Increasing Self-Efficacy:Critically Reflecting upon Teaching and Learning via Brookfield and Gibbs

Charlotte Callis

BA (Hons) Primary Teaching Studies 5-11 with recommendations for QTS.

Abstract

This reflective piece is divided into two sections. The first provides critical reflection from a trainee teacher perspective upon a significant incident (Tripp, 2011) related to behaviour management within a larger than average sized Church of England primary school in a mixed Year 1 and 2 class of 30 children. This reflection is enacted via Brookfield’s lenses (2017). The second section presents a critical reflection on the positive impact a teacher can have when a student is struggling with maths in a Year 5 class in a large primary setting for children from British Forces families. This account is provided via Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988). It is argued that whilst both reflective frameworks have their limitations, linked to Bandura’s (1977) concept of self-efficacy, they help the educator to develop an empathic approach to improving their own professional and personal practices, and those of their stakeholders, including pupils, colleagues and parents.

Introduction

This piece comprises two essays that explore significant incidents that have shaped my teaching practice. It is first imperative to define the phrase ‘significant incident’. According to Joshi (2018), a significant incident is ‘something which we interpret as a problem or a challenge in a certain context. It is not a routine occurrence’ (p.82). Tripp (2011) elaborates on this by claiming that the way we view events and the meaning we attach to them is what makes experiences significant. As a result, these incidents are unique and personal to each individual teacher (Joshi, 2018). The reflective process also differs between individuals as it is influenced by previous experiences, feelings, personal dispositions, values, beliefs, and assumptions (Bruster & Peterson, 2013; McGregor & Cartwright, 2011; Pollard & Tann, 1997). The purpose of reflection in teaching is to gain better understanding of an experience to inform future practice (Hayes, 2017; Thompson & Spenceley, 2020).

This piece will use two models of reflection to aid this process. The first significant incident will be analysed using Brookfield’s lenses (1998; 2017) to develop an empathetic understanding of a situation. As part of this process, various perspectives are examined to reflect upon an incident that will focus on disruptive behaviour and the possible reasons behind this. I will also reflect upon the teacher-pupil relationship and how I could have managed the latter’s behaviour differently. The second incident will use Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988) to reflect upon events from my personal school experience, which informed my decision to become a teacher and continues to influence my practice. It will focus on how providing additional support to students can better their self-efficacy and level of achievement. The use of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle provides a basic scaffold to reflect on my feelings, thoughts, and actions to shape the teacher I continually become.

Significant incident analysis via Brookfield’s lenses: behaviour management

The incident occurred at the beginning of 2023

my introductory placement whilst I taught a guided reading lesson. I had to speak with pupil A several times concerning increasingly disruptive behaviour. It started with swinging on a chair and tapping a pencil. I asked the pupil to stop as I was struggling to hear another child who had asked a question. The pupil then started talking to people at their table. This caused more discussion between other pupils to which they responded by shouting at everyone to be quiet. I followed the school’s behaviour policy and informed the pupil that if I had to speak to them again, I would be moving their name to the ‘grey cloud’, which forms part of a visual behaviour management system displayed on the wall for those enacting disruptive behaviours. The pupil continued to talk so I asked them to move their name and referred to the school’s values of showing respect and being fair and caring. The pupil’s behaviour continued to be disruptive, so I asked them to sit on the carpet. They refused and started shouting. At this juncture I removed their usual end of lesson motivational treat. This affected their behaviour for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, they refused to sit down and complete a task when another teacher asked, despite the lesson being one they typically enjoy.

Autobiographical view

Reflection of the incident can be separated into reflection-in-action during the incident and reflection-on-action, which occurred after the event (Olteanu, 2017; Schön, 1983). My reflection-in-action was influenced by my observations and previous experiences of pupil A’s behaviour and the impact this has on both their, and other students’, learning. This reflection-in-action encouraged me to attempt to manage pupil A’s behaviour as I did not want any disruptive behaviours to escalate, resulting in further disengagement. This understanding of the pupil’s behaviour, coupled with the anxiety regarding teaching my first guided reading sequence, hindered my ability to make incisive professional judgments.

After previous incidents, a fellow teacher and I put in place incentives for the end of lessons, such as extra time to read. Reminders of these usually helped to discourage any further off-task behaviour, re-engaging pupil A with their learning, but this was not the case in this lesson. Consequently, my reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983) caused me to react hastily meaning I quickly went through all the levels of the school’s behaviour management protocol without reminding them of the next step or giving them enough time to respond. Tripp (2011) stresses that in this instance I needed to decide on a course of action in a situation where I lacked the knowledge to determine the correct strategy, whilst also being conscious of the impact these would have upon pupil A’s wellbeing. This meant that my intervention was not positively impacting the situation (Kyriacou, 2009). Instead, it likely contributed to their negative behaviour and despondent mood for the remainder of the day.

My reflection-on-action highlighted how frustrated I had become. James (2016) states that when a problem arises, people tend to make this the centre of attention. This problem-focused approach was the main issue in my management of the situation. I started to view the problem as too challenging, and lost belief in my ability to overcome it. Bandura (1994) argues that people with low perceived self-efficacy exhibit several characteristics. In this case, I was imagining all that could go wrong, rather than concentrating on the process in the present. Since I was selectively paying attention to perceived ‘failures’, a relatively small incident triggered me to doubt my behaviour management skills. As a result, it is essential that I develop my confidence in addressing behaviour so that effective, attentive, teaching remains the focus (James, 2016). To do so, I must switch my attention from failure towards success, by reminding myself of my strengths and resources to hand, considering positive problem solving based approaches. For this incident, reflecting now I could argue that whilst I did not engage with the pupil in an effective or productive manner, I persisted in trying to address the disruptive behaviours.

Student’s view

Brookfield (2017) stresses that by examining pupils’ perceptions of our actions, we can gain an understanding of problems and mistakes that we might otherwise miss. This informs us of what is and is not working to encourage more accurately grounded decisions. Viewing the incident through pupil A’s eyes suggests that their compliance with my requests may be linked to how fair they perceived these to be (Way, 2011). Way’s (2011) research demonstrates that practices that aim to deter misbehaviour are not always successful, as higher perceived strictness may result in increased defiance and further disruptive behaviour. To add to this, by consistently depending upon the extrinsic motivation of rewards, I may have adversely impacted their intrinsic motivation for learning, and so their engagement had become overly reliant upon these rewards (Payne, 2015). Student feedback in Shreeve et al. (2002) demonstrates that I should motivate students and manage behaviour through encouraging interpersonal relationships with pupils, rather than focusing on formal systems of behaviouristic rewards.

These findings are echoed in research and policies which highlight the importance of consistency, fairness, and a positive pupil-teacher relationship (Bennett, 2016; Payne, 2015; Reid et al., 2010). Reflecting on the events through pupil A’s eyes emphasises potential issues of power. Pupil A may have felt that I had unfairly imposed the school rules, which may have reinforced a power dynamic that was unhelpful and continued to negatively impact upon their actions. This is important to consider as their mother had previously expressed that she struggled with their behaviour at home and would often ‘give up’. As students can bring issues from their wider social systems into class (Muna, 2020; Parsonson, 2012), it can be argued that my use of reactive behaviour management strategies partially helped in the moment, but ultimately escalated the issue. A more effective approach may have been to use more nurturing, proactive strategies to prevent disruption (Nash et al., 2016). For example, a discussion with pupil A would have highlighted why they were engaging in these behaviours, helping us to explore ways I could better assist them. This may have addressed any affective and cognitive factors that influenced their behaviour through encouraging pupil A to have an active voice in resolving the issue (Ellis & Tod, 2018; Oxley, 2016; Powell & Tod, 2004).

It is also important to acknowledge that ‘a classroom is an environment with its own ecology, including teacher, pupils and their interrelationships, the equipment, books and a range of activities which all interact to influence the behaviour of the room’s inhabitants’ (Parsonson, 2012, p.16). Therefore, a student’s disruptive behaviour is dialectically impacted by the audience of their peers, as well as the teacher’s behaviours and vice versa (Rogers, 2015). Within the class, there is a variety in attainment levels, personalities and motivations to learn, which must all be catered for (Rogers, 2015). My critical incident required me to balance the needs of pupil A with the rest of the class. The negative impact of a disruptive classmate was highlighted in The Good Childhood Inquiry report (Layard and Dunne, 2009). It indicated that 43% of 11–14-year-olds reported that the noise of other students often made it difficult to concentrate in class. Thus, the disruptive behaviour of pupil A was not just a stressor for me, but also for the other pupils (Muna, 2020). This frustration was evident in that their classmates were asking them to ‘stop’, arguing that they wanted to learn or that they had a headache. It is, therefore, possible that the other pupils felt neglected as my attention shifted from the academic task to the distractions of pupil A’s disruptive behaviours. This interrupted the flow of the lesson and the process of learning (Parsonson, 2012) and potentially compounded class management difficulties by inciting others to join in with disruptive activities.

Colleagues’ view

Brookfield (2017) acknowledges that discussing practice with colleagues can offer alternative perspectives on situations. Our colleagues may have experienced similar situations during their career so working together can expose anything overlooked during personal reflection to find the cause of a problem, and a solution (Watkins, 2014). These thoughts are supported by a professional discussion I had with a colleague about the incident. Within this discussion, they revealed that they were facing the same behaviours, but found them difficult to address as they were unsure whether pupil A realised their behaviour was distracting. This is important to consider because pupil A is currently undergoing an ADHD diagnosis, so may not have been able to control their behaviours (NHS, 2018). At the time, I was not completely aware that of this, or that they were also struggling with a recent parental separation. Consequently, it could be argued that, by applying a strict behaviourist approach, I failed to use ‘approaches which are appropriate to pupils’ needs in order to involve and motivate them’ (Department for Education (DfE), 2011, p. 1). According to Rogers (2015), my management was overly vigilant and, therefore, pupil A naturally challenged my instructions. As an alternative, I should have initially avoided referencing the disruption, and instead asked them what was wrong and how I could help. This would have indicated that I was aware of the disruptive behaviour, but that I expected some cooperation to overcome it.

I decided to talk to the school’s SENCo to provide another perspective on the incident. This discussion enabled me to better understand how to support pupil A’s needs, which prioritised establishing a secure relationship with them (Edwards, 2016). This links to Bennett’s (2016) idea of the three Rs of the behaviour curriculum: routines, responses, and relationships. Within the incident, I had become focused on routines and responses, but neglected the relationship element. Blatchford (2017), Glazzard (2016) and Thompson and Spenceley (2020) all acknowledge that if pupils feel secure and have a clear understanding of behavioural expectations, they are more likely to learn well and engage positively. As emphasised by Nye et al. (2016), the SENCo’s suggestion that I build a positive relationship with pupil A, combined with the existing rewards based system, rendered sanctioning poor behaviour as a last resort. These thoughts echo Bennett’s (2017), who highlights the importance of knowing the school’s behaviour policy, having clear expectations, and gaining the respect of pupils. This approach may have helped me to better manage the behaviour in the incident as my reliance upon sanctions for a relatively small distraction likely intensified any problems.

Glock & Kleen (2019) and Glock and Pit-ten Cate (2021) demonstrate that trainee teachers often feel as though they should appear authoritarian, meaning they are less likely to use mild intervention strategies, such as positive reinforcement, as they doubt their effectiveness. Therefore, this experience and my subsequent feelings of inadequacy are not unique to my incident, with most trainee teachers being concerned about their ability to cope with disruptive behaviour (e.g., Bromfield, 2006; Twiselton & Goepel, 2018). As a result, Bennett (2016) states that new teachers must learn how to manage behaviour practically to allow them to make mistakes, reflect upon these with the help of mentors and then try again. Bennett (2016) also stresses that there is no universally effective behaviour management strategy. Instead trainee teachers must have a toolbox of strategies at their disposal to allow them to select the techniques that are appropriate for each incident. It is evident that behaviour management skills improve with experience, but some class dynamics can produce problems for even the most patient and experienced teachers (Konti, 2011). As a result, I should not become disheartened by any difficulties I experienced at the beginning of the course. Instead, I ought to focus on the positive aspects of my relationship with pupil A to ensure an inclusive environment, which should help to promote healthier classroom behaviours over time (Twiselton & Goepel, 2018).

Theoretical view

Pupils’ disruptive behaviour is regularly found to be one of the greatest daily stressors experienced by teachers (Cogswell et al., 2020; Kyriacou, 2009; Nash et al., 2016). To counter this, behaviourism is embedded in school behaviour management systems (Harold & Corcoran, 2013; Hart, 2010). With government policies (DfE, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c) and the English school inspectorate system (Ofsted, 2014) favouring behaviourist principles of positive reinforcement and punishment as motivators for altering behaviour (Nash et al., 2016). This theoretical paradigm traditionally views children’s behaviour as manageable through a hierarchical system of clearly defined sanctions and rewards to promote pro-social behaviours and improve classroom performance (Nash et al., 2016; Rogers, 2015). This approach had previously been successful with pupil A. However, in this instance, it did not have the anticipated effect since my efforts to apply operant conditioning through rewards (Skinner, 1948) failed to positively modify their behaviour. Harold & Corcoran (2013) claim that the reductionist nature of the behaviourist paradigm contradicts the complexities of behavioural difficulties. Instead, it relies upon the ideas of passivity, control and obedience (Payne, 2015). While such strategies can be effective for many students and create a classroom in which learning can take place, it is suggested that a child’s behaviour is affected by a dynamic interplay between sociocultural, genetic, and contextual factors (Parker et al., 2016), which may explain why a behaviourist approach was ineffective in this incident.

Arguably, the one size fits all perspective of behaviourism does not address the constructivist view of human learning, intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and the child’s voice (Parker et al., 2016). Harold and Corcoran (2013) offer an alternative that rests upon ‘relational action’, which encourages more inclusive practice. This relates to Shaughnessy’s (2012) appeal for an increased focus on humanist perspectives of supporting children’s behaviour and well-being by emphasising internal factors, rather than external control. However, Bromfield (2006) identifies that while such a viewpoint may fit with trainee teachers’ values and beliefs, they may not be suitable when a trainee is faced with the challenges of a classroom dynamic. Even so, combining this humanist perspective by establishing a good relationship with pupil A based on mutual respect and rapport, alongside the behaviourist school policy, may have been useful in my significant incident. This finds a balance between the need for trainees to ‘maintain good relationships with pupils, exercise appropriate authority, and act decisively when necessary’ and the ability to ‘establish a safe and stimulating environment for pupils, rooted in mutual respect’ to meet the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011, p.1).

When I attended school, I only recall experiencing behaviour management through a behaviourist approach. As a result, it is understandable that I relied upon these techniques. Brookfield (1998) proposed that individuals tend to rely upon their personal experiences of learning to inform their actions. Therefore, in this incident, I failed to explore other motivators that could potentially have been more effective (Payne, 2015). Reflection based on this has highlighted that I should look at additional strategies for behaviour management as well as the causes of low-level disruptive behaviour. This is important because such disruption affects learning for all within the classroom with up to 30% of teaching time lost (Aubrey & Riley, 2016; James, 2016). According to Ofsted (2014), typical features of low-level disruptive behaviour included children displaying a lack of respect to others, calling out, unnecessary talking, fidgeting and being slow to follow instructions. They suggest that to combat this, teachers should set expectations of behaviour, that children should be aware these expectations, as well as ramifications that follow through potential non-adherence. Consequently, following the school’s behaviour policy was a valid starting point in managing the situation, given that it is a set of protocol that is consistently used throughout the school. However, an error I made when applying it was focusing on the negative side of this policy by issuing sanctions, and not reinforcing positive behaviour, such as by praising pupil A’s classmates for adhering to the policies. This may have altered pupil A’s behaviour and prevented further discussion with other pupils. Even so, Aubrey and Riley (2016) argue that positive reinforcement alone cannot eliminate all negative behaviour. Instead, the appropriate use of sanctions should be used to support these (Glazzard, 2016).

Conclusion

This reflection enabled me to consider other techniques to manage behaviour. By consistently applying sanctions and becoming frustrated, rather than forming relationships built on mutual respect, my management of the situation was ineffective (Glazzard, 2016). Brookfield’s four lenses was an invaluable model of reflection to help come to this conclusion. It allowed me to explore the critical incident beyond my own perspective, and to support and challenge my preconceptions and biases (Eaude, 2018). Reflecting through the student’s lens, specifically, was helpful as I gained a more empathetic view to better support pupil A’s learning in the future (Brookfield, 2017). From this, I was able to identify necessary improvements for my practice, which is acknowledged as a strength of Brookfield’s model.

The strengths of Brookfield’s lenses approach notwithstanding, Nagel (1986) argues that it is impossible to see from someone else’s viewpoint. For example, others’ perceptions are personal and varied, so assumptions even when trying to view a situation from a different viewpoint will still inevitably be filtered through one’s own values, belief and so on. Another limitation of Brookfield’s lenses is that it does not clearly help in the construction of specific responses, which Bruster and Peterson (2013) argue is critical following reflection. Even so, it is evident that engaging with Brookfield’s lenses as a critically reflective tool can foster the development of positive relationships with pupils and other educational stakeholders through empathy, to better meet intended teaching and learning outcomes (Rhodes et al., 2019).

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle: enculturing a growth mindset in learning maths

Description

Throughout my primary education, I frequently moved schools as my father was in the Army. Consequently, like many military children (Bradshaw et al., 2010), I had several educational gaps due to repeating certain material. My parents would, therefore, attempt to cover any gaps at home to prevent me from falling significantly behind my peers in terms of academic attainment (Mmari et al., 2010). However, I particularly struggled with maths, which is a concern that parents commonly express due to the differences in scope and sequence within different maths curricula (Ruff & Keim, 2014).

In year 5, my teacher recognised that despite the effort I was putting in, I was still struggling with maths. We were learning about fractions, but as my understanding of the concepts of multiplication and division was weak, I could not grasp the content. They devised a plan to support me, starting with a ‘times tables mountain’. Each week, I would learn a specific set of times tables at home. Then, on Friday, I would complete a short test. The teacher made a mountain out of cardboard. It had a picture of myself, which I would move every time I got all the answers correct within a certain time. My confidence grew rapidly. At the end of the year, the teacher entered me into an international maths challenge, and I received a silver certificate, which I was incredibly proud of. As a result, the teacher has left a lasting impression on me. They played an integral part in both my professional and personal life by believing in me. Their positive attitude, kindness and support is something I aim to ensure I exhibit in my teaching career.

Feelings

Mmari et al. (2010) note that parents of military children frequently express concerns regarding their children’s quality of education, which was true of my parents. They would spend a lot of time helping both my sister and I with topics we struggled with, or had not covered, to prevent us from falling behind our peers. I was always aware that maths was not easy for me. Everyone around me appeared to easily learn new content, whereas no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to struggle. Over time, I became frustrated and started to worry that I was destined to attain poorly in maths.

Even though I felt relieved that someone had noticed the effort I was making, these negative feelings were at first exacerbated by the intervention. I became worried about the mountain based tests, especially when I did badly in the initial assessment. However, the practice built upon my maths fluency and my test scores began to improve. This was a huge confidence boost, which resulted in me looking forward to the tests. This encouraged me to try harder so that I could beat both my previous scores and times. This confidence in myself and my ability to do mental maths has been useful throughout my life. It was vital when completing my GCSE examinations, and also motivated me to take A-Level Biology and become a trainee teacher.

Evaluation

The main issue in the incident was that I lacked self-efficacy, which can be described as an individual’s belief that they can complete a task (Bandura, 1977). In maths, this relates to an individual’s judgments about their ability to successfully engage in specific tasks (Bonne and Lawes, 2016). Self-efficacy has been shown to positively correlate with achievement as it influences motivation, effort, and persistence when solving problems (e.g., Chiu & Xihua, 2008; Siegel et al., 1985). This is also linked to maths anxiety, which Ashcroft (2002) define as apprehension that interferes with an individual’s capacity to manipulate numbers and thus solve mathematical problems in a variety of situations. As a result, rather than asking for help, I spent time worrying about doing things wrong and appearing inadequate in front of the teacher and my peers.

On a positive note, with the help of my parents, I persevered with the subject and learnt concepts outside of school. Koutsoulis and Campbell (2001) argue that this parental support would have had beneficial effects upon my maths achievement. It was this support that encouraged me to accept th teacher’s help, despite feeling self-conscious and inadequate. Upon reflection, it was this teacher who made a significant positive contribution to my academic life, which evolved into a wider confidence in everyday situations.

Analysis

Research by Bonne and Lawes’ (2016) explains how my maths self-efficacy negatively impacted my achievement and sparked the incident in what had been a hitherto vicious cycle. They claim that students with low levels of self-efficacy are less likely to exert effort to solve a problem than their peers with higher self-efficacy levels. Within their study, they brought a group of 7-year-olds together for maths lessons that focused on strengthening their knowledge of numbers. These pupils had been highlighted by the teacher as individuals struggling in maths. The students appeared to be reluctant to engage with the maths activities, despite the teacher presenting a range of scaffolded activities that could allow all students to be successful. This suggests that some learners go into a lesson expecting to encounter difficulty, or to fail. These negative self-perceptions can be persistent once formed, so it is vital that teachers attend more to the self-concepts of their students (Kaskens et al., 2020). Arguably, my self-belief had been acting as a barrier to learning maths content, slowing my progress. This could have been perennially detrimental had the teacher not been so attentive and invested in my improvement.

Bandura (1986) further describes self-efficacy as ‘people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses’ (p. 391). This implies that maths self-efficacy is a belief about something more specific than maths in general, but instead it is an individual’s ability to solve particular problems. In my incident, I did not have a strong conceptual understanding of multiplication and division. This meant that when covering fractions, I convinced myself I would fail and embarrass myself in front of my peers. These worries made it difficult to engage. Research shows that my feelings may have impacted my mathematical performance by interfering with my working memory (Young et al., 2012), which is essential for successfully solving problems (Marshall et al., 2016). The teacher noticed where the gaps were within my knowledge and how this was starting to hinder progress in other areas of maths.

As part of their role, teachers are required to promote good progress by being ‘aware of pupils’ capabilities and their prior knowledge, and plan teaching to build on these’ and applying appropriate teaching strategies within mathematics (DfE, 2011, p.1). The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (2019) recognise that the ability to multiply and divide both the numerator and denominator is vital for identifying equivalents and simplifying fractions. Consequently, the teacher’s actions highlighted how it is essential for educators to know the child, their strengths and their learning needs, understand the subject and scaffold the learning practices as appropriate, which my teacher did through the metaphor of an ascent of a mountain. Reflecting on this incident throughout secondary school and into university strengthened my belief that it only takes one teacher to notice a child and their strengths and difficulties. Marshall et al.’s (2016) research suggests that my teacher was the person who noticed these aspects of my learning, invested in me, and transformed negative memories and emotions by continuing to reinforce the idea that I was capable at maths.

Arguably, my initial negative feelings can be understood through social comparison theory, which focuses on the impact of how we perceive the abilities of others on the perception of our own abilities (Festinger, 1954; Gerber, 2020). In the incident, I compared myself to classmates to form an evaluation of my abilities (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007; Kaskens et al., 2020). As I viewed these individuals as performing better than myself, I was engaging in upward social comparison that negatively impacted my self-confidence. Generally, upward comparisons result in lower self-evaluations because we are reminded that we are inferior (Marsh & Parker, 1984; Gerber, 2020). These claims are supported by Wehrens et al. (2010) who found that the more upward or the less downward students compared themselves, the more students’ academic performance increased. Moreover, they highlighted that upward social comparisons are particularly motivating for students with higher self-efficacy, who consider this a way of setting realistic and attainable goals. Pulford et al. (2018) highlight that learning is not a solitary process and therefore these comparisons were unavoidable in my critical incident as I was frequently exposed to the progress of my peers through feedback. However, within the intervention, my teacher tailored both the support and praise so that it was unique to me. This meant that rather than comparing my achievements with my peers, I was comparing them to my previous achievements to create a more positive narrative arc. This helped me to continually improve my performance.

Another reason for this improvement could be an increase in my maths self-efficacy. This is because I began to view the process of getting better at maths to be within my control and that I could change the outcome, rather than being destined to fail (Dweck, 2007). With time, I became more intrinsically motivated and less focused on the extrinsic motivator of achieving the same as my classmates. These ideas can be explained by a study by Bonne and Johnson (2016) that suggested several ways to strengthen students’ self-efficacy. For example, the teacher explained to me what my learning goals were, what I needed to do to achieve these, gave feedback about my progress, and explained what I needed to do next to meet my goals. This demonstrates the importance of scaffolding as part of an effective teacher’s approach.

This view fits with the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011), which highlights that teachers should ‘encourage pupils to take a responsible and conscientious attitude to their own work and study’ (p.1). Wood et al. (1976) identified six key elements of scaffolding: recruitment, reduction in degrees of freedom, direction maintenance, marking critical features, frustration control and demonstration (p.98). As part of this, the teacher focused on increasing my interest in the task by simplifying it to allow for feedback to be used for correction. To keep me on track, they modelled solutions to tasks and responded to my negative emotional states. Arguably, the teacher provided me with the framework of support, but ultimately it was my responsibility to complete the extra work outside of school. To allow for this, they prompted me to reflect on the role of effort within my learning and, when necessary, encouraged me to attribute failure to insufficient effort. This was the case when they noticed I had become frustrated with the seven times tables, as I found them too difficult. They drew attention to the importance of perseverance when learning is challenging, by reminding me of how I had found other problems difficult, but managed to overcome them (Dweck, 2007).

Conclusion

By using Gibbs’ cycle, I was able to use the stages to consider the incident in a logical manner. This scaffolding of the exercise was invaluable for me as I was new to formal academic reflection (Forrester, 2020). The model broke down my experience into six manageable components (University of Hull, 2021) that encouraged me to look at the event in an appropriate level of detail and uncover the complexity of the incident (Markkanen et al., 2020; Thompson & Spenceley, 2020). However, Bolton and Delderfield (2018) and Forrester (2020) argue that, contra Brookfield, Gibbs’ Cycle is a somewhat superficial form of reflection, as it is limited to one perspective of an incident, leading to a biased account of events. Furthermore, It can be argued that the Cycle does not provide explicit tools to help challenge assumptions that the reflector may hold about the chosen experience. Therefore, it is possible that engaging in this cycle of reflection may not result in any substantive changes to the reflectors assumptions, perspectives, or practices (University of Hull, 2021).

Despite these valid criticisms, my reflection via Gibbs was helpful, and illustrated that a teacher’s beliefs about, and actions in collaboration with, their students can have a long lasting impact. For pupils with a fixed mindset, maths is difficult (Dweck, 2007). This hinders their maths potential as they are often afraid to take risks and get answers wrong. However, it is the teacher’s responsibility to recognise that a pupil may still excel in math. These pupils require engaged, tailored teaching and high expectations from both their teachers and parents. Boaler (2015) highlights how one educator can change a child’s outlook on a subject and their future learning. I am now more conscious of my potential to be that educator for my pupils.

Action plan

Teachers play an integral part in children’s learning and their wider professional and personal life. Kaskens et al. (2020) stress that teachers’ professional development should concentrate on children’s self-concept. To aid this, I will focus on increasing my subject knowledge, building a positive learning environment, forming relationships with pupils, and communicating high but achievable expectations to students through encouraging language (Scherzinger & Wettstein, 2019). It is especially important to communicate these positive beliefs and expectations to students who seem to be unmotivated or struggling. It is, therefore, important to not have any preconceptions about the students and always remain open to help them all achieve their best. Glock and Pit-ten Cate (2021) suggest that this social and emotional competence may also impact my classroom management as I will become aware of the factors contributing to students’ behaviour. This could be useful when dealing with incidents of low level diruptive behaviour, as seen in the discussion above.

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