Reflection on Classroom Environments

Reflect

When was the last time you stepped into an early learning classroom?

Maybe it was just today or maybe it's been a little while, but you probably don't even have to close your eyes to remember the sights, sounds, and smells of these busy environments! Teachers constantly experience the cognitive overload of a "blooming, buzzing confusion of sensory data" (Sherin & Star, 2011, p. 69) within the many moments of each day.

As early childhood educators work toward demonstrating mastery of teaching knowledge and skills, they must also learn to implement them in busy sensory-rich classrooms and individualize them for each child's needs.

A busy classroom with a teacher and 12 young children. Some play alone, some are in groups or interact with the teacher.

Reflect

What do teachers notice when they’re in early learning settings with young children?
What do they ignore?
What sense do they make of what they notice?

In complex environments, teachers need to learn to notice and reflect upon what is significant: teachers need to become good observers of classrooms, other teachers, themselves, and children. It is a skill that needs to be practiced. This requires reflection-in-action: noticing what is significant through observations of children and teacher-child interactions, analyzing those observations, and drawing upon them to make subsequent teaching choices about how to interact with children that will have the most impact (Schön, 1987; Sherin & van Es, 2002). This reflection needs to occur while teachers are actively engaging with children throughout the many moments of each day.

Focus

Teachers notice, interpret, then act…notice, interpret, then act…over and over again, thousands and thousands of times. As teaching expertise builds, so does this reflection-in-action skill, but it takes practice.

The busy classroom with two children highlighted. The children are playing on their own in a corner of the room.