Voices Inside Schools

In this article, Carol Rodgers describes a four-phase reflective cycle that she uses in her professional development work with teachers. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Hawkins, Carini, and Seidel, Rodgers explores the roles of presence, description, analysis, and experimentation in helping groups of teachers slow down and attend to student learning in more rich and nuanced ways. She also encourages teachers to solicit structured feedback from their students so they can begin to distinguish between what they think they are teaching and what students are actually learning. Ultimately, Rodgers argues that supportive and disciplined reflective communities of teachers can help teachers understand that their students' learning is central, and that their own teaching is subordinate to and in service of that goal.