examined in light of the data gathered. Carinis work (2000) illuminates the profound possibilities of this step.) 3) analysis of experience (which subsumes Deweys phases four and five) 4) intelligent action/experimentation (Deweys phase six). In my own work with reflective professional development groups, we have used these steps to good effect. Questions, problems, and ideas weave themselves through all four phases, evolving and refining themselves as they do so. It should be clear that the movement from experience, to spontaneous interpretation, to naming the problem and reasoning through its complexities, must lead to change. The individual 74

acts in that world according to the new meanings he derives and imposes. I alluded above to the fact that while individuals can create meaning in isolation, interpretation can be fuller and more complex when generated in community. The third criterion of reflection, below, explores the implications of reflection in a community of fellow thinkers. Criterion #3: Reflection in community Dewey knew that merely to think without ever having to express what one thought is an incomplete act. He recognized that having to express oneself to others, so that they truly understand ones ideas, reveals both the strengths and the holes in ones thinking. The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated, he writes. Then continues: To formulate requires getting outside of [the experience], seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. One has to assimilate, imaginatively, something of anothers experience in order to tell him intelligently of ones own experience. A man really living alone (alone mentally as well as physically) would have little or no occasion to reflect upon his past experience to extract its net meaning (1916: 6). He also knew that in the act of sharing, ones field of experience broadened: In so far as we are partners in common undertakings, the things which others communicate to us as the consequences of their particular share in the enterprise blend at once into the experience resulting from our own special doing (1916: 186). Drawing on my own experience as a teacher educator and facilitator of reflective professional development seminars, I have identified at least three factors that highlight the benefits of collaborative reflection: 1) affirmation of the value of ones experience: in isolation what matters can be too easily dismissed as unimportant; 2) seeing things newly: others offer alternative meanings, broadening the field of understanding; 3) support to engage in the process of inquiry: the self-discipline required for the kind of reflection that Dewey advocates, especially given the overwhelming demands of a teachers day, is difficult to sustain alone. When one is accountable to a group, one feels a responsibility towards others that is more compelling than the responsibility we feel to only ourselves. One of the interesting by-products of working in a supportive community is that it allows teachers to acknowledge their inter-dependence in a world that scorns asking for advice and values, above all, independence for both students and teachers. Dewey, always leery of dualisms, recognized that teachers and students need both the support of the community and the ability to act independently within the larger world. As psychologist Robert Kegan points out, deciding for myself should not be confused with deciding by myself (1994:219). No teacher outgrows the need for others perspectives, experience and support not if they are interested in being what Dewey calls life-long students of teaching. The community also serves as a testing ground for an individuals understanding as it moves from the realm of the personal to the public. A reflective community also provides a forum wherein the individual can put form to what it is he or she was thinkingor feelingin the first place. Dewey scholar Richard Prawat (2000) points out the critical role that language plays in making personal knowledge universal: Language is key, he writes. It allows the individual to transform his or her own inchoate understanding into a form that is more conscious and rational, thus serving the self. It also allows the individual to share insight or understanding with others, thus serving he community (6). While reflection with others is essential, to speak of reflection in community and to ignore the dispositions that are needed is to neglect an essential part of the act of reflection. Dewey was very aware of the fact that reflective work, and especially work in reflective communities, demanded particular attitudes. It is to these attitudes that we now turn. 75

Criterion #4: Reflection as a set of attitudes Human beings are not normally divided into two parts, the one emotional, the other coldly intellectual the one matter of fact, the other imaginative. The split does, indeed, often get established, but that is always because of false methods of education. Natively and normally the personality works as a whole. There is no integration of character and mind unless there is fusion of the intellectual and the emotional, of meaning and value, of fact and imaginative running beyond fact into the realm of desired possibilities (1933:278). Deweys awareness of what educators call the affective dimension of learning is often overlooked. Because he wrote How We Think, and not How We Feel, it is perhaps not surprising. But Dewey had a keen understanding of the role that affect plays in learning, which he explores, at least in part, in his discussion of attitudes, or dispositions in both How We Think and Democracy and Education. Dewey believed that the attitudes that the individual brought to bear on the act of reflection could either open the way to learning or block it. Awareness of our attitudes and emotions, and the discipline to harness them and use them to our advantage, is part of the work of a good thinker, he argues. He recognized the tendency in all human beings to see what we wish were true, or what we fear is true, rather than to accept what evidence tells us is so. Dewey cautions against the dangers of believing that which is in harmony with desire (1933: 30). By the same token, there are also those of us who tend to believe the worstthat which we fear most. When desire, fear, need, or other strong emotions direct the course of inquiry, we tend to acknowledge only the evidence that reinforces that premise, causing learning to become tightly circumscribed. In contrast, reflection that is guided by directness,iv whole-heartedness, openmindedness, and responsibility, while more difficult, stands a much better chance of broadening ones field of knowledge and awareness. Of course, one is seldom wholly open-minded, wholehearted, and so forth, or wholly fearful or needy. We are usually a combination of many of these. I explore each of these four attitudes below. Whole-heartedness. Whole-heartedness, also called single-mindedness in Democracy and Education, indicates a genuine, no holds barred enthusiasm about ones subject matter. A teachers subject matter can be seen as threefold: it includes a) the actual content she is teaching French, for example; b) the learners learning of French; and c) the teachers teaching and how it is affecting the students learning. This triangle of factors (teacher/teaching; learner/learning; and contentwhat Hawkins called the I-Thou-It) interacts to form a dynamic nexus, held in tension by the force field of context/sthe larger It, other Is and Thous, the classroom, school, community and outward, even to the levels of nation and globe. While Dewey wrote primarily about content, together these four factors can be assumed to constitute a kind of meta-subject matterteaching itself. (See Figure 1.)

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CONTEXTS
I
IT THOU

Figure 1: I, Thou, It, and Contexts

Curiosity about and enthusiasm for that subject matter is essential to good teaching. Without them a teacher has no energy, no fuel, to carry out reflective inquirymuch less teaching itself. This kind of total engagement is what Dewey meant by whole-heartedness. Without whole-heartedness, there exists indifference, and the energy to observe and gather information about learners and their learning, ones teaching and so forth, is not there. It is therefore essential to reflective thinking. On the other hand, if a teacher possesses an attitude of whole-heartedness yet works in a context that beats it out of her by giving her too many students, a curriculum without flexibility, tests that must be taught to and no time to share with other teachers, let alone time to reflect, whole-heartedness obviously suffers, and too often withers to resignation and even bitterness. Directness. Dewey said that directness can best be described by what it is not. It is not self-consciousness, distractedness, or constant preoccupation with how others perceive ones performance. Rather, it indicates a confidence, but not a cockiness, that is almost childlike in its genuineness, yet adult in its lack of self-absorption. It bespeaks an attitude of trust in the validity of ones own experience without spending a lot of time worrying about the judgment of others. It resembles whole-heartedness in its single-minded nature, but its focus on an absence of anxiety about oneself makes it distinct and important. It is what beginning teachers often lack. Because they are so identified with the content and their teaching of it, they often totally miss what is going on around them, most importantly, the learners and their learning. While directness means being free of self-absorption, it does not preclude observing oneself in a more detached way. Indeed, the growth of a teacher may well pass from selfabsorption, to forgetting herself, and finally to self-awareness (observing and reflecting upon her actions, thoughts, and emotions), as her reflective practice evolves. (See Figure 2.)

Self-absorption

Forgetting oneself

77 Self-awareness

Figure 2: Evolution of Directness in Teachers A reflective teacher who possesses an attitude of directness might well ask, Where was the learning in todays work? This is a very different question from What did I teach today? Beginning teachers (as well as students!) often confuse the two questions. Being able to answer the first question depends entirely on a teachers ability to observe, and the ability to observe is directly proportional to the degree to which one can be free from pre-occupation. One common pre-occupation for beginning teachers is the subject matter itself, or to be more precise, lack of subject matter knowledge. Dewey wisely points out that without a grounding in the subject matter reflection is difficult: The teacher must have his mind free to observe the mental responses and movement of the student... The problem of the pupils is found in the subject matter; the problem of teachers is what the minds of pupils are doing with the subject matter. Unless the teachers mind has mastered the subject matter in advance, unless it is thoroughly at home in it, using it unconsciously without need of express thought, he will not be free to give full time and attention to observation and interpretation of the pupils intellectual reactions. The teacher must be alive to all forms of bodily expression of mental condition to puzzlement, boredom, mastery, the dawn of an idea, feigned attention, tendency to show off, to dominate discussion because of egotism, etc. as well as sensitive to the meaning of all expression in words. He must be aware not only of their meaning, but of their meaning as indicative of the state of mind of the pupil, his degree of observation and comprehension (1933:275) (italics in original). An attitude of directness is a prerequisite to reflection because, until the teacher is able to focus on all elements of the I-Thou-It and their contexts, reflection risks getting stuck on the level of self. While self is one part of the subject matter of teaching, it is significant only as it connects to the other elements. In the absence of such a connection, reflection risks, and is often rightly judged as, being narcissistic. Open-mindedness. Open-mindedness is the third of Deweys attitudes. He has a lovely way of characterizing open-mindedness as hospitality to new ways of seeing and understanding. He makes a delightful distinction between open-mindedness and emptymindedness, however; it is not, as he puts it, a matter of saying, Come right in; there is nobody at home (1933:30)! In other words, open-mindedness is not a blind acceptance of all ideas without intelligent critique. Rather, it means a willingness to entertain different perspectives, coupled with an acceptance of the possibility of error even in the beliefs that are dearest to us (1933:30), and acknowledgment of the limitations of ones own perspective. Dewey reminds us that to be open-minded means not only being hospitable but playfulnot clinging too tightly to our ideas, but releasing the mind to play over and around them. Responsibility. Responsibility helps to bound and ground whole-heartedness, directness, and open-mindedness. It is the reality check. It asks, What are the real -life implications of my thinking? It also implies that a carefully considered line of thought should lead to ac tion. Dewey wrote that to be intellectually responsible is to consider the consequences of a projected step; it means to be willing to adopt these consequences when they follow reasonably from any position already taken. [Learners 78

must ask] for the meaning of what they learn, in the sense of what difference it makes to the rest of their beliefs and to their actions (1933:32). Being responsible also means acknowledging that the meaning we are acting on is our meaning, and not a disembodied meaning that is out there. As Kegan puts it, [W]e make sense, but we do not always take responsibility for it as made. We are more likely to believe it is the way the world is made (and leave out the agent of that passively constructed sentence) (1994:206). Our meaning making does not stand isolated from our view of the world, but grows out of and leads back into it, possibly demanding that our view change radically. It might also mean that the way in which one participates in the world has to change. For example, a teacher I know recently came to the realization that her refugee students level of English was far below what she had thought. She realized after some observation and analysis that they were not, in fact, resistant or lazy. Before they were able to read sophisticated articles about sexual harassment, for example, (where she wanted them to be), basic vocabulary and pronunciation (where they actually were) had to come first. In other words, once the meaning she made of her and her students experience in class shifted from the students are lazy and resistant to the students are ill-equipped, it would have been irresponsible to continue teaching them as she had been. Simultaneously, she had to take responsibility for her own desires, (that students be more advanced, that they be able to dig into sophisticated topics, that they be concerned with the same issues of social justice that she was), and the ways in which her desires were distorting the meaning of her experience and her students learning. Readiness. As a whole, the four attitudes above comprise the essential constituents of what Dewey calls readiness to engage in reflection. Dewey freely admits that they do not necessarily cover the range of attitudes necessary for reflection. Given such an opening, I would add two others, which Dewey does refer to in other placescuriosity and the desire for growth. Without these, the courage required for truly reflective work would be absent. Truly to inquire into ones practice in a whole-hearted, direct, open-minded, responsible way demands the courage to release not only what one holds dear but the elements of ones very identity. Again, Kegan helps us to understand this when he writes that being able to think [reflectively] is not just a discrete skill, it is an active demonstration of a mind that can stand enough apart from its own opinions, values, rules, and definitions to avoid being completely identified with them. It is able to keep from feeling that the whole self has been violated when its opinions, values, rules, or definitions are challenged (1994:231). Summary I have discussed four criteria for reflection that come primarily from How We Think, Democracy and Education, and Education and Experience. I have tried to demonstrate that reflection is not an end in itself, but a tool or vehicle used in the transformation of raw experience into meaning-filled theory that is grounded in experience, informed by existing theory, and serves the larger purpose of the moral growth of the individual and society. It is an iterative, forward-moving spiral from practice to theory and theory to practice. I have emphasized that the process of reflection is rigorous and systematic, and distinct from other, lessstructured kinds of thinking. It has its origins in the scientific method, and as such, includes precise steps: observation and detailed description of an experience, an analysis of the experience which includes generation of explanations and development of theories, and experimentationa test of theory. This experimentation, which involves interactions between the self, others, and ones environment, in turn serves as the next experience from which learning can continue, a phenomenon which Dewey called continuity. This can all happen in solitude, but in community with others the learner will broaden her understanding of an experience beyond where it might go in isolation. 79

At the same time that reflection requires cognitive discipline, it also calls upon an individuals emotional discipline. As much as possible she must remain engaged in the experience as it is happening, in an undistracted way, so that data can be gathered through observation (whole-heartedness and directness). She must also remain open-minded, entertaining many interpretations of her experience so that she does not limit her understanding and the actions that flow from it. Finally, she must accept that a shift in understanding of an experience may call for an entire shift in outlook. And responsibility demands that action practiceline up with outlooktheory. Conclusion Dewey was precise in his description of what it means to think reflectively. By adhering to the essential rigor inherent in his definition, teachers and reformers achieve several ends. First, the process of reflection, and the steps of observation and description in particular, require the teacher to confront the complexity of students and their learning, of themselves and their teaching, their subject matter, and the contexts in which all these operate. Any action the teacher takes, therefore, will be considered rather than impulsive, and based on a deep knowledge of each of these elements and their interactions, which ultimately can only benefit students learning. In like fashion, once teachers learn to think, they can teach their students to do the same, for teachers teach best what they understand deeply from their own experience. From there they can encourage their students to confront thoughtfully the phenomena of their world. Second, because reflection is a particular, defined way of thinking, it can be practiced, assessed, and perfected. Once reflection can be talked about with precision by both teachers and researchers (as well as students!), it cannot be so easily dismissed as soft, nor lost in the flurry of vaguely defined movements. How to think reflectively, after all, is not a bandwagon issue. It is not a fad whose time has come and gone, but perhaps the most essential piece of what makes us human, of what makes us learners. Finally, with a clear language of reflection, there can be reflection on reflection, including research on the impact of reflection on both teachers practice and students learning. It is in these ways, as Dewey knew well, that there will be growth in our learning about how to think, to teach, and to learn. Dewey would urge us to reflect carefully upon his theory of reflection in light of our collective experience, changing that theory as our experience and accumulated knowledge dictatethinking to learn.

References Allen, D. (Ed.) (1998). Assessing student learning: From grading to understanding. New York: Teachers College Press. Argyris, C., & Schn, D.A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Blythe, T., Allen, D., & Powell, B.S. (1999). Looking together at student work: A companion guide to Assessing student learning. New York: Teachers College Press. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning and communities. In Iran-Nejad, A. & Pearson, P.D., (Eds.), Review of research in education (pp. 249-305). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. 80

Dewey, J. (1904). The relation of theory to practice in education. In Borrowman, M.L. (ed.), Teacher education in America: A documentary history. New York: Teachers College Press. Dewey, J. (1916/1944). Democracy and education. New York: Free Press. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Co. Duckworth, E. (1987). The having of wonderful ideas and other essays on teaching and learning. New York: Teachers College Press. Garrison, J.W., & Rud, A.G. Jr. (1995). The educational conversation: Closing the gap. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. Hawkins, D. (1974). The informed vision: Essays on learning and human nature. New York: Agathorn Press. Himley, M. (Ed.) with Carini. P. (2000). From another angle: Childrens strengths and school standards. New York: Teachers College Press. Johnson, W. (1997). Voices: An interview with Jack Millett. In TESOL Matters, October, 1997. Kegan, R. (1983). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Kegan, R. (1994). In Over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PTR Prentice Hall. McCarthy, C.L. & Sears, E. (2000). Deweyan pragmatism and the quest for true belief. Educational Theory, Spring 2000, Vol. 50, No. 2, (pp. 213-227.) National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (1987). The five propositions of accomplished teaching. Internet site: www.nbpts.org. National Commission on Teaching and Americans Future (1996). What matters most: Teaching for Americas future. New York: NCTAF. National Foundation for the Improvement of Education (1996). Teachers take charge of their learning. Washington, DC: NFIE. National Staff Development Council (1995). Standards for staff development. Oxford, Ohio: NSDC.

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Osterman, K.F., & Kottkamp, R.B. (1993). Reflective practice for educators: Improving Schooling Through professional development. Newbury Park, California: Corwin Press, Inc. Polanyi, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Prawat, R.S. (2000). The two faces of Deweyan pragmatism: Inductionism versus social constructivism. Teachers College Record, Vol. 102, No. 4, (pp. 805-840). Schn, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action . New York: Basic Books. Shulman, L. (1988). The dangers of dichotomous thinking in education (pp. 31-39). In Grimmet, P. & Erickson, G. (1988). Reflection in teacher education . New York: Teachers College Press. Siedel, S. (1998). Wondering to be done: The collaborative assessment conference (pp. 21-39). In Allen, D. (Ed.) (1998). Assessing student learning: From grading to understanding. New York: Teachers College Press. Thompson, C.L., & Zeuli, J.S. (1999). The frame and the tapestry: Standards-based reform and professional development. In Darling-Hammond, L. & Sykes, G. (Eds.), Teaching as the learning professional: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 341-375). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Yinger, R.J., & Hendricks-Lee, M.S. (1998). Professional development standards as a new context for professional development in the US. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 4 (2), 273-278. Zeichner, K., & Liston, D. (1996). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum, Pub. END NOTES
2

Dewey wrote two versions of How We Think, one in 1910 and the second in 1933. The 1933 version is considerably different from the 1910 version. Richard Prawat (2000) and others (McCarthy& Sears, 2000) point out that the first version preceded Deweys shift from a more Jamesian view (nominalism) to a point of view more aligned with Charles Sanders Peirce (realism). The version referred to in this paper is the second, 1933 version. The shorter oxford English dictionary on historical principles, (1965), London. These phases were born of numerous discussions and a joint presentation at the 1999 TESOL convention in New York City with my colleagues Claire Stanley and Jack Millett of the School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont. The first edition of How We Think was published in 1910 and contained no explicit mention of attitudes. Six years later, with the emergence of Democracy and Education, Dewey addressed four attitudes: directness, wholeheartedness, open-mindedness, and responsibility. With the revision of How We Think in 1933, Dewey included a discussion of attitudes, but only three of the original four survived, leaving directness out of the 1933 text. Directness resembled whole-heartedness, which may be the reason he dropped it, but I feel it is a distinct attitude worth cultivating, and so I include it here.

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"Treat Learners Like Adults"

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-1.htm

1. Adults are people with years of experience and a wealth of information.Focus on the strengths learners bring to the classroom, not just gaps in their knowledge. Provide opportunities for dialogue within the group. Tap their experience as a major source of enrichment to the class. Remember that you, the teacher, do not need to have all the answers, as long as you know where to go or who to call to get the answers. Students can be resources to you and to each other. 2. Adults have established values, beliefs and opinions. Demonstrate respect for differing beliefs, religions, value systems and lifestyles. Let your learners know that they are entitled to their values, beliefs and opinions, but that everyone in the room may not share their beliefs. Allow debate and challenge of ideas. 3. Adults are people whose style and pace of learning has probably changed. Use a variety of teaching strategies such as small group problem solving and discussion. Use auditory, visual, tactile and participatory teaching methods. Reaction time and speed of learning may be slow, but the ability to learn is not impaired by age. Most adults prefer teaching methods other than lecture. 4. Adults relate new knowledge and information to previously learned information and experiences. Assess the specific learning needs of your audience before your class or at the beginning of the class. Present single concepts and focus on application of concepts to relevant practical situations. Summarize frequently to increase retention and recall. Material outside of the context of participants' experiences and knowledge becomes meaningless. 5. Adults are people with bodies influenced by gravity. Plan frequent breaks, even if they are 2minute "stretch" breaks. During a lecture, a short break every 45-60 minutes is sufficient. In more interactive teaching situations, breaks can be spaced 60-90 minutes apart. 6. Adults have pride. Support the students as individuals. Self-esteem and ego are at risk in a classroom environment that is not perceived as safe or supportive. People will not ask questions or participate in learning if they are afraid of being put down or ridiculed. Allow people to admit confusion, ignorance, fears, biases and different opinions. Acknowledge or thank students for their responses and questions. Treat all questions and comments with respect. Avoid saying "I just covered that" when someone asks a repetitive question. Remember, the only foolish question is the unasked question. 7. Adults have a deep need to be self-directing. Engage the students in a process of mutual inquiry. Avoid merely transmitting knowledge or expecting total agreement. Don't "spoon-feed" the participants. 8. Individual differences among people increase with age. Take into account differences in style, time, types and pace of learning. Use auditory, visual, tactile and participatory teaching methods. 9. Adults tend to have a problem-centered orientation to learning. Emphasize how learning can be applied in a practical setting. Use case studies, problem solving groups, and participatory activities to enhance learning. Adults generally want to immediately apply new information or skills to current problems or situations. Note: New information and skills must be relevant and meaningful to the concerns and desires of the students. Know what the needs are of individuals in your class. Students do not wish to learn what they will never use. The learning environment must by physically and psychologically comfortable.

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Week one: TUESDAY

84

Reflective Practice and the Experiential Learning Cycle

1. Questions to consider: a. What is reflection? Why is it important? b. What activities will we do on this course that are considered Reflection? c. How might we evaluate or assess reflection on a course like this?

Dewey says
A. Reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. B. Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with its roots in scientific inquiry. C. Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others. D. Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others.

1. What do you think? 2. Which ones make sense to you? Which ones do you have questions about? 3. Which ones do you agree with? Disagree with? 4. How can we measure these criteria in this course?

85

Framework for Seeing and Assessing Reflective Thinking*

Emergent
Describes the steps of the lesson generally, not as specific events, or describes the lesson as unconnected, isolated incidents Describes teachers general reaction to the lesson with primary focus on self Describes class as monolithic entity, not as individual students Describes lesson in terms of emotional reactions that are not described in depth or explored in the analysis phase Value-based analysis (i.e., it was good or bad) Analysis is driven by emotion Analysis is not connected to the specific moments described above (jumps to conclusions) Does not state own beliefs about learning. Moves directly from broad general description to planned actions with little or no analysis Chooses actions that are not necessarily measurable or attainable (often too big or too vague)

Deepening
Describes in lessons or lesson segments in detail Describes individual students participation in, and reaction to, significant aspects of the lesson Describes both students and teachers words and actions and how they are connected Describes his/her emotional reactions and how they trigger interest in the reflective process Generates one or two interpretations of events Substantiates conclusions with evidence drawn from description of experience Connects events with past experiences States emergent beliefs about learning Identifies source of emotions Chooses one explanation from analysis and plans one or two actions based upon it Chooses actions that are measurable and attainable and that move towards a specific goal.

Robust and Multi-faceted

Describes lesson segments that are connected to evidence of students learning or not learning Describes both students and teachers words and actions and how they are connected Describes in specific detail critical aspects of the lesson or lesson segment and refers to some or all of the following: materials, task design, students, teacher, affective factors, classroom management, classroom and/or institutional environment and/or culture Describes teachers emotional reactions and those of students and how they trigger interest in the reflective processof the class and/or the institutional environment

Formatted: Centered

Describe

Analyze (interpret and generalize)

Generates multiple interpretations and generalizations, directly connected to the description, in relation to 3 or more of the following: a) Personal theories of teaching and learning b) Connections between present experience and past experiences c) Connections between theories, research and notions from the field of TESOL and/or outside the teacher d) The source of emotion, exploring the effect they had on the experience e) Connections between larger systemic issues, as well as classroom realities Brainstorms more than 3 measurable, attainable and time bound actions that are clearly linked to a number of different analyses as well as the description provided. Includes actions that involve a) Teacher research (in the field, both in his/her classroom and with the local community) b) Lesson planning c) Classroom practice d) Stating questions for further exploration e) Dialogue with peers

Plan Actions

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THE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE What do I want to remember about each phase of the Experiential learning cycle? 1. Concrete Experience

2. Description (What?)

3. Analysis (So What?)

Plan Actions (Now what?)

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Introduction to Reflection
Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3

Part 1. Look at the statements below and label the type of thinking each is. Plan Action Description Generalization Interpretation
In picture 2, the students are sitting across from each other in pairs, holding papers and pencils and asking each other questions. It helped these learners practice more English when they only have to talk to one or two other people. Having a specific task to accomplish helped these students know what to do and when they are complete or successful. Everyone talking at the same time might have made it hard for some learners to concentrate and also to hear each other. I really value having time to focus on my learning and pair work can help me have that time. I know that clarity is important for students.. if they know what they are supposed to be doing (and if they agree that the task is useful for their learning) they will be more attentive, successful and will learn more! I wonder what a useful noise level is for learning!? I will have my students do pair work for at least 20% of my class. When everyone is talking at the same time I will try and make sure there is enough space in between them so that they have both privacy and some quiet so they can hear each other. When the volume gets too high I will stop the class and ask them to use quieter voices and remind them that we can all hear when everyone is a bit softer.

Part 2. - Discuss the essence of each step - Why is the order important? What can happen if you skip steps? - Which steps do you like doing? - Which step do you usually avoid?

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Part 3. Use the framework to write another reflection about one of the pictures
Describe Interpret Generalizations SMARTA Action plans

Part 3. Use the framework to write another reflection about something that happened inside of your English classroom or during a training session with teachers
Describe Interpret Generalizations SMARTA Action plans

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Questions for Experiential Learning Cycle

Look at the pages that have the philosophers and where they lie on the Experiential Learning cycle. The pages are divided into the 12-6 axis and 9-3 axis.

1. Which names do you recognize?

2. Which axis has the most names? Why do you think this is the case? 3. Which axis, by itself, represents traditional education, and which, by itself, represents touchy-feely? 4. How many of the names are on both axis, and who? 5. As a representation of Experiential Learning, what are the implications for the underlying philosophy? 6. Read the story that Dr. Bernice McCarthy writes about her experiences as a teacher. What are your reactions, and what does this say about applying the principles of Experiential Learning?

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4. Principles and Assumptions about learning

What do I believe about learning? How does that affect what I do as a learner and as a teacher? What do I think about the following principles and assumptions? What would I add/subtract to the list to make it my own?
1. 2. Language is a means of communication. Most students learn language in order to use them for communicative purposes in real life. Effective communication involves more than knowing language items. It involves the active mastery of a range of knowledge, skills, strategies, attitudes and an ability to be aware. (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension/repair strategies, wholeheartedness, willingness to take risks, attention to ones own mistakes and desire to learn from them etc..) Children learn their first language without conscious effort; but it is a slow process. Adults can learn a foreign language more rapidly, if they make a conscious effort. Students learn best when they pay attention to the form, meaning and use of language items. Students learn language; they are not taught it. It is the teachers responsibility to help students become autonomous learners. It is the teachers responsibility to nurture a sense of community between learners in the classroom. I learn best when I am genuinely interested AND involved in the topic; when connections are made to previous knowledge or experience and when the material seems relevant to my present and/or future needs. Learners are often reluctant to use anything that they are not confident of.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. People learn by forming and testing rules and hypotheses. 11. Speaking and listening can be more problematic than reading and writing for many students because it is harder to practice them effectively outside the classroom. 12. People have different learning styles, approaches and strategies. 13. People are capable of developing and strengthening learning styles and strategies. 14. Students in our classrooms have already mastered at least one or more languages. This is a foundation for success in other languages!!! 15. 16. 17. 18.

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Reflection on a Learning Experience

(something other than language)

I learned to when I was.

Descriptive Observation of the experience: STEPS What did I do? What happened? What did other people do? FEELINGS How did I feel? Analysis of the experience HELP What helped me learn? HINDER What hindered my learning?

What does this tell me about what learning is and involves?

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COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Thinking about working in groups

What were my past group experiences like? How did members of the group interact with each other? How were ideas/suggestions from group members treated? What role did I play? Active participant in the process? Listener? Leader? What are the advantages/challenges of working in a group? What strengths do I bring to a group? What are my challenges when working in a group? What do I need from myself/my group members in order learn and also to be able to serve my peers learning?

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PUZZLING THROUGH GROUPWORK -or- working in the green and purple zones
This is an exercise to look at group work, individuals in group work and the roles of giving and receiving. THE GOAL OF THIS EXERCISE IS FOR EACH PLAYER TO HAVE A COMPLETED PUZZLE IN HIS OR HER OWN PURPLE SPACE, AND FOR THE PUZZLES IN THE GREEN, COMMUNAL SPACE TO BE COMPLETED AS WELL. The rules 1. This exercise must be played in complete silence. No talking. 2. No pointing or signaling to other players with your hands in any way. 3. Each player must put his or her own puzzle into his or her own purple space. 4. This is an exercise in giving, receiving AND noticing. You may not take a piece from another player. You may not place a piece in another person's puzzle. (no entering others purple zone!!) You may give your pieces by putting them into the COMMUNITY ZONE, the green zone, near the player.

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Questions for journaling and discussion after the puzzling activity

What happened? What were my feelings at various moments throughout this activity? At what points did I feel success? Why? What was most challenging to me? Why? When did I notice my peers and their work? What made me notice them? When and how was I helped by a peer? When and how did I help a peer? What were key moments for me in this experience? Why? What other rules was I or other people using during this experience? How did that affect me? Others? What helped the group reach the goal? What hindered the group from reaching the goal? What are the tensions that sustain collaborative work?

Post journaling and discussion Questions What am I thinking about in regards to collaborative learning? What are the implications of this activity for me as a learner? As a teacher? As a Teacher Trainer?

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Tuesday homework: Read chapters 1,2 and 3 in Creating Thoughtful Classroom Environments from Activating & Engaging Habits of Mind. A Developmental Series, Book 2 by Arthur Costa and Bene Kallick Task:

Read Selection from Facilitating with Heart by Martha Lasley Task:

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Week One: Wednesday

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Creating Learning Objectives

At the end of a lesson, how will you know what your participants have learned?

SMARTA Criteria Specific

What exactly will participants be doing? How many time? With what skills? How will you know participants have learned? What behavior will you be able to see or hear? Can participants realistically achieve this objective in the given time, at that place, and with those materials? Does the lesson and objective have a real-world connection for the participants? Is it relevant to their lives? Do you clearly state the time frame for the objective? Are there ways of adjusting the objective to account so that participants can do more or less depending on their progress and abilities?
Part 1. Look at the following warm-up objective and note how it meets SMARTA criteria.

Measurable Achievable Relevant

Time-bound Adjustable

At the end of the ten-minute lesson PWBAT list at least 3 things they can do to improve their drawing after drawing their hand at least three times without looking down at the paper. Part 2. Look at the following poorly-formed objectives. What questions would you ask the teacher to make them SMARTA? What ideas can you offer to improve them? 1. SWBAT learn YOGA. 2. SWBAT understand what makes a good recipe. 3. SWBAT appreciate wine-tasting. 4. SWBAT know the basics of juggling.
To know To understand To appreciate To grasp the significance of To enjoy To believe To become aware of To write To draw To identify To sort To construct To compare To label To describe To arrange To match To define To explain To recommend

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Making SMARTA Goals, Objectives and Action Plans SMARTA= specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound and adjustable
1. Is your goal/objective/action plan SPECIFIC? (i.e. What do you mean? What exactly?
Where? When? How much? How often? With whom? )

2.

Is the outcome of your goal/objective/action plan MEASURABLE? (i.e. How will

you know you have achieved your goal? What will you see, hear, feel, know, be able to do?)

3.

Is your goal/objective/action plan ACHIEVABLE?(i.e. given the time and other

constraints of this course)

4.

Is the outcome of your goal/objective/action plan RELEVANT?

meaningful to you?)

(i.e. Is this goal

5.

Is the outcome of your goal/objective/action plan TIME-BOUND?(i.e. Will you

be able to do it in the specific amount of time that you have?)

6.

Is the outcome ADJUSTABLE or flexible? (How will you adjust the goal if you or the
learner is moving faster or slower than expected?)

Other thoughts to consider in writing goals, action plans and objectives: Is the goal/objective/action plan stated in a positive way? (i.e. what you want as opposed to what you dont want) Are there any negative results from achieving the goal/objective/action plan? What are the positive results? (i.e. What happens or changes after youve achieved this goal? ) What will I do today and for the rest of the course to start achieving my goal/objective/action plan? (i.e. make a schedule or list of things to do)

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Whats a useful objective?

Look at the following and decide if they are SMARTA. Are they more likely to be objectives for the whole of the lesson or for part of the workshop? Could they be for both depending on the particular workshop? What type of objective are they? 1. Participants will be able to ask and answer questions. 2. Participants will have been exposed to the natural language of business meetings and will be able to compare how the level of formality relates to their language and culture. 3. Participants will be able to use some activities related to teaching vocabulary. 4. Participants will learn five new techniques for teaching pronunciation. 5. Participants will reflect on their teaching. 6. Participants will be able to do a role play. 7. Participants will be able to do page 16 of Learning to Teach. 8. Participants will have practiced reading the newspaper. 9. Participants will be able to compare four language teaching methodologies. 10. Participants will be able to differentiate between short /i/ (as in ship) and long /ee/ (as in sheep).

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Thursday

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Other handouts and articles

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Theatre games to enhance language practice

Mary Scholl
tesoltrainingcostarica@hotmail.com

1. What are your students challenges in learning and using spoken English? 2. What activities and tasks helped you learn to successfully speak in English? 3. What activities and tasks help your students learn to successfully speak in English? 4. What kinds of theatre games or techniques do you already use in your classroom? 5. Why are you here today? What interests you about theatre games?

Factors to consider when designing practice (remembering and internalizing) activities. It can help learners to have activities that gradually move them from the left side to the right side of the chart A Safe Risky B Controlled production C More time for planning and rehearsal D Slower production E Shorter chunks of language F Greater predictability G Simple language Independent production Less planning time and more spontaneous production Faster production Longer chunks language Lesser predictability More complex language

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DRAMA ACTIVITIES #
Name and Brief description of activity/activities What do you think about the activities? Analyze activity according to R/I criteria What is USEFUL? What could be CHANGED? What activities might you do BEFORE? AFTER?

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FEEDBACK SESSIONS The trainer tells us: 1. Briefly tell your group how youre feeling about the session. What struck you during the session? What did you notice during the session? 2. What was your objective and was it achieved? How could you tell? 3. If you were to deliver this session again, what would you do the same? Why? 4. What puzzles happened during this session? What would you like do differently? Why? The participants tell the trainer: 1. What did you learn in the session? How do you know you learned it? 2. Were you able to achieve the session objectives? Why or why not? 3. What went well for you? What puzzles happened for you? 4. Tell him/her what helped or hindered you in achieving the session objectives and in your learning. 5. What would you need from the trainer (same AND different) if you were to be a participant in this workshop again? Finally, Everyone lists ideas and questions are you thinking about based on this experience.
*The Teaching Game was designed by Kathleen Graves. It first appeared in the book, New Ways in Teacher Education. (Freeman, 1993) It is also mentioned in an article you are required to read called Seeing Student Learning: Teacher Change and the Role of Reflection by Carol Rodgers

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Designing Teacher Learning Opportunities Using the ELC (Experiential Learning Cycle)
1. ConcreteExperience: Either give them a concrete experience in the workshop OR ask them to tell you about an experience of theirs What experience can you offer the participant/teacher OR what experience of their own could be ACCESSed??

4. Create Plans for Action: Ask Participants or teachers to think about what they can do with the analysis

NOWWHAT?

ELC
3. Interpret, Analyze, Form generalizations and principles about what happened. USE a VARIETY of LENSES!!

2. Describe what happened:After the experience, ask the participants or teachers to describe the experience OR parts of the experience

WHAT?

How will you get your participants or teachers to plan future actions?

At what points in your workshop or work are the participant planning actions? What role will you play in offering actions?

SO WHAT?

How will you get participants or teachers to analyze the experience?? At what points in your workshop or work are the participants interpreting? Analyzing? Making generalizations? When will you offer your analysis?

How will you get your teachers or participants to offer DESCRIPTIVE information about the experience?? At what points in your workshop or work are the participant describing?

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"Treat Learners Like Adults"

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-1.htm

Adults are people with years of experience and a wealth of information.Focus on the strengths learners bring to the classroom, not just gaps in their knowledge. Provide opportunities for dialogue within the group. Tap their experience as a major source of enrichment to the class. Remember that you, the teacher, do not need to have all the answers, as long as you know where to go or who to call to get the answers. Students can be resources to you and to each other. Adults have established values, beliefs and opinions. Demonstrate respect for differing beliefs, religions, value systems and lifestyles. Let your learners know that they are entitled to their values, beliefs and opinions, but that everyone in the room may not share their beliefs. Allow debate and challenge of ideas. Adults are people whose style and pace of learning has probably changed. Use a variety of teaching strategies such as small group problem solving and discussion. Use auditory, visual, tactile and participatory teaching methods. Reaction time and speed of learning may be slow, but the ability to learn is not impaired by age. Most adults prefer teaching methods other than lecture. Adults relate new knowledge and information to previously learned information and experiences. Assess the specific learning needs of your audience before your class or at the beginning of the class. Present single concepts and focus on application of concepts to relevant practical situations. Summarize frequently to increase retention and recall. Material outside of the context of participants' experiences and knowledge becomes meaningless. Adults are people with bodies influenced by gravity. Plan frequent breaks, even if they are 2minute "stretch" breaks. During a lecture, a short break every 45-60 minutes is sufficient. In more interactive teaching situations, breaks can be spaced 60-90 minutes apart. Adults have pride. Support the students as individuals. Self-esteem and ego are at risk in a classroom environment that is not perceived as safe or supportive. People will not ask questions or participate in learning if they are afraid of being put down or ridiculed. Allow people to admit confusion, ignorance, fears, biases and different opinions. Acknowledge or thank students for their responses and questions. Treat all questions and comments with respect. Avoid saying "I just covered that" when someone asks a repetitive question. Remember, the only foolish question is the unasked question. Adults have a deep need to be self-directing. Engage the students in a process of mutual inquiry. Avoid merely transmitting knowledge or expecting total agreement. Don't "spoon-feed" the participants. Individual differences among people increase with age. Take into account differences in style, time, types and pace of learning. Use auditory, visual, tactile and participatory teaching methods. Adults tend to have a problem-centered orientation to learning. Emphasize how learning can be applied in a practical setting. Use case studies, problem solving groups, and participatory activities to enhance learning. Adults generally want to immediately apply new information or skills to current problems or situations.

Note: New information and skills must be relevant and meaningful to the concerns and desires of the students. Know what the needs are of individuals in your class. Students do not wish to learn what they will never use. The learning environment must by physically and psychologically comfortable.

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Adult Learning
The following adult learning characteristics and principles are compiled from many sources. Some may represent your own experience as an adult learner, while others may raise many questions. What do you think? Adult learner Characteristics /principles
Adults have years of experience and a wealth of knowledge Adults have established values, beliefs, and opinions

Thoughts/Reactions/exa Implications for workshop mples from my learning design and/or working with experience developing teachers

Adults expect to be treated as adults

Adults need to feel self-directed

Adults often have a problem centered approach to learning Adults have increased variation in learning styles (individual differences among people increase with age) New knowledge has to be integrated with previous knowledge; that means active learner participation. Increasing and maintaining ones sense of self-esteem and pleasure are strong secondary motivators for engaging in learning experiences. Adult learning must be problem and experience centered. Effective adult learning entails an active search for meaning in which new tasks are somehow related to earlier activities. Prior learning experiences have the potential to enhance or interfere with new learning. Collaborative modes of teaching and learning will enhance the selfconcepts of those involved and result in more meaningful and

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effective learning. Adults will generally learn best in an atmosphere that is nonthreatening and supportive of experimentation and in which different learning styles are recognized. Adult learning is facilitated when the learner's representation and interpretation of his own experience are accepted as valid, acknowledged as an essential aspect influencing change, and respected as a potential resource for learning. Adults experience anxiety and ambivalence in their orientation to learning. Adult learning is facilitated when teaching activities do not demand finalized, correct answers and closure; express a tolerance for uncertainty, inconsistency, and diversity; and promote both question-asking and -answering, problem-finding and problemsolving. Adult skill learning is facilitated when individual learners can assess their own skills and strategies to discover inadequacies or limitations for themselves. Adult learning is facilitated when the teacher can give up some control over teaching processes and planning activities and can share these with learners.

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Designing Teacher Learning Opportunities Using Beliefs about Adult Learning

List your key beliefs about adult learning: 1. What are 5 things that you could do in your workshop, feedback session, discussion or lecture that reflect these beliefs?

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

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Responding to our teachers with comments and questions.

Reflection requires attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of oneself and of others.
Reflection needs to happen in community, in interaction with others. Reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences and ideas. Questions for discussion: 1. What levels of severity are there in how we respond to our teachers? 2. What stems can start us off in the spirit of maintaining attitudes that value the personal and intellectual growth of our participants? 3. What is the role of genuine questions? 4. What for you is the balance between telling and asking? What stems can we use to frame and set our comments in an effective way? What might you do to ____________________________? I am curious about ____________ I noticed ___________ and it makes me think/wonder ___ Consider ___________________ Consider the following sample comments. 1. Rate them on a scale of 1-5. 1 = I would not say or write this to a teacher and 5 = I would easily say or write this to a teacher. 2. Discuss them in terms of a. Genuine question/comment? b. Severity? c. Directness? d. Clarity and robustness? e. Language that reflects an attitude that values the personal growth of the teacher? f. Humility and wisdom? g. Your own criteria?

A. What reason do students have to listen to each other? B. How might the ss get more involved in the pre stage so that they are doing most of the talking? C. You are talking too much.

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D. What can you do to get ss more involved in the checking of answers after listening so that it is not teachercentered and so that you can learn more about Ss abilities? E. What kinds of thinking skills did you ask the student to use in this lesson and how can you incorporate HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS into 50 to 70% of the lesson? Check out this webite: http://www.hots.org/index.html F.
I think playing music at the beginning of class is an inviting way for students to be welcomed into the classroom. Your task of asking students to recognize the singer (Shakira) was a subtle way to present Shakira into the classroom context. How else might you have used music in this lesson for orienting students or activating schema?

G. Modeling from the students perspective (having ss do the task to model for others (infront of the class!)) can affect how ss perceive instructions and can help to cut the amount of time and well as the amount of times of giving instructions. H. Seating arrangement can also support success and really affects task design. In the information gap activity what are 3 other ways the ss might have been seated? I. the first 20 minutes were teacher guided group activities that touched on a lot of language. It was great to review! Where and how might you add pair work and individual work to vary where the learners are putting their attention? Since the language is review they are most likely not encountering it for the first time..and if they are encountering it, they still might want some time to clarify with a peer or on their own. Consider not asking ss to stand for more than 10 minutes without a break or without walking. Some of these ss do a lot of physical work during the day and are pretty tired when coming here!!

J.

K. I think you got so into the lesson you forgot to keep one eye glancing at the clock! L. In the pre stage, ensure that ss have the opportunity to encounter, clarify and remember target vocabulary and that they have time to work in pairs and individually as well before moving on to the during stage. M. Please check in with me on Thursday before you teach!!! I want to ensure your success on this course..you are very, very, very capable of this!! N. The most interesting thing I observed in this lesson was when and how to give the target language to the students. By not giving the language until near the end of the lesson, what kind of student behavior did you observe, and how did that affect the learning? How would that have changed if the language had been given earlier?

What guidelines will you give yourself in how you offer feedback to your teachers? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Honoring Diverse Teaching Styles: A Guide for Supervisors

by Edward Pajak
http://www.ascd.org/cms/objectlib/ascdframeset/index.cfm?publication=http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/ 2003pajak/2003pajaktoc.html

Honoring Diverse Teaching Styles: A Guide for Supervisors

by Edward Pajak

Chapter 1. Understanding the Clinical Cycle

Sally Taylor has taught 5th grade for 19 years in the same school and has always done things her own way. That is not to say she hasn't changed or improved over time, only that she is used to making independent decisions about what happens in her own classroom. Sally's instruction has been described by several principals over the years as "highly structured" and "teacher centered." Everything about her lessons is carefully planned and well executed, but she leaves little room for spontaneity or student initiative. In recent years, some parents have occasionally complained that Sally puts too many demands on her students' time with daily homework assignments and frequent quizzes. But the majority of parents seem satisfied that their children are getting a traditional education, similar to what they experienced when they were 5th graders. Indeed, Sally has also been described by more than one principal as a "very effective" teacher. In fact, early in her career and right after getting tenure, Sally was recognized at her school as Teacher of the Year. For the entire year that she has been principal, Flora Seager has encouraged teachers to allow students to work in self-directed groups as often as possible. After reading several books on cooperative learning while working on her master's degree, and believing strongly in the importance of young people developing strong interpersonal skills and positive attitudes toward others, Flora reflected on her own eight years of teaching at several different grade levels. She became firmly convinced that elementary students learn best in social contexts, and she resolved to promote instructional practices that enable students to do so. Several days ago, Flora visited Sally's classroom for an annual end-of-year observation. She had intended to observe the classrooms of all the teachers several times during the school year, but found that her duties as a first-year principal kept getting in her way. Upon entering Sally's classroom, Flora was a little dismayed to see that the students' desks were all lined up in straight rows. But she was absolutely horrified when she happened to notice later that the students' seats were arranged alphabetically. Sally began the lesson by explaining its purpose to her students. She then reviewed what they had learned the day before and led a very orderly discussion about the climates, natural resources, and economies of several South American countries. She paused occasionally to write key ideas on the board at the front of the room; the students dutifully copied this information into their notebooks. 117

The next day, the post-observation conference began politely enough. But after Flora mentioned that the straight rows and alphabetical seating chart prevented students from interacting with each other, the meeting became an increasingly heated debate about the merits and shortcomings of direct instruction versus cooperative learning. Feeling more frustrated by the minute, Flora made a general comment at one point about "out-of-date teaching practices and the need for everyone to change with the times." Taking this remark as personal criticism, Sally responded by saying that she believed nothing of any value could ever come from 5th grade students "getting together and pooling their ignorance." Shocked by a statement that she thought might border on insubordination, and wanting to regain some control, Flora responded by saying, "Well, as the principal of this school, I have certain expectations about instruction that I would like to see followed." Never one to back down, Sally stared directly at the principal and calmly said, "I've been teaching in this school for almost 20 years. This is only your first year here. During my career, I've seen a lot of classroom fads come and go. The education pendulum just keeps swinging back and forth. And every time we get a new principal, the teachers are all expected to start chasing another bandwagon? Whatever happens to be 'in' this year is 'out' the next year." Sally then stood up and collected her belongings, signaling her intention to leave. "If you happen to be principal of this school five years from now," she paused to say, "you'll see that my teaching won't be out of date. By that time, I'll be right back on the cutting edge!" Flora felt frustrated and defeated. She wondered exactly what had gone wrong and what she could have done differently.

What Is the Problem?

Despite our best efforts, educators' conversations about best practice often deteriorate into opposing positions, both of which may have meritindividual versus whole-group instruction, phonics versus whole language, cognitive versus affective outcomes, mastery of facts versus higher-order thinking, acquisition of basic skills versus creative expression, predetermined content versus construction of knowledge. The immediate result of all these conflicting perspectives is that we often talk right past each another, or try to persuade each other that our viewpoint is correct, instead of taking time to truly understand the other point of view (Glickman, 2001; Mosston & Ashworth, 1990; Sergiovanni, 1995). The more serious and longterm consequence is that all this constant debate and turmoil makes it impossible for educators to experience the uninterrupted internal narratives needed to develop integrated professional identities and a coherent professional culture, both of which are necessary to inspire us and lead us to greatness. Similarly, when educators talk about or try to use clinical supervision, disagreements often arise that become barriers to understanding and success. Although people may agree in principle that teachers can benefit from expert assistance and feedback about their classroom performance, communication begins to break down as soon as details enter the conversation about what good teaching looks like. Even the experts cannot agree about who should provide feedback to teachers, how it should be delivered, when in a teacher's career supervision is most helpful, or even whyclinical supervision is important. At times it almost seems that people are speaking different languages or dialects. And, in a sense, they are. This book proposes that the theory of psychological functions introduced by Carl Jung (1971) and popularized by others (e.g., Briggs 118

& Myers, 1977; Keirsey, 1998) can bring conceptual clarity to the field of clinical supervision and, more importantly, serve as a guide to principals, mentors, and peer coaches as they seek to improve their communication skills. The fundamental belief guiding this book is simple, yet powerful: clinical supervisors of instruction, no less than teachers, should make a deliberate effort to honor and legitimate perspectives and practices that differ from their own preferred styles of perceiving, judging, and communicating about reality. This book explains how consideration of teachers' teaching styles during the clinical supervision cycle gives teachers greater choice and voice and can contribute to schoolwide professional development through the creation of learning environments that address particular teaching styles. Style-guided supervisory practice also makes professional development more coherent because it is consistent with instructional and assessment practices that are associated with differentiated learning.

The Truth About Supervision in Education

Some educators are reluctant to use the word "supervision," because they incorrectly associate it with a hierarchical relationship rooted in an industrial model of schooling. On the contrary, Edward C. Elliott, an early 20th-century educator, described supervision in schools as being closely related to "the democratic motive of American education" (Elliott, 1914, p. 2). He clearly distinguished "centralization of administrative power," which he said stifled creativity and individuality in school, from "decentralized, cooperative, expert, supervision" (p. 78). By the 1920s, no fewer than five textbooks emphasized democracy as a guiding principle of supervision in education (Ayer & Barr, 1928; Barr & Burton, 1926; Burton, 1927; Hosic, 1920; Stone, 1929). In his classic study Education and the Cult of Efficiency, Raymond Callahan (1962) showed how educational administration was influenced by industrial logic just prior to World War I. Rarely recognized by contemporary authors, however, is the fact that the resulting scientific management movement had comparatively little influence on supervision in education because "the problems of supervision and teaching method were not readily amenable to . . . the management frame of reference." Callahan also explained that supervision distinguished itself from both administration and industrial logic in the 1930s by aligning itself with the process of curriculum development and "a new organization, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development" (Callahan & Button, 1964). It is in this traditional democratic spirit of supervision in education and its long-standing respect for creativity, cooperation, decentralization, and individual difference that this book is written.

What Is Clinical Supervision?

The use of clinical supervision as a method for improving instruction has a fairly recent history in the United States. The earliest application began with Morris Cogan and Robert Goldhammer at Harvard University in the 1960s and continued later at the University of Pittsburgh and other institutions. Their efforts were stimulated by frustrations they encountered as university supervisors trying to help beginning teachers succeed. Goldhammer and Cogan borrowed the term "clinical supervision" from the medical profession, where it has been used for decades to describe a process for perfecting the specialized knowledge and skills of practitioners. Essentially, clinical supervision in education involves a teacher receiving information from a colleague who has observed the teacher's performance and who serves as both a mirror and a sounding board to enable the teacher to critically examine and possibly alter his or her own 119

professional practice. Although classroom observations are often conducted by university supervisors or principals, clinical supervision is increasingly used successfully by mentor teachers, peer coaches, and teacher colleagues who believe that a fresh perspective will help to improve classroom success. Despite many variations that have been proposed over the years, the basic five-stage clinical supervision sequence suggested by Goldhammer (1969) remains most widely known. The tasks of the teacher and the supervisor during each stage and key questions that both ought to consider are summarized below. Stage 1Pre-observation Conference Teacher's Task: To mentally rehearse and orally describe the upcoming lesson, including the purpose and the content, what the teacher will do, and what students are expected to do and learn. Clinical Supervisor's Task: To learn about and understand what the teacher has in mind for the lesson to be taught by asking probing and clarifying questions. Questions to Consider: What type of data will be recorded (e.g., teacher questions, student behaviors, movement patterns)? How will data be recorded (e.g., video or audio recording, verbatim transcript, anecdotal notes, checklist)? Who will do what in the subsequent stages? Stage 2Classroom Observation Teacher's Task: To teach the lesson as well as possible. Clinical Supervisor's Task: To record events occurring during the lesson as accurately as possible. Stage 3Data Analysis and Strategy Teacher's Task: To help make sense of the data (if directly involved in this stage). Clinical Supervisor's Task: To make some sense of the raw data and to develop a plan for the conference. Questions to Consider: What patterns are evident in the data? Are any critical incidents or turning points obvious? What strengths did the teacher exhibit? Were any techniques especially successful? Are there any concerns about the lesson? Which patterns, events, and concerns are most important to address? Which patterns, events, and concerns can be addressed in the time available? How will the conference begin? How will the conference end? Stage 4Conference Teacher's Task: To critically examine his or her own teaching with an open mind and to tentatively plan for the next lesson.

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Clinical Supervisor's Task: To help clarify and build upon the teacher's understanding of the behaviors and events that occurred in the classroom. Questions to Consider: What patterns and critical incidents are evident in the data? What is the relationship between these events and student learning? Were any unanticipated or unintended outcomes evident? What will the teacher do differently for the next class meeting (e.g., new objectives, methods, content, materials, teacher behaviors, student activities, or assessments)? Stage 5Postconference Analysis Teacher's Task: To provide honest feedback to the clinical supervisor about how well the clinical supervision cycle went. Clinical Supervisor's Task: To critically examine his or her own performance during the clinical supervision cycle. Questions to Consider: Generally, how well did the clinical supervision cycle go? What worked well? What did not work well? If you could do it again, what would you do differently? What will you do differently during the next clinical supervision cycle?

The Four Families of Clinical Supervision

After Goldhammer proposed the five-stage sequence, which he distilled from a more extensive series of eight phases advocated by Cogan, other scholars began commenting and elaborating on the clinical supervision cycle from a variety of perspectives. Many authors have written about clinical supervision during the last several decades. The most popular approaches, however, can be classified into four "families" that share certain qualities (See Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. Four Families of Clinical Supervision

Original Clinical Models. The original models proposed by Goldhammer and Cogan offer a blend of empirical, behavioral, phenomenological, and developmental perspectives. These approaches emphasize the importance of collegial relationships with teachers, cooperative discovery of meaning, and development of unique teaching styles. Artistic/Humanistic Models. The perspectives of Eisner and Blumberg are based on aesthetic and existential principles. These approaches forsake stepby-step procedures and emphasize open interpersonal relations and personal intuition, artistry, and idiosyncrasy. Supervisors are encouraged to help teachers understand the artistic and expressive richness of teaching. Technical/Didactic Models. The approaches to clinical supervision proposed by Acheson and Gall and by Hunter draw heavily on findings from process-product and effective teaching research. These approaches emphasize techniques of observation and feedback that reinforce certain "effective" behaviors or predetermined models of teaching to which teachers 121

attempt to conform. Developmental/Reflective Models. The models of Glickman, Costa and Garmston, Zeichner and Liston, Garman, Smyth, and Waite are sensitive to individual differences and the social, organizational, political, and cultural contexts of teaching. These authors call on supervisors to encourage reflection among teachers, foster growth, and promote justice and equity. Adapted from Pajak (2000)

The four "families" of clinical supervision depicted in Figure 1.1 emerged chronologically, pretty much in the order that they are listed. The "original clinical models" outlined by Goldhammer (1969) and Cogan (1973) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, were followed during the mid- to late-1970s by the "artistic/humanistic" models of Eisner (1979) and Blumberg (1974). In turn, the "technical/didactic" models advocated by Acheson and Gall (1980) and Hunter (1984) gained ascendancy in the early to mid-1980s, and were themselves followed by the "developmental/reflective" models. The models in this last category arose during the mid1980s and continued proliferating through the 1990s, including those proposed by Glickman (1985), Zeichner and Liston (1987), Costa and Garmston (1994), and others (Garman, 1986; Smyth, 1985; Waite, 1995). These four families of clinical supervision differ from one another in the purposes toward which they strive, their relative emphasis on objectivity versus subjectivity, the type of data collected and the procedures for recording it, the number and series of steps or stages involved, the degree of control exercised by the supervisor versus the teacher, and the nature and structure of pre- and postobservation conferences. More detailed descriptions and comparisons among the different models in these families have been published elsewhere (Pajak, 2000). The appropriateness of these models and families of clinical supervision for working with teachers who differ in the ways that they perceive and relate to the world are explored in the chapters that follow.

Discussion Questions
1. What is the underlying cause of disagreement between Sandy Taylor and Flora Seager, the teacher and principal introduced at the beginning of this chapter? 2. How might Flora have approached her conference with Sandy differently to keep communication from breaking down? 3. 4. What has been your experience with classroom observation and feedback during your career? What questions might Flora use to elicit Sally's belief system about teaching and her willingness to examine its effectiveness?

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Chapter 2. The Clinical Cycle and Psychological Functions

Among many other important discoveries related to conscious and unconscious mental processes, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung proposed that people exhibit four psychological "functions" with respect to their perceptions. Two of these functions, intuition (N) and sensing (S), describe the ways we gather data about and perceive reality, while another two functions, thinking (T) and feeling (F), refer to the ways that we appraise or judge the reality that we perceive. Although gathering data and making judgments about perceptions are obviously central issues for those who practice clinical supervision, surprisingly little has been written about applications of Jung's work to this field. Champagne and Hogan (1995) have done more to apply Jung's formulations to clinical supervision than anyone else. Their book includes a useful instrument for assessing psychological type and function, and they speculate about the effect these mental processes have on both teaching and supervision. The concept of psychological functions already productively informs other areas of study, including learning styles (Silver, Strong, & Perini, 2000), leadership (Fitzgerald & Kirby, 1997), and organizational dynamics (Hirsch & Kummerow, 1998), all of which have clear relevance for understanding classrooms and schools. Recently, a number of scholars have suggested that concepts derived from the psychology of Carl Jung may offer a promising perspective for understanding and improving the practice of instructional supervision (Champagne & Hogan, 1995; Garmston, Lipton, & Kaiser, 1998; Hawthorne & Hoffman, 1998; Norris, 1991; Oja & Reiman, 1998; Sergiovanni & Starratt, 1998; Shapiro & Blumberg, 1998). It seems obvious, therefore, that the implications of Jung's formulations for clinical supervision are worth exploring further. Most educators are already familiar with the concept of learning styles from the work of people like Anthony Gregorc (1982), David Kolb (1984), Bernice McCarthy (1982; 1990), and others. Many teachers and administrators have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1996), the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (Keirsey, 1998), or another instrument designed to identify an individual's personality type or style of thinking and learning. The theory behind all these conceptions of style and type can be traced directly to the work of Carl Jung. In his book Man and His Symbols, Jung (1979) describes the four psychological functions sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuitingin the following way:
Sensation (i.e., sense perception) tells you that something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells you whence it comes and where it is going (p. 49).

Elsewhere, Jung (1971) compared the four functions to the points on a compass and suggested that the interplay among the four functions was as indispensable for psychological orientation and discovery as a compass is for navigation. The functions are displayed in a compasslike configuration in Figure 2.1 to illustrate their relationship to each other.

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Figure 2.1. The Four Functions as Compass Points

Sensing and Intuiting

People use both sensing and intuiting to record perceptions about their environments? The sensing function is concrete and draws directly on our five senses sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touchto tell us about the world around us. The sensing function focuses on facts and details about our present reality. The intuiting function, in contrast, is more abstract and relies on the intellect to make wholistic inferences about the possibilities inherent in a situation.The intuiting function, sometimes called our "sixth" sense, considers larger concepts and possibilities. We all rely on both sensing and intuiting to make sense of reality. We depend on the sensing function when we want to see the trees, for example, and on the intuiting function when we want to see the forest. But we differ from each other in the degree to which we rely on one function or the other. Some people want to know exactly how much money they have in their checking accounts, while others are satisfied with only a general notion of what is available for them to spend.This preference for one function over the other is sometimes compared to our preference for using our right hand or our left (Kroeger and Thuesen, 1988). 124

According to Jung (1971), people who draw primarily on intuition to collect data and perceive reality are interested in ideas and theories, untried possibilities, and what is new. They quickly become bored with specifics, details, data, and facts that are unrelated to concepts. Intuitive people tend to think and communicate with spontaneous leaps of imagination and may omit or neglect details. In contrast, those who draw on the sensing function to gather data and perceive reality prefer focusing on what is real, concrete, and tangible in the here and now. They tend to be more concerned with facts and data than with theory and abstractions. Sensing people think and communicate carefully and accurately, referring to and emphasizing facts and details, but they often miss seeing the gestalt or big picture (Kroeger & Thuesen, 1988).

Thinking and Feeling

Thinking and feeling are both described by Jung (1971) as rational functions. By this he meant that we use them to make judgments about our perceptions of the world. Most people have little trouble recognizing that thinking is a rational function, but are somewhat puzzled by Jung's use of the word feeling in this way (Stevens, 1994). It is important to understand that Jung was not referring to emotions when he described the feeling function:
When I use the word "feeling"in contrast to "thinking," I refer to a judgment of valuefor instance, agreeable or disagreeable, good or bad, and so on. Feeling according to this definition is not an emotion (which, as the word conveys, is involuntary). Feeling as I mean it is (like thinking) a rational (i.e., ordering) function (Jung, 1979, p. 49).

One way to understand the difference between the thinking and feeling functions is in terms of the distinction we make between truth and beauty. The first virtue appeals to our brain, while the second appeals to our heart, and we use both at times when making decisions or judgments. The thinking function is concerned with logic, structure, and cause-and-effect relationships. With thinking, conclusions are reached through logical analysis. The feeling function, in contrast, relates to what is subjectively experienced as pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable, exciting or boring. With feeling, conclusions are based on personal values and preferences. Technology has given us a concept and term that was not available in Jung's timeinformation processing. It may be meaningful today, therefore, to consider thinking and feeling as two distinct ways that we process information about the world that we perceive through the sensing and intuiting functions. Again, all of us rely on both thinking and feeling to make sense of reality. But we differ in the degree to which we depend on one function or the other. Some people make a decision about buying a new car primarily on the basis of considerations like cost and consumer ratings (thinking), while others are more strongly influenced by preferences for styling and color, or consideration of the vehicle's impact on the environment (feeling). People who favor thinking over feeling when making judgments about the reality they perceive prefer using evidence, analysis, and logic. They are more concerned with being rational than with empathy, emotions, and values. Thinking types communicate in an orderly and linear manner, emphasizing if-then and cause-effect linkages. On the other hand, those who prefer using feeling to guide their judgments do so on the basis of empathy, warmth, personal convictions, and a consistent value system that underlies all their decision processes. They are 125

more interested in people, emotions, aesthetics, and harmony than with logic, analysis, or attaining impersonal goals. Feeling people communicate by expressing personal likes and dislikes as well as feelings about what is good versus bad, or right versus wrong.

Psychological Functions and Classroom Observation

Imagine that a science teacher is teaching an introductory lesson to a 9th grade class about how animals evolve physical adaptations in response to the environment. After he reviews the various climatic areas and habitats on earth, the teacher asks his students to share their observations of animal life from experiences they have had when traveling in different parts of their state and in other states. The teacher also distributes a number of artifacts, which the students handle and pass around the room as the lesson unfolds. Now, imagine that four different peoplea sensing type, a thinking type, a feeling type, and an intuiting type all observed the lesson and reported on what they saw. A sensing observer will provide the most factual account of what happened, describing and emphasizing objective reality:
A row of aquariums and terrariums holding living creatures lined one classroom wall. The opposite wall was decorated with astronomy charts and bright posters explaining the contributions of famous scientists. The teacher began the lesson by writing the objective on the board at the front of the classroom with a blue marker. He pointed to a colorcoded world map while briefly describing different climatic regions and ecological systems.The teacher asked the students if any of them had ever visited a beach at the ocean. Nine students raised their hands and he called on three of them to describe the evidence of animal life they saw there. The teacher next asked if any students had visited the mountains. This time, seven students raised their hands. He again called on three students, different ones this time, to describe their experiences and the animals they had seen. As the discussion continued,the teacher allowed the students to touch and examine the wide jaws of a shark, an eagle's sharp talons and beak, and the hard, smooth shell of a tortoise.

A thinking observer will offer an interpretive account of events as they happened:

The teacher focused students' attention on what they were to learn by writing the objective on the board. Activities that followed were designed to contribute to the accomplishment of the lesson's objective. The teacher heightened the students' curiosity and interest by allowing them to handle and pass around preserved remains from several animals and encouraged student participation by asking them about different places they had visited. He made an effort to involve a sizeable number of students while carefully ensuring that the lesson stayed focused.The students appeared motivated by the chance to

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describe their personal experiences with animal life while on vacation in different geographic and climatic regions. The teacher then related the students' observations to the objective.

A feeling observer will respond by making personal value judgments about the lesson:
This was an excellent lesson! The teacher used a variety of exciting methods that actively engaged the students in learning. The students were clearly excited when given an opportunity to share personal memories of family vacations with their classmates. A few seemed a little squeamish and were initially reluctant to touch the remains of dead animals that the teacher handed out. But all the students enthusiastically shared comments with each other as they passed the fragile objects back and forth.The openness and participation encouraged a stimulating and lively conversation. I enjoyed the lesson tremendously myself!

An intuiting observer will explain events in the classroom conceptually and will project implications for the future:
The teacher employed an inductive/discovery method of instruction. The lesson was highly structured and teacher-centered, but the teacher drew on the students' personal experiences to provide a relevant foundation for their understanding. Student involvement and creativity might have been increased by allowing the students to handle the artifacts beforehand and then having them pose hypotheses about the utility of the adaptations for ensuring the survival of these animals. A good follow-up lesson would be to have the students consider how humans change the environment and then speculate about how those changes influence environmental habitats and animals.

How the Four Functions Interact

Although every person is born with a capacity to exercise all four psychological functions, most of us gradually come to rely more frequently on a single function from each pair. The function that we rely on most often is called our dominant or superior function. The dominant function sensing or intuiting, thinking or feelingis supported by an auxiliary function from the other pair. That is to say, if our dominant function (the one that we depend on most often) is intuition, then our supporting function will be either thinking or feeling. If our dominant function is feeling, then our auxiliary function will be either sensing or intuiting. The functions that are not often used remain undeveloped and become associated with what Jung called our shadow, a place in our unconscious where we try to bury qualities that we reject as inconsistent with our conscious image of ourselves. The relationship among the four functions can be understood by way of an analogy. Imagine that the four functions are four people out for a drive in an automobile (see Figure 2.2). If intuiting 127

(N) is the dominant function, you would find it in the driver's seat right behind the steering wheel. Intuition is clearly in control of where the car is headed, how fast it is going, and when and where it may stop. If thinking (T) is the auxiliary function, you would find it in the front passenger's seat.Thinking may be along for the ride, but it can contribute as a navigator, pointing out interesting landmarks and hazards along the highway, and it might even get to drive occasionally. Meanwhile, sensing (S) and feeling (F) are huddled like small children in the back seat.Their contribution to the drive is minimal, because they are undeveloped.As passengers, they have difficulty seeing the road and are far from the controls.They may spend most of the time just passively watching the landscape go by. We can become more complete and effective as human beings, according to Jung, if we can learn to use these undeveloped functions in our daily lives instead of neglecting them. Figure 2.2. How the Functions Interact

The Function Pairs and the Families of Clinical Supervision

When the psychological processes of getting information and making decisions combine and interact (see Figure 2.3), four possible function pairs result: sensory-thinking (S-T), sensoryfeeling (S-F), intuitive-thinking (N-T), and intuitive-feeling (N-F). These four combinations 128

determine how individuals relate to the world that they encounter. The combinations also correspond quite closely with the four families of clinical supervision described earlier. Figure 2.3. Function Pairs and Clinical Supervision Families

People who display an intuitive-thinking (N-T) function pair, for example, are concerned with competence and tend to concentrate on ideas, possibilities, and the future. They are guided by theoretical concepts and work by testing hypotheses. N-Ts are likely to consider the larger context and are distressed by what they view as incorrect or faulty principles. This worldview most closely parallels the original clinical models developed by Goldhammer (1969) and Cogan (1973). In comparison, individuals who display a sensory-feeling (S-F) combination are concerned with harmony and want very much to be helpful to others. They focus attention on the present and facts, but are most concerned with people. S-Fs like to provide support and are guided by a sense of service. They work by meeting people's needs and are troubled by conflict and disagreements. An S-F orientation most closely resembles the artistic/humanistic family of models represented by Eisner (1979) and Blumberg (1974). People possessing a sensory-thinking (S-T) orientation mainly strive to be efficient. They focus on the present and facts, and attend closely to current reality. They prefer to follow established policies and procedures and believe that their work and the work of others is facilitated by having such processes and structures in place. S-Ts want to see results produced and are annoyed when work is done incorrectly. The technical/didactic models of Acheson and Gall (1980) and Hunter (1984) match up well with this perspective. Other examples include Harris and Hill's (1982) DeTek diagnostic process and Danielson's (1996) framework for teaching. Finally, people who possess an intuitive-feeling (N-F) combination seek to empower others and are strongly concerned with the future, people, and possibilities. Guided by ideals that they believe are worthy, N-Fs work by expressing and acting on their values. These individuals seek to promote growth and are troubled when values are ignored or when values that they consider improper predominate. The developmental/reflective models, represented by a range of authors 129

(e.g., Costa & Garmston, 1994; Garman, 1986; Glickman, 1985; Smyth, 1985; Waite, 1995; Zeichner & Liston, 1987) are associated with the N-F combination of functions. Understanding how these approaches differ is important because clinical supervisors of instruction, no less than teachers, should make a deliberate effort to honor and legitimate perspectives and strategies that are not consistent with their own preferred tendencies for perceiving, judging, and communicating about reality. That is to say, practitioners of clinical supervision should strive to work with teachers in ways that are consistent with how teachers are expected to work with studentsby celebrating diversity and responding to that diversity in ways that enhance learning for all. The concept of psychological functions helps illustrate how the four clinical supervision families (introduced in Chapter 1) actually complement each other, despite the obvious differences among them. This understanding can provide educators with a useful foundation from which to build more informed,precise, caring, and meaningful supervisory practice in education.

Discussion Questions
1. 2. What does the concept of psychological functions tell us about how people learn? Should clinical supervisors of instruction take psychological functions into consideration when they work with teachers? Why or why not? 3. What advice would you now give to Flora Seager (the principal who was introduced in Chapter 1) when she works with a teacher like Sally Taylor? 4. How can the concept of psychological functions help Flora and Sally work more successfully together?

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Escaping the "Black Hole" of Judgment by Steve Andreas

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -- Shakespeare (Hamlet) http://www.nlpco.com/articles/exeperiencing/NLPJudgmentProcess.html Introduction In English, there are two basic meanings for the word "judgment." One meaning is clear thinking--to be able to perceive a situation, gather information, assess it, and come to a conclusion or decision, as in "She has good judgment." That is not the meaning that I want to discuss in this article. The meaning that I want to explore is the kind of judgment that a judge makes, between right and wrong, innocent or guilty, good and evil. Judgment is a key concept in most religions, and in other moral and social codes, as a way of setting forth the shared values of a group, and also as a way of upholding and enforcing them. On the other hand, Christ and many other teachers and mystics have advocated acceptance and love as an alternative to judgment. "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." (Matthew, 6:37 ) Many people actively seek experiences of not being judged, being compassionately loved and accepted for who they are--by themselves, by others, or by God--because it heals the sorrows of conflict and misunderstanding. My father learned from his missionary father how to judge, and I learned well from him. It was only when judgment threatened to tear apart my marriage that I took a long, hard look at judgment, and the many ways that it has affected my life. I don't know anyone who never judges, though probably the Dalai Lama comes very close. Most of us make hundreds of judgments every day. We judge ourselves, our relatives, our children's friends, politicians, protesters, criminals, or those with different values or lifestyles, etc. Some of those may be fairly gentle judgments that are innocuous, like "That movie was terrible!" while others are much more troublesome. Learning how the process of judgment works provides ways to transform it when it is problematic. What does it feel like to be judged? Most people report that they feel "one down," inferior, physically restricted and diminished, as if they were being attacked. Being judged usually results in "tunnel vision" in which perceptions and responses are restricted to a very narrow range. People typically respond either by shrinking defensively, or counterattacking with judgments of their own about the person who judged them. I have yet to find anyone who enjoys being judged; it is always unpleasant, and often extremely so. What does it feel like to judge? Most people report feeling a kind of strength and power in asserting their values, a pleasure in being right, and being "one-up," superior to the other person. There is usually a bodily feeling of stiffness or rigidity, and perceptions tends to narrow and simplify, focusing only on what is being judged. An Example of Judging To begin our exploration, think of something outside yourself, some person, act, or event that you judge as bad, wrong, or evil, "That's wrong!" and discover what that experience is like for you. . . . 131

You can also judge something as good rather than bad, the flip side of judgment. However, it is much easier to notice the process when it is applied to something bad. If you were to use an experience of judging yourself, it would be even more difficult to clarify your experience, because you would be both the judger and the judged, mixing the two processes together, making it much harder to separate the two and understand each clearly. Selecting a Counterexample In order to discover the key elements of any experiential process, it is very helpful to select a counterexample experience that is different, yet that has all the positive and valuable aspects of the experience that you want to model, and then compare the two. Judgment is a very strong expression of values, so the counterexample experience must also be an expression of your values. When you are faced with alternative choices in life, you eventually choose one over the other, based on your likes and dislikes, your valuing one more than the other. So let's try using preference as a counterexample experience to compare with judgment. When we compare a judgment with a preference, we immediately realize that there is a great difference in intensity. "Preference" usually describes a situation in which not much is at stake. "I prefer this food over that food," but it doesn't really matter too much if I don't get my preference. A judgment, on the other hand, is usually very important to us, and often vitally so. In English there is no word for a preference that is as strong and important as a judgment, so we have to combine words to access an appropriate experience, and I have found that "strong preference," or "very strong preference" although awkward, serves reasonably well. An Example of Preference Now think again of the same person, act, or event that you just used as an example of judging, "X is wrong!" Now I want you to express the same valuing as a very strong preference, "I really prefer Y over X!" Next compare your experience of judgment and preference. By thinking of the same content alternately as a judgment or a preference it is much easier to discern subtle differences between the two. Making the strength or intensity of the two as similar as possible, take some time to compare these two experiences of the same content to find out how your experience differs. Switch back and forth between them to discover what differences you find in wha you see, hear, and feel--and make a few notes. Please pause and take a few minutes now to actually do this, so that you can discover what your experience is. Then read on to compare what you experienced with what others have found. . . . One of the most obvious differences is that in preference, there are always two (or more) representations--what we like more, as well as what we like less, while in judgment we are usually only aware of what we condemn. This creates an analog distinction of "more/less than," that can vary over a range, instead of digital either/or opposites (good or bad). Below is a sampling of the kind of differences that others have reported. Your experience may be somewhat different, but probably most of these will be at least parallel to your experience Judgment one picture dissociated "You" language still picture black/white Preference two pictures associated "I" language movement range of colors 132

superior narrow wide hard/closed loud voice dark tense either/or commanding "have to" high contrast objective/absolute

equal focus panorama soft/open soft voice light relaxed range of choices asking "want to" muted shades of gray subjective/relational

impersonal personal If you look at the list above, preference has many more distinctions and options, making it a much richer and more resourceful experience. It is much more likely to be a good basis for problem-solving in the real world when you have a difference of opinion with someone else. Let's examine this in more detail, starting within a wider frame of how we perceive and process information. Potential Awareness This is all that someone could be aware of at a particular moment in time, in all five sensory systems, of external events as well as internal bodily sensations. Because of the inherent limitations of our perceptual systems, at any moment we can only be aware of a very tiny fraction of what is potentially available to us, while the rest remains ignored and unconscious. For instance, as you read this, you are probably unaware of the feeling behind your knees, or the background sounds around you--until you read these words that direct your attention to them. This is the basis of George Miller's (1956) classic paper on the 7 +/- 2 limitation on how many "chunks" of attention are available to us at any moment. Preference From the infinite wellspring of possible perceptions we actively select what to pay attention to, according to our needs, desires and interests, and this narrows what we are aware of. Habitual selection further limits what we are aware of, as we systematically ignore large areas of potential experience. The best we can do is to have an awareness that flexibly scans events, so that nothing is ignored for very long. The more information we have available to us about events, the better we are able to determine what is relevant to solving problems and satisfying our needs and desires. Preference is a detailed personal experience of liking some aspect of our experience more/less than some other aspect, a comparison which might sound like the following, if described in words: "I like the feel/sound/look/taste/smell of A in the present, or the consequences of A in the future, (much, a little) more than B in a certain context C for an outcome D when I'm feeling (very, a little) E." This full experience includes all the following detailed sensory-based elements, at least implicitly: a. The person experiencing the preference. b. The value preference (liking/disliking). c. The sensory criteria being applied to the experience. d. The time frame of the evaluation. e. The two (or more) things or events compared (A, B). 133

f. An analog comparison (more/less than). g. The degree of the comparison (a lot, little, somewhat). h. The context (C). i. The sensory-based outcome (D). j. The state of the person.(E) k. The degree (very, a little) of state E (tired, full, alert, etc.) A preference is an individual personal response of liking/disliking some person, thing, or event more than another. Although someone else might have a different experience, what I experience is unquestionably true for me. I am associated into the experience, and I express myself by stating my personal experience. My preference might be of interest to someone else, but there is no demand on anyone else to agree with me, or to have the same experience. Judgment When someone slips from preference into judgment, most (or all) of the rich sensory-based detail listed above is deleted, a massive example of the deletion and distortion that results in a very simplified and impoverished generalization. "I do/don't like what you do" expresses a relationship between us. But if I say, "You're bad/good," the badness/goodness appears to exist only in you--my relating to you, and my evaluation of this relating, is completely deleted. Since something is either good or bad, there is no room for it to have good and bad aspects, to be more or less good, good for one person and bad for someone else, etc. All that is left is a digital either/or distinction, (good/bad, right/wrong) in contrast to the detailed analog distinctions that occur in preference. Gordon Allport described this process as "intolerance of ambiguity" many years ago in his studies of prejudice and the "authoritarian personality" (1954) and found that this insistence on fixed, either/or categories extended even to the simplest perceptions. In preference we are aware of both the positive and the negative, while in judgment we are aware of only one or the other. When dealing with a complex situation, we think about details, options, consequences, weigh pros and cons, consider other people's thoughts or views or conflicting values etc. We may eventually conclude with a digital yes/no decision, but hopefully only after carefully considering and evaluating all these different factors. Someone who judges doesn't have to go through all that effort; they simply apply the judgment, which is essentially a pre-decision, a prejudgment (prejudice) that can be applied quickly to any situation, without having to think about it in detail. It is a "one-size-fits-all" "freeze-dried" decision that greatly simplifies life, but at the cost of deleting most of our experience. Since a judgment deletes all the specific experiential and contextual elements listed previously for a preference, it is absolute and universal. The statement, "That person/thing/event is bad," means that it is bad for everyone, everywhere, always, in all regards, and for all outcomes. Since bad is simply bad, there is no point at all in communicating or negotiating about it; the only solution is to isolate it, eliminate it or destroy it. The universality of a judgment assumes that everyone should have the same identical response, imposing the judger's values on everyone else. If someone else disagrees with someone who judges, that threatens both the universality of the judgment, and also the world-view of the judge. If I judge something as bad, and someone disagrees with me, my only alternative is to think of it as good, which would turn my world upside down. Since that would be very unsettling and threatening, I will typically redouble my efforts to make the dissident conform, often with some form of verbal or physical coercion. 134

Since a judgment is universal, it exists independently of who is saying it, and this is one of the great attractions of judgment. Someone who judges doesn't have to take responsibility for the judgment or defend it; it simply exists. "It's bad." "It's God's will." This makes it very difficult for the judger to even consider reviewing the situation being judged, or considering alternative understandings. The absolute and universal nature of a judgment separates it from our own personal experience. Many judgments are learned from parents, priests, and other authorities, rather than arising out of our own experience, so there is no connection with experience. Yet even when we have fully experienced the event that we judge, the act of judging it separates us from the sensory-based details of that experience, as we focus our attention exclusively on the resulting judgment. When Judgment is Useful "Every behavior is useful in some context" is a fundamental presupposition in NLP, and there is one kind of context in which judgments are functional--in a situation of real and immediate danger, in which someone has to make a life-or-death decision very quickly. When the stakes are high, it is useful not to take the time to carefully evaluate a situation and come to a conclusion-by that time it might be too late. There is no time to think through all the nuances of what is happening; there is only the urgent need to act swiftly and decisively, and respond with a simple preset decision. Because of this usefulness, whenever someone feels threatened, they will tend to respond with judgment. And because of this association, whenever someone judges, we can safely assume that they feel threatened in some way. The Consequences of Judging Judging sets in motion a recursive circular process that typically builds upon itself, and "snowballs," becoming more and more widespread and intense as time goes on. The more I judge, the more I delete the details of my own experiencing. The less I am aware of my own experiencing, the more defensive and threatened I am likely to feel, so I will tend to rely on judgment even more. In preference it is much easier to move away from the negative and toward the positive, while attending to both. In judgment, however, we are usually focused exclusively on what we don't want, and since it is impossible to reach a negative outcome, we get stuck in a dead end. When someone judges someone else, they set themselves up as a superior authority, "I know what is right, and you don't," separating the judger from the judged, and disregarding the other person's views. Judgment changes a disagreement between equals into one between unequals, and the question becomes, "Who's right and who's wrong?" "Who is in a position of rightness and power?" in contrast to "How can we resolve our differences?" or "How can we continue to get along while acknowledging our differences?" By focusing on right and wrong, the content of the disagreement is usually completely lost, making problem-solving extremely difficult. Judging others by an abstract universal standard is always disrespectful of their unique individuality and particular situation, and I don't know anyone who enjoys that. In response they will usually judge me back. "You're so judgmental." "You shouldn't say 'should.' " Being judged in return is unpleasant and threatening to me, and that gives me something else to judge about you! I will usually redouble my efforts to make you agree, often by verbal or physical coercion, "You should do what I say," "You have to do it the right way or you'll roast in hell." When someone makes a judgment, it is usually hard for them to go back to review the underlying preference. If you ask for the experience that is the basis for the judgment, they will usually say something like, "What do you mean? It's just wrong, that's all." If they were to change their mind 135

about it, that would mean that they were wrong, and because they are so focused on the importance of being right, that is unacceptable. When someone believes that something is wrong, there is no point in talking about it, and that leaves only two alternatives. One is coercion, in which the judge forces another to do the right thing, and the other is to isolate or eliminate the person who is doing wrong. The process of judgment inherently rejects communication and problem-solving and leads directly to conflict. Of course, like any other communication, judgment can also be expressed nonverbally. A certain tone of voice, a raised head, a stiffened neck, a raised eyebrow, or a barely audible "hmph," can signal judgment as well as a verbal condemnation. And since these are nonverbal, they are more likely to be out of consciousness, which may lead to confusion in the listener "Why do I feel so bad?" All these feedback loops create a system that can easily trigger what engineers call a "runaway," in which the process of judgment becomes more and more extensive and extreme, rather like a "black hole' that swallows our experience. In self-judgment, both sides are played out within one person, with one part being the judger, while another part of the person feels judged. "I'm so dumb at math; I'm really stupid!" A common example is the fear of public speaking. One part of the person wants (or needs) to make a presentation, while another part vividly imagines all that could go wrong, and the critical and ridiculing comments that others will make, so the first part responds by feeling criticized and diminished. Usually these two aspects are so jumbled together that it is very hard to understand what is going on until they are separated clearly into the part of the person that judges and the part that is being judged. The chart below outlines the processes already described, as well as the later consequences of judging described below.

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Separation/Joining Once judgment sets up "good" and "bad" as absolutes, we begin a process of separation from the bad, and identification with the good, whether it is perceived externally or internally. A man who believes that certain "feminine" behaviors (crying, tenderness, weakness, etc.) are bad will avoid men who show those behaviors. He will also separate himself from these behaviors in himself, and will identify with the opposite behaviors (being stoic, tough, strong, etc.) The result is that he will respond with a rigid, stereotyped role, rather than with his spontaneous natural and authentic responses to actual ongoing events. This process of simultaneous identification and alienation begins fairly innocuously, but it can easily slide into something considerably more intense and problematic. Rejection It is only a small step to move from separation to the more active pushing away of rejection, and from the agreement of joining to the fuller identification that might be called incorporation or identification. In its more extreme form, it includes actively opposing and demonizing the "bad" 137

in the world, and denial of any bad in the self. The good in others is often worshipped, either in the form of dead saints or prophets, or living gurus, and the good in the self becomes a focus for conceit and self-importance. Violence The extreme of the process of identification with the good, and alienation from the bad is violence, which is directed both outward toward the bad in others and the world, as well as inward toward the bad aspects of self. The good must be defended and preserved at all costs, and the bad must be destroyed, whether it is inside or outside the person. This is the extreme form of getting lost in an oversimplified world of either/or opposites, and alienation from our actual experience. Examine any contemporary situation of violence, either personal or social, and it is easy to see the judgments that are at the root of it. Others' Responses to Judging and Preferring Now I would like you to try a little mind experiment. Close your eyes and recall a situation in which you disagreed with someone, and you judged them--either overtly or only in your mind. . . . Now review your experience of this person, and then try two short scenarios, using what you have learned about judgment and preference. In the first scenario, you imagine expressing your judgments to this person, as honestly and forcefully as you can, and then notice the other person's response. . . . Next, imagine expressing the same concerns and views, but in terms of your personal preferences, what is important to you, and again notice how the other person responds. . . . Which scenario resulted in a more positive and useful response from that other person? Expressing your preferences doesn't guarantee that you will get a useful response from someone else, particularly if there is still some leftover judgment in your words, voice tone, or posture, etc., or if that other person expects you to judge them, or is prone to judging you. But judgment will make a positive response very, very unlikely, and that it will usually lead to conflict and/or violence. Transforming Judgment: Out of the Black Hole Knowing how the process of judgment works tells us exactly what to do to transform it into something more useful. The problem with judgment lies in its oversimplified and impoverished, absolute and universal, either/or nature, which is seldom or never a good fit for real events, and is unresponsive to corrective feedback. Creating Safety Since danger is a major spur to judgment, anything that we can do to make ourselves and others feel safe will make it easier to relax our judgments. It can be very helpful to realize that in modern society it is very rare that we are in actual physical danger. Most of the "dangers" we experience are only threats to our status, image, importance, or convenience, what is often called "ego." A prime example of this is that in the US , most people's number one fear (worse than death!) is of public speaking. Most of the "emergencies" we respond to, no matter how important, are not actually "life-and-death" situations in which judgments are useful. I couldn't tell you how many times I have rushed to do something, or meet some kind of deadline, and afterwards looked back and thought, "Boy, that was a waste of time; not only was it not an emergency, it wasn't even important!" Many other events--a glancing look, a forgotten promise, even insults--are seldom life-or-death matters; they only threaten the way we think of ourselves, an unpleasant, but temporary inconvenience. Many people are afraid to ask others for something because they think of being refused as if it were an evaluation of who they are, rather than just information about the other person's likes and dislikes. A weak self-concept can be strengthened to make it more resilient and open to feedback and criticism, and therefore immune to that kind of "danger" (Andreas, 138

2002), and that will reduce the tendency to judge. Recovering Deleted Content You can take any person, thing or event that you judge, and recover all the specific content detail in that experience--the answers to who? what? how? when? where? and why? That will take you back to a specific and detailed sensory-based personal experience of your preference. This process should be very familiar to NLPers, since all the elements of the Meta-Model are designed to gather information to recover the specific details that are deleted from someone's experience. Each bit of deleted information that is recovered will be a step toward a fuller and richer experience of preference that can be a basis for effective problem-solving in the real world. "Mapping Across" with Process Submodalities One way to greatly speed up this process of transformation is to use a classic NLP process called "mapping across" (Bandler, 1985; Andreas, 1987) in which the process distinctions of judgment are transformed into preference, one by one, until you have transformed the whole experience. For example, let's assume that your experience was described by the differences between judgment and preference listed previously on page (add in page #). You could start by adding in a second image of what you prefer alongside what you judge as "bad," and then step into that image so that you are no longer separate from what you judged. Then you could change the "You" statements of judging to the "I" statements of preferring, and allow the still, black and white image to become a color movie, etc., etc. In actual practice you will find that changing some of these process elements also changes others, and that the ones that are most powerful in transforming experience differ somewhat from one person to another. Adding in the second image may spontaneously cause the narrow focus to widen into a panorama, and the feeling of hard closedness to soften and open up. Stepping into a still image may automatically change it into a colorful movie with sound, etc. These more powerful changes are called driver submodalities because they drive or influence others. Once you have discovered the drivers that work best for you, it becomes even easier to change a judgment into a preference, since you only have to change a few of them in order to complete the shift. Changing these process elements is a very powerful change in itself, and at the same time it also enriches the content details of the experience. For instance, when you shift from a still picture to a movie, there is more information in the movie, and the information continues to change as you view it. When you shift from a narrow focus to a broad panorama, there is literally more to see in your image, and you can view what you don't like in a much larger and more detailed context. Cultivating Compassion Another way to transform judgment is to experience what it is like to become that other person that you judge, experiencing what it is like to have their experience. Identifying with the other person, "walking a mile in their moccasins," is a very old practice in many spiritual traditions, and was particularly evident in Ghandi's life and work in freeing India from British colonialism. Whle identifying, it is helpful to think of the NLP presupposition that "Everyone always makes the best choice that is available to them." "How is it that this person finds this attitude or behavior to be the best choice available to them? Aligning Perceptual Positions, a process developed by Connirae Andreas (1991) is a very specific way to help someone move from judging someone from the outside to a compassionate understanding of what someone else experiences from the inside, and it also clarifies the person's own experience of responding to the other person. 139

Reaching Forgiveness The opposite of judgment is forgiveness. With a sense of safety, a detailed experience of what you have judged, both from the inside and the outside, and compassion for what that other person experiences, it is possible to make the simple process shifts of "mapping across" to reach a congruent, whole-body experience of forgiveness (Andreas, 1999). Summary In an equal relationship, I express what I want, and you express what you want. Treating each other as equals, we communicate to find out how we can share the information that we have, and work together to reach our goals, a hallmark of the approach of Virginia Satir (1991) one of the greatest therapists who ever lived. With full respect for both your preferences and mine, we can discuss our differences without judgment or condemnation. As one woman's mother often said when she and her daughter disagreed, "You're always right; I'm never wrong," a nice deconstruction of the either/or, right/wrong of judgment. As equals, each of us has the power to elicit responses in each other by expressing our experience, information, compassion, understandings, etc, rather than the power over others of judgment and coercion. Look around at all the conflicts in the world, from your personal ones to the wars that threaten to destroy our planet, and you will see the desperate need for transforming judgment into preference and communication--and the field of NLP could also use a strong dose of it. I definitely prefer it. "Out beyond ideas of wrondoing and rightdoing, there is a meadow. I'll meet you there." --Rumi Exercise: (pairs or trios) 1. Safety. Establish a safe context. "I'm not here to judge your judging; we all do it at times. My job is to help you explore and understand your experience of judging more deeply and in more detail, and offer you some alternative choices to try out. I also want to respect your values completely, while you learn more about them. I am not asking you to commit to doing anything different, only to explore some alternatives, and try them out in your mind." 2. Judgment. Pick an experience of judging another person, preferably one that is problematic to you in some way--either it makes you feel bad, or others object to it, or it gets you into difficulty in some way."X is bad." 3. Values Endangered. "Which of your values are involved in this judgment, and what danger to those values does the judged person pose?" A. Physical or Mental danger? Examine the endangered values, and determine: a. If the danger is actual material physical or economic, etc. danger, or b. Danger to your self-concept or "ego," as in disrespect or loss of status, without actual physical or economic harm. B. Now or Later? In either case, is the danger immediate and certain, or a future possibility, so that you have some space to prepare for it? 4. Preference. Pick an experience of very strong preference. " I really prefer Y to X." When possible, choose an experience in which the same, or very similar values are expressed with about the same strength. 5. Contrastive Analysis . Make a list of all the submodality differences you notice between Judgment and Preference, in all three modalities (VAK). 140

6. Recover Content Deletions. Pick a specific event that is judged, and recover all the experiential deletions listed under in the "Judgment Chart Commentary" under "# 2. Preference." 7. Map Across any remaining submodality differences , to make the judgment even more fully into preference. 8. Take "Other" Position for understanding and compassion for the other person, and to notice how they are limited in their choices and abilities. (Aligning perceptual positions can make this even more effective.) 9. Problem-Solving. Maintaining this state of preference, imagine how you could problem-solve about your differences with this other person, while fully maintaining the strength and importance of your values. Notice how the imagined interaction with this person goes, and whether or not it works better for your goals and outcomes than judging them. References Allport, Gordon. W. (1954) The nature of prejudice. Reading , MA . Addison-Wesley Andreas, Connirae. (1991) "Aligning Perceptual Positions: a new distinction in NLP." Anchor Point. Vol. 5, No. 2. Andreas, Steve (2002) Transforming Your Self: Becoming who you want to be. Moab , UT. Real People Press. Andreas, Steve. (1999) "Forgiveness." Anchor Point, Vol. 13, No. 5. Andreas, Steve. (1991) Virginia Satir: the Patterns of Her Magic. Moab , UT. Real People Press. Andreas, Steve, and Andreas, Connirae, (1987) Change Your Mind--and Keep the Change. Moab , UT. Real People Press. Bandler, Richard (1985) Using Your Brain--for a CHANGE.Moab, UT. Real People Press. ______Miller, George A. "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information." The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp. 81-97

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FINAL LEARNING STATEMENT AND LESSONS LEARNED THESE TWO WEEKS SKILLS AND PRINCIPLES IN LANGUAGE TEACHER TRAINING

PROJECT:

There are three parts to this assignment. Both are due Friday morning at 9 am

1. Go back to your pre-course task and add more to your answers (in a different colored font so you and I can see the change). Please add more to at least 12 or more of your answers. Email this to your trainers. 2. Finalize your training plan for your workshop. This will be shared with everyone on this course. Email this to everyone on the course, including the trainers. 3. Write a list or essay that answers the questions 1-4 on the next page. Email this to your trainerse. 4. Choose a non-traditional format and create something that summarizes and represents your learning on this course. Choose whatever format inspires you. For example, you could write a letter to someone, a poem, a recipe, a short story, or a song. You could make a poster.. or a scavenger hunt or a photo album or video. Bring this to class on Friday at 9 am.
Language Teacher Training/Development can be see as three interconnected/interdependent parts:

It (designing experiences for teacher learning)

Thou (my teachers that I am working with)

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I (myself as a teacher trainer)

1. What are the most important things that I have learned from and about English Language Teachers? What do I want to remember to do and think about when I work with teachers in the future? 2. What are the most important lessons that I learned about designing experiences for teacher learning? What beliefs about learning and teaching are most important to me? Why? 3. What are the most important things I learned about myself as a teacher trainer? What areas of teaching am I confident in and in which areas do I feel I need/want to continue to work? 4. Reaching the Goals of the course. Write a summary about your thoughts on these goals and reaching the goals of the course. The following questions might guide your writing: 1. What were my original impressions and thoughts about the goals and objectives and how are they different now? 2. How well did I reach them? 3. Which ones do I feel stronger about? Which ones do I think I need more work? Please explain. 4. What questions am I left with? 5. What are my goals and plans as I think about going back to my home context?

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