ABSTRACT
A key element embedded in imported professional standards is the importance of critical reflection based on the thought that critical reflection is an essential element of teaching that has a major impact on a teacher's knowledge, skills, and dispositions and is a key competency for effective teaching. This chapter presents findings from focus groups to determine how teachers in Qatar Independent Schools (public schools) define critical reflection; the role critical reflection plays in their teaching, knowledge, and beliefs that are critically reflected on; the challenges they face when reflecting; and how critical reflection is used to improve learning and instruction. These findings are then examined against the backdrop of Brookfield's four types of analysis that make up critical reflection. The chapter offers several recommendations regarding how critical reflection can be used as a pedagogical tool to improve teaching by increasing new and different teaching strategies that engage a wide spectrum of diverse learners, in turn improving learning.
