Reflective/Reflexive Practices in Education

“ Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results .” John Dewey Thinking, specifically critical thinking, has been widely acknowledged as an essential twenty-first century skill and technology has revolutionized the teaching, learning and thinking space in the 21st century. Technology has also had a significant impact on the ways in which we communicate with each other. Learners, today, will openly admit that they are "lost" without their cell phones and, as a teacher, one of my constant challenges  is trying to figure out how I can engage these digital natives and empower them to take ownership for their learning, even as I grapple with the rapid technological changes.  My own reflective practice has lead me to various researchers on the subject of reflection and a major take away over the past two weeks has been the concept of self-construction through reflection. The Difference...

Recently, as part of my course in reflective-reflexive practice I completed two activities related to my learning style and my personality traits.The first activity was the VARK Test. See my results below: Based on these results, my learning preference is multimodal, which wasn't surprising to me. I know that I have very strong sensory perceptions and have always been told I'm good with my hands; hence the high kinesthetic score. I like to make things; I like to putter around in the garden and I love to cook! I also love to doodle. I am constantly doing things with my hands. So, as far as my preferences go, the results seemed to be spot on. Ironically though, my read/write score, being the lowest was very surprising to me. I love to read and make my living teaching students to read and write. Could this score be sending me some subliminal message? I'm still wondering about that... The other activity was the Big 5: Again, no major surprises here. My scores for Op...