Self-Analysis
Guidance about improving and documenting one's teaching throught thoughtful reflection
Self-analysis can provide information that is accessible only to you. It also provides an occasion for you to synthesize and contextualize the other information you present. Indeed, it may well provide the opportunity to turn potential failures into triumphs, through appropriate interpretation or effort at revision.
One element of self-analysis is to document the regular process or habit by which you review evidence of your teaching and use it to revise your behavior. This leads naturally to mapping your future goals.
Your commentary will demonstrate your scholarly analytical skills. How well do you piece together information from disparate cources? How well do you perceive problems or successes? How well do you interpret evidence? A well written analysis can be compelling.
Some guides can help you with a structured analysis of elements of teaching. These mostly bring to one's awareness elements that may go unnoticed:
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Sally Brown and Phil Race. 1995. Assess Your Own Teaching Quality. London and Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
55 personal "checklists" organized into chapters on: (1) learning in large-group settings; (2) designing and using resources, such as handouts, overheads, e-mail, etc.; (3) structuring student learning and feedback, from independent work to group work; (4) helping learners individually; and (5) professional qualities -
Stephen D. Brookfield. 1995. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
---See chapters 1-2 on the nature of critical reflection and chapters 3-4 on our "autobiographies," both as learners ourselves and as teachers. -
Peter Airasian and Arlen Gullickson. 1997. "Teacher Self-Evaluation." In Evaluating Teaching: A Guide to Current Thinking and Best Practice (J. H. Stange, ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Maryellen Weimer,Joan L. Parrett and Mary-Margaret Kerns. 1988. How Am I Teaching?: Forms and Activities for Acquiring Instructional Input. Madison, WI: Magna Publications.