annotated-Critical%20Reflection%20and%20Writing.docx

Critical Reflection and Writing 1 Critical Reflection and Writing Jennifer Schutt EDD-FPX8010 Foundations of Doctoral Studies in Education

Critical Reflection and Writing 2 Critical Reflection and Writing Good educators should have the desire to improve. A way to improve one’s teaching practice would be by way of reflection. Reflection does not mean to simply think about what happened but extends to thinking about what strategies can be utilized to improve what happened. Educators should consider what can be done better next time to strengthen their practice. This paper will begin by reflecting on this course and end with how my experience through this course has impacted me as an educator and how I can improve as a writer. Writing Process Evaluation Reflection begins by thinking about what happened. It is interesting in this course that I used different processes to write the literature review and the paper on ethical behavior, diversity, and civil discourse. I found one process worked much better for me. This section goes through the process used when writing assignments 2 and 3, important revision choices that were applied in response to feedback from the instructor, and how I will relate this experience to my future writings. I will begin by discussing the process for writing each assignment and my responses to the instructor’s feedback. For assignment 2, I chose a topic and began my research. As I read through all my chosen resources, I highlighted quotes I believed would be of good use in my own literature review. While I was writing I would go back and find the quotes when I wanted to use them. The process of going back to find quotes was time consuming. I organized my paper into headings based on the instructions and my intentions for the review. I felt good about the paper I submitted and much of the instructor feedback regarded citation issues which were simple to fix. It was also advised to use less direct quotes and paraphrase more which I found to be more difficult. I tend to use direct quotes when I could not have said it better myself, so I feel

Critical Reflection and Writing 4 to each other. For my topic, inclusion, it was very easy to use systems thinking and connect inclusion with ethical behavior, diversity, and civil discourse. Inclusion is a whole debate about ethics and what is the “right” thing to do when it comes to educating students with such dramatic differences. Is it better for them to be grouped by ability or to be mainstreamed? It truly is a matter of ethical views. Connecting inclusion with diversity is easy because diversity is the reason that we need inclusion in the first place. If there was no diversity amongst the students, then inclusion would not be a topic to be discussed at all, everyone would just be taught exactly the same way. Connecting inclusion with civil discourse is still a struggle as teachers are still struggling to determine exactly what it means provide students with a “least restrictive environment”. Teachers all should be on the same page as to what inclusion looks like in their building, therefore there has to be a conversation about it. Professional Growth This section will evaluate the impact of this course on my professional goals, future courses, and strategies to be successful in this program. In this section, I will articulate my professional strengths and places where I can improve. I will also identify resources that can be used to strengthen my skills. The focus of my literature review and my paper on ethical behavior, diversity, and civil discourse was inclusion in the secondary classroom. I chose this topic because I was struggling with my special education students by feeling that they were lowering the bar for the rest of the class. Thus, general education students were being disadvantaged due to inclusion. After researching the topic and talking about the ethics behind inclusion, I have a different view. I believe it is good for students to be in the same classroom. I see now that inclusion is not just

Critical Reflection and Writing 5 about students with disabilities, it is about providing the least restrictive environment for all students and that includes the gifted general education students as well. Though the concept of inclusion as a theory sounds nice, as a practice it is extremely difficult for one teacher to meet the diverse needs of all students. There is simply not enough time or resources, especially when so much time is being spent on the lower achieving students than others. So, it has become my goal to allocate time to providing resources for gifted students to achieve at their highest level in addition to accommodating my general curriculum for the students with disabilities. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. As a teacher, a strength I have is the ability to reflect on my practice to improve it. I am constantly looking for ways to improve. One of the areas I need to improve is finding strategies to have an effective inclusive classroom environment. I would also like to find ways to deal with my diverse student body as I have students who are hard of hearing, don’t speak English, and students of low-income families with different learning and behavioral disorders. Another weakness I have is writing in general. I was advised by my instructor to utilize the writing center and I will be doing so in the future. Conclusion In conclusion, having the opportunity to reflect on my writing style and how my work in this course can help me in my future career as a high school mathematics teacher has been enlightening. I was able to recognize reflection as a strength that I have, and I was able to recognize writing as a weakness that I have. But, with the use of resources such as the writing center, I can improve. I have found a writing process that has worked well for me in the past and I should not have tried to change my writing process for time’s sake. Quality work does take time and I would rather provide quality work than work this is quick.

Critical Reflection and Writing 7 Appendix A Writing Revision Matrix for Assignment 2: Literature Review Note the feedback you received from your instructor, the page of your assignment associated with the feedback, and the revisions you plan to make in response. Page Instructor Feedback Learner Response to Feedback 2 Sentence needs citation Added citation 3 Sends? Present tense? Changed to “must send” 3 This paragraph needs a citation Added citation 4 Wicked? I am thinking you are using this as a slang term. If so, please revise. Removed slang 4 This section needs citations. It is reading like it is your opinion. Citations added. 5 You are using a large number of direct quotes throughout the paper. Rather than doing this, try to swap out for your own paraphrasing, and then cite that. Paraphrased quotes

Critical Reflection and Writing 8 Appendix B Writing Revision Matrix Note the feedback you received from your instructor, the page of your assignment associated with the feedback, and the revisions you plan to make in response. Page Instructor Feedback Learner Response to Feedback 2 While the writing itself is good, there is a need for reorganization here. There should be an intro, then an overview section, then a section that discusses one issue of ethical behavior having to do with inclusion, then a section on one issue of diversity to do with inclusion, and then one section that discusses one issue concerning civil discourse in relation to inclusion. You have great ideas. They need to be reorganized, and there needs to be a focus on one particular issue for ethical behavior, diversity, and civil discourse. If you choose to make a literature review section after the overview, that is fine as well. But there should be headings within that literature review section that align with the issues/topics I mentioned above. I made ethical behavior, diversity and civil discourse the headings for my paper and reorganized the content to fit those headings. 3 There is an introduction here, but after the intro there should be a paragraph that gives the overview of the context and background. Is that what the "History of Inclusion" section is? If so, please do not make it the heading. Instead, it should be the overview. The history was more of the evolution of the ethical behavior and I added this into my paper for clarification. 2 If this section is the overview, it is very long. The instructions were for it to be about half a page. If it is to be the section on the ethical behavior associated with your topic (inclusion) then it should be labeled this, and should discussion one particular issue having to do with ethical behavior itself. This is a great pieces of writing, but it is not focused on that one issue, and it does not have the heading it should. I rewrote the introduction to the paper to be about half a page and more clearly the introduction. I also picked one topic of ethical behavior and discussed that. I chose to discuss the history/evolution of the ethical views of inclusion.