ABSTRACT
Reflective practice is in the foreground of key drivers advanced by governments and education departments worldwide not only to raise educational standards and maximise the learning potential of pupils but for accountability of teachers in relation to evidence-based outcomes against prescribed performance criteria. The broad consensus arising from recent large-scale surveys is that teacher quality is the ‘single most important school variable influencing student achievement’ (OECD, 2005a: 2) and characteristics which mark teachers at different stages in their careers should be built on a concept of teaching ‘as praxis in which theory, practice and the ability to reflect critically on one’s own and others’ practice illuminate each other’ (European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), 2008: 26). This highlights the need for physical education teachers to become very active agents in analysing their own practice and the importance of observing and tracking professional performance and pupil outcomes through self-monitoring (Webster and Schempp, 2008) in order to develop strategies for professional maintenance and growth. Numerous claims have been advanced concerning the values inherent in reflective practice, yet to engage in debate as to whether physical education teachers are reflective practitioners, we need to clarify what we mean by this phenomenon. Underpinned by work advanced by eminent scholars, researchers and practitioners within the field, and discussed more fully elsewhere (Zwozdiak-Myers, 2012), to which you should refer for further detailed explanation, in this chapter reflective practice is defined as:
a disposition to enquiry incorporating the process through which student, early career and experienced teachers structure or restructure actions, beliefs, knowledge and theories that inform teaching for the purpose of professional development.
