Critical Reflection and Writing

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Capella University *

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8020

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English

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Dec 6, 2023

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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 3 paraphrasing doesn’t say the same thing as efficiently. But I did make the revision and paraphrased more often and used less quotations. More instructor feedback and responses can be seen in Appendix A of this paper in the Revision Matrix. For assignment 3, I typed each quote I intended to use in my paper into the document as I found them with intentions to reorganize them after I completed all the resources. While it made the reading and finding quotes to be less time consuming, I found it to be much harder to reorganize the ideas and synthesize the articles. The organization of assignment 3 turned out to be a disaster and I felt it was not my best work. The instructor commented that perhaps the ideas required were presented, but it was too disorganized to see them clearly. I changed the headings of my paper to align better with the prompt of the paper as the instructor suggested. I reorganized a lot of the material to better align with each new heading. There was also a long quote that needed to be elaborated on in the paper, which I revised. I felt much better about the paper after I reorganized, revised, and submitted it for a second attempt. You can see more instructor feedback and responses in Appendix B of this paper. In the future, I will follow the first process that I used, but I will write my quotes on a sheet of paper to cross them off after I used them. If there are any quotes that remain written down, I can decide where they can be incorporated with the other concepts in the paper. I find this easier to synthesize the ideas. Overall, I am finding a process for writing that will work for me in the future writing in this program. Capella offers many resources to help with my writing process. I should reference the APA format guidelines for in-text citations for my papers. Capella provides a useful APA guideline that I did not use when I should have. Capella also offers a writing center to get help with the writing process that I should have taken the time and opportunity to utilize. In the future, I will use more of these resources.

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Critical Reflection and Writing 4 Systems Thinking This section will explain how systems thinking can provide a framework for exploring inclusion. Systems thinking can be defined as seeing the connection between the idea versus the reality (Senge, 2006). The idea of inclusion is powerful. Ideally, with inclusion all students would be getting the education that enables them to grow to their own potential. There would be curriculum built to meet every student where they are at. The truth is that teachers do not have the time or the resources that it would take to make inclusion a reality (Tirri, K., & Laine, S., 2017). There must be some solution that would close the gap between the reality of inclusion versus the idea behind inclusion . One solution offered by Gardensten is to use a co-teaching method where one teacher leads the instruction and the other caters to students’ individual learning needs (Gardensten, 2023). Another study had a similar solution where schools could employ a teacher’s assistant (Barr & Marvopoulou, 2021). Personally, I believe it would be beneficial to reduce the student to teacher ratio to a maximum of 15 students for one teacher. Also, teachers should be given more time to prepare lessons and grade assessments. Finally, more money should be allocated to the classroom for curriculum, materials, and additional staff in every classroom such as a teacher’s aid or paraprofessionals. 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

Critical Reflection and Writing 5 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 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. Perhaps the school district I am employed at can help me with this by finding/financing professional development opportunities regarding inclusion in a secondary classroom. 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, specific to math instruction. I am certain there are professional development opportunities out there that discuss this topic, I just have to prioritize the matter. 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. I can also reach out to my academic advisor or instructor at Capella University.

Critical Reflection and Writing 6 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. As this was a reflection piece, I did not find myself needing to include references. I considered putting the ten sources I used to write my other papers, but I did not use them in this paper. All I did while writing this reflection paper was just that, I reflected. I had been thinking about this paper for days before I even started writing it, which is always part of my process. I always think about what I am going to write while I am in the car or in the shower. I like to think through the ideas first, then write them out in an organized fashion. These are my favorite types of papers to write as they come from the heart. Reflection is a personal process that we each do in our own ways and I am glad to have had the opportunity to reflect on this course in this way.

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Critical Reflection and Writing 7 References Barr, F., & Mavropoulou, S. (2021). Curriculum accommodations in mathematics instruction for adolescents with mild intellectual disability educated in inclusive classrooms. International Journal of Disability, Development, and Education, 68(2), 270- 286. https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2019.1684457 Gardesten, M. How Co-Teaching May Contribute to Inclusion in Mathematics Education: A systematic Literature Review. Educ. Sci. 2023 , 13 , 677. https://doi.org/10.3380/edusci13070677 Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization (Rev. ed.). Currency. Tirri, K., & Laine, S. (2017). Ethical challenges in inclusive education: The case of gifted students. Ethics, equity, and inclusive education (pp. 239-257). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620170000009010

Critical Reflection and Writing 8 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 9 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.

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Critical Reflection and Writing 10 Page Instructor Feedback Learner Response to Feedback 4 Again, this is great information, but it does not have to do with one issue focused on diversity within inclusion. My diversity section was meshed into the other two sections and I separated it and made it a section of its own. 5 Please check APA formatting here. It is also a very long direct quote if it is listed like this. If you leave it, it will need analysis and evaluation to follow it, in order for it to be well connected to the topic. I analyzed this quote to connect it with the topic more. 5 Is this the diversity issue here? If so, it should be the heading. I created a diversity heading and clarified all the diversity concepts. 8 The references section always has its own page. Please see APA format. I made the references its own page.

Critical Reflection and Writing

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