The Importance of Reflective Learning - Essay Sample in Education

REFLECTION BACKGROUND

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The ministry of education (2012) is keen on promoting inclusive as well as positive platforms for learning, however, students demand the need for the disciplinary act to be fused with the learning process. While cognition is salient for students, it is transparent that the environment under which children can be taught cognitive skills is highly dependent on the presence of discipline and order. Dennelli and Lambourne (2011) highlight that there is a steady affiliation between cognitive learning and the use of physical activities in the classroom, which is the approach that I used in the accomplishment of my working. Issues of discipline interrupted my lesson on money counting and cognition which forms the background for this study as well as the existence of lack of motivation for some of the pupils to participate in cognitive learning.

In the assessment of the drawbacks of current education system, it is clear that deficiency of play and the ignorance of cognitive factors is suggested to be a drawback and affects the quality of learning dispensed to the students. Barblett (2016) notes that play is an important aspect of learning and it is impossible to disentangle play from the learning process and hence it is better to find ways that play and learning can go hand in hand. The current system of learning has been criticized to lay emphasis on getting through prepared lessons and imposing understanding on the children hence diminishing their motivation to learn. Based on the reflections, I will contrast the literature available on play and learning and the methods I employed in my lessons and how they impacted the children.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study seeks to reflect on the importance of reflective learning and uses a prior recorded experience to achieve this intent. The study also seeks to elaborate on the reflective event as well as make link between the events and prior studies while critically assessing the specific event.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Bagg, Kravitz and Kalan (2016) highlight that in every classroom, there exist about one or two pupils that are afflicted by ADHD which is a condition that causes the child not to focus in the classroom or to be unsettled. Spellings et al (2006) adds that there are up to 2.46 million children who have the disorder and the signs are highly visible when children get to the age of three. With regard to the idea that children in year one are older than three years but are still young to require constant supervision, then it is possible that the child who could not stop crying throughout the money lesson could have been affected by ADHD.

The childcare Bureau (2007) suggests that children necessitate a program that allows them to be eased into a new area which can allow them to elevate their level of focus. Based on my experience, it is transparent that the introduction of the unit on money culminated to unusual behavior for the students as they were not familiar with how to conduct themselves in the presence of a new instructor and a new unit. Conroy (2004) takes note of the fact that challenging behavior can cause interference with the acquisition of fresh concepts as well as culminate in isolative behavior for the child. Homogenous to the sentiments of Bagg, Kravitz and Kalan (2016), interventions to ensure a positive environment for the child should be promptly implemented. However, Conroy (2004) also lays emphasis on the comprehension of why the unusual behavior arises and what it seeks to achieve for the child undertaking it.

Otrosky and Jung introduce a fresh perspective which suggests that learning can be easily handled whereby there is a positive rapport between the student and the instructor and this was an aspect that I had ignored. Hemmeter et al (2008) make the observations that children transitions are difficult for them to comprehend hence they tend to resent the individual carrying out the activity. This could be a great explanation for why the children chose o make noise in my presence despite me calling out for them to get back to their individual mats and be quiet. It is possible that they did not comprehend why I was dictating the schedule and hence I should have been prepared on ways to explain scheduling to them. The Cymru foundation (2012) takes note of the management of classroom environment through elaborations on how to handle routines, changes and schedules already set for the young ones and this is capable of creating a positive learning and instructing platform.

Hollands (2014) notes that a child who is highly sensitive in the learning environment necessitates special care as well as a heightened amount of patience to ease them into the social and learning mood. Child O from my reflection, was completely out of line in the first two lessons, however, with patience and care he learnt how to ease into the learning process to even answering questions right in the fifth lesson. The UNESCO (2001) takes note of the idea that instructors should be aware of the existence of students with parallel needs and they should be in a position to respond to this diversity. Jansen (2013) counters this approach through a suggestion on the imposition of tough love on the children which is capable of yielding better results as opposed to tender methods when it comes to disciplinary action. One aspect that he concurs with is the idea that love is not only the basis of bad behavior, but it can also be applied in the propagation of good mannerisms as noted by Hollands (2014). Based on my experience, it is clear that the earlier method of being easy with child O yielded great results as opposed to tough love which would have probably increased the crying of the child.

Play can be deemed as a positive strategy for impacting motivation among students as well as extending the growth rate, cognition rate and in finality, the memory of the students. In addition, children get to acquire new vocabulary and comprehend the use through incorporation of games into the learning platform (Han et al, 2010). Based on my experience, play acted as a great influencer to the children and they indulged more in the learning process and they acquired increased patience to persevering to the end of the scheduled lesson. Aistear (2016) notes that play makes the children to be highly active, to elevate their volunteering skills as well as heighten their participation and communication. This infers that play is able to positively impact learning and confidence in the educational platform, and on top of it, most children volunteer to indulge in the play increasing their confidence. These were some of the lessons that I acquired from the children while I conducted the bingo game as part of the learning process, however, child O was still reluctant to indulge with other students.

The noise levels in the classroom were too high during the play-learning sessions and this became a challenge that I had to promptly address without eliminating the objectives of the game, which were learning. Based on the insights of Tarman and Tarman (2011) and Whitebread (2012) noise levels are hard to manage when play is fused with the learning process and hence the choice of games should be carefully attended to. The Lumina foundation (2012) however brought a fresh perspective on the play and learning approach by highlighting that the students lose motivation for other units that are not able to encompass play. While this was not directly observable, the enthusiasm of the pupils at my arrival signified a heightened amount of enthusiasm which implied anticipation. This could point to the idea that the children were eager for my lesson that they did not pay attention during other lessons.

Sears (2003) notes that new facilitators have a difficult time in carrying out their planned lessons based on the reception by the pupils and hence, they should be mindful of the context prior to beginning the teaching exercise. Sears suggests that teachers should attempt to draw on different areas of knowledge so that they are able to address the issues that arise from change of unit for the young pupils. Getting used to teaching other students led me to the assumption that the year 1 students would be immediately receptive of my approaches as well as my unit, however, this was not the case.

METHODOLOGY

APPROACH

This writing embraced the reflective journal approach that encompasses the use of prior personal entries for analysis and relation to progressive literature. It also encompasses a critical approach to the events in the entry and an elaborate link of the findings to the literature as well.

JUSTIFICATION OF APPROACH

Watkins (2007) elaborates on reflective journals as a tool that is able to provide an opportunity for individuals to depict their progress in the learning environment while still highlighting the issues that have countered their progress. The Northern University of Illinois (2016) noted that there are various forms of reflective journals starting from observational, inquisitive, speculative, awareness reflections and reflections that are geared at integrating theories and sentiments. This journal was geared at creating both a sense of awareness of previous actions as well as making observations on issues that affect teachers handling young students. In addition, the reflection was also geared at linking the existing theories and inferences from prior studies with my live experience.

One of the justifications for choosing the reflective journal approach is based on the sentiments of Farrah (2012) that reflective journals hold the ability to spur the motivation among students to improve their perception. Additionally, courses are improved and made more exciting through incorporation of reflective journals. My embrace of a reflective journal introduced new perspectives into handling hyper-active students as well as confirmed salient measures of maintaining discipline for the young ones. I also used the reflective journal approach to substantiate the claims of Borg (2001) that reflective journals have not been awarded adequate time into the benefits of reflective writing as it allows for detection of loopholes that have occurred in prior events and seeks to find answers on how to seal the loopholes.

Beed, Brownie and Kalnina (2005) echoed the inferences by Watton, Collings and Moon (2001) that the search for support literature as well as the quality of the reflective journal is able to unravel levels of comprehension of the student by the instructor. In my case, support for the behavior of the toddlers as well as critic of the behavior, reveals my ability to link insights acquired in the classroom with prior research. Estrada and Rahman (2014) agree with Beed, Brownie and Kalnina (2005) that once the thoughts of an individual are extended, they cannot retract back to original levels. This infers that reflective approach of writing allows for an individual to append value to their own work based on the learning process as well as the acquisition of new insights in the process.

Hiemstra (2002) notes that reflective journals have the ability to expose insights that are personal and this serves as a true fact as I was nudged to use my personal experiences in the making up of the assignment. The low levels of familiarity with the use of the reflective approach hindered my indulgence in the task as I had to go through an extensive amount of insights to comprehend the use of this approach. As suggested by Forrest (2008), reflective journals can be highly subjective and this might work towards the favor of the writer or against the writer. This infers that the instructor in charge of grading this writing might not be able to comprehend my point of view in some areas hence consider them as gaps leading to a lowered grade....