reflecting on “reflective practice”: implications for teacher evaluation

Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education 6:263-277, 1993 ~ 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston - Manufactured in the United States of America

Reflecting on "Reflective Practice"" Implications for Teacher Evaluation

TIMOTHY REAGAN Department of Educational Leadership, School of Education, U-93, The University of Connecticut, 249 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, CT 06269

KAREN CASE Education Department, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT 06117

CHARLES W. CASE Department of Educational Leadership, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269

JO ANN FREIBERG Department of Education, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226

Beginning with the publication of Donald Sch6n's The Reflective Practitioner in 1983, educational researchers in general and teacher educators in particular have increasingly come to advocate reflective practice as a goal for classroom teachers (see Clift, Houston, & Pugach, 1990). Indeed, as Virginia Richardson has noted, "one can hardly read an article about teaching without mention of reflection" (Richardson, 1990, p. 3). Although the concept of "reflective practice" is in fact far from new (Dewey discussed it in detail as early as 1903), and while it has indeed been much discussed in the current literature of teacher education, its implications for teacher evaluation have not yet been appropriately explored in any detail. For the most part, where evaluation has been attempted, as in teacher preparation programs where student teachers are being evaluated, such evaluation has tended to focus on qualitative measures, and especially on journals and writing assignments. As Ross has commented,

. . . t e a c he r educators have turned to qualitative methods [because] reflective practice has yet to be defined clearly, and therefore quantitative assessment is precluded. In fact, because reflection is a mental process, as opposed to an observable behavior or set of behaviors, it may never be possible to develop a definition with enough behavioral specificity to measure it quantitatively [Ross, 1990, p. 113].

If reflective practice is to be taken seriously as a goal for classroom teachers, however, due regard must be paid to how it can be evaluated in the school context.

264 T. REAGAN, ET AL.

Ross' claim to the contrary notwithstanding, if we are concerned with classroom practice (as surely we must be), then we must find ways of evaluating reflective practice that incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methods and perspectives. Toward this end, in this article we will attempt to provide a general overview of the nature of reflective practice as it is generally presented in the pedagogical literature, and of the necessary characteristics of the reflective practitioner in an educational context. Last, the implications of these discussions for the evaluation of classroom teachers will be briefly explored, and suggestions for further development will be offered.

The nature of reflective practice

During the last decade, there has been a growing concern with and support for the development of reflective practitioners in education. This movement, which gained its initial impetus from the work of Sch6n (1990, 1983), has been tied very closely by its advocates to efforts to empower teachers, as Catherine Fosnot notes:

An empowered teacher is a reflective decision maker who finds joy in learning and in investigating the teaching/learning process--one who views learning as construction and teaching as a facilitating process to enhance and enrich development [Fosnot, 1989, p. xi].

As the same time, however, others have suggested that, given the nature of schooling in our society, there is a possibility that "reflective practices, far from being emancipatory for teachers, entrap them within the New Right ideology of radical interventionism" (Smyth, 1992, p. 267). Whether ultimately empowering or entrapping, however, it is clear that reflective practice as an alternative to traditional models of teacher preparation will continue to play a significant role in teacher preparation in the years ahead, and so its implications for teacher evaluation must be thoughtfully addressed. The appropriate place to begin this process is by discussing the nature and purposes of reflective practice as they have been presented in the relevant educational literature.

A number of different ways of conceptualizing reflective practice as it applies to the activities of classroom teachers have been suggested. Killion and Todnem (1991), using Sch6n's (1983) work as a foundation, have suggested three distinct types of reflection. They distinguish among "reflection-on-action," "reflection-in-action," and "reflection-for-action." Both reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, which are the two types of reflection discussed by Sch6n, are characterized primarily by when the reflection takes place--with reflection-in-action referring to reflection in the midst of practice, and reflection-on-practice referring to reflection that takes place after an event. The third type of reflection, reflection-for-action, is also possible, however; Killion and Todnem state that it is:

. . . the desired outcome of both previous types of reflection. We undertake

REFLECTING ON "REFLECTIVE PRACTICE" 265

reflection, not so much to revisit the past or to become aware of the metacognitive process one is experiencing (both noble reasons in themselves), but to guide future action (the more practical purpose). [Killion & Todnem, 1991, p. 15].

In other words, reflection-for-practice is the manifestation of the proactive nature of both reflection-in-practice and reflection-on-practice. It is important to note that the goal for reflective practice is in fact reflection-for-practice, since such a model of reflection entails both of the other types of reflection. Thus, all three of these types of reflection are in fact necessary components for reflective practice on the part of the teacher.

Two other points need to be made at this point with regard to the concept of reflective practice. First, although discussions of reflection-in-practice and reflection-on-practice may seem to suggest that reflection is a linear process, this is not in actuality the case. Rather, reflective practice is best understood as an ongoing spiral activity, in which reflection-on-practice leads to reflection-in-practice, which will in turn lead to further reflection-on-practice. This spiral activity is, then, reflection-on-practice.

The second point that needs to be made here is that the relative significance of each of the facets of reflective practice, as well as the ways in which these facets are manifested in practice, can be expected to vary to a considerable extent from novice teachers seeking to become reflective practitioners to expert, or master, teachers who are reflective practitioners. For example, it is reasonable to assume that reflection-in- practice will play a great role in reflectivity-for-practice in the case of the expert, or master, teacher, while reflection-on-practice will play a greater role for the novice teacher. Furthermore, while the literature on reflective practice has thus far focused primarily on the preparation of new teachers, an area in which further work is clearly needed is in the revitalization and ongoing professional education of experienced teachers whose early professional training has led them to view teaching in a technicist, rather than a reflective, manner. The development of reflective practice on the part of such teachers can be expected to differ in interesting and important ways from that of novice teachers.

Another way of thinking about reflective practice has been suggested by Van Manen (1977), who has proposed a hierarchical model that distinguishes among the levels of reftectivity that parallel the growth of the individual teacher as he or she develops from novice to expert, or master, teacher. The initial level of reflectivity, on Van Manen's account, focuses on the effective application of skills and technical knowledge in the classroom setting. At this first level, reflection entails only the appropriate selection and use of instructional strategies and the like in the classroom. The second level of reflectivity involves reflection about the assumptions underlying specific classroom practices, as well as about the consequences of particular strategies, curricula, and so on. In other words, at the second level of reflectivity teachers would begin to apply educational criteria to teaching practice in order to make independent, individual decisions about pedagogical matters. Finally, the third level of reflectivity (which is sometimes called "critical reflection") entails


the questioning of moral, ethical, and other types of normative criteria related directly and indirectly to the classroom. What is actually occurring as one moves from the initial through the thrid level of reflectivity is that the perspective from which one views one's teaching practice gradually expands in breadth, while at the same time the examination of one's practices gains increasing depth. The understanding of one's practice, in short, moves from "thin" to "thick" description, to use the anthropologist Clifford Geertz's terminology in a somewhat different context than he intended (see Geertz, 1973).

Georgea Sparks-Langer and Amy Colton, in a synthesis of the research on teachers' reflective thinking, have argued that there are three elements in reflective classroom practice: the cognitive element, the critical element, and the narrative element (Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991). The cognitive element of reflective thinking is concerned with the knowledge that teachers need in order to make good decisions in and about the classroom situation; presumably, such knowledge would roughly parallel the seven broad categories of knowledge discussed by Shulman:

• content knowledge • general pedagogical knowledge, with special reference to those broad principles

and strategies of classroom management and organization that appear to transcend subject matter;

• curriculum knowledge, with particular grasp of the materials and programs that serve as "tools of the trade" for teachers;

• pedagogical content knowledge, that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding;

• knowledge of learners and their characteristics; • knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from the workings of the group or

classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, to the character of communities and cultures; and

• knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philosophical and historical grounds (Shulman, 1987, p. 54)

It is important to note that while all teachers, whether novice or expert, will have similar (although by no means identical) bodies of content and subject-matter knowledge at their disposal, the organization and structuring of this knowledge may differ radically. We know that the schemata, or organized networks of facts, concepts, generalizations, and experiences, of beginning and experienced teachers are very different in significant ways (see Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991, pp. 37-38; Berliner, 1986). It is in this respect--in terms of the way in which experience and knowledge is organized--that the knowledge base of the experienced teacher can be said to be more expanded than that of the novice. Another way in which the knowledge base of the expert teacher differs from that of the novice is in the vast amount of tacit knowledge that he or she has accumulated and organized. As Berliner notes,


• . . the experienced teachers [have] amassed a large quantity of knowledge such that they did, in a sense, know their new class even before they got to meet them. This knowledge influences how subject matter will be considered, but it is in fact an image or knowledge of classrooms that is a separate kind of knowledge. It is a knowledge that influences the running of the classroom: the pace, the level of intellectuality, affect, work orientation, and so forth. It is knowledge that influences classroom organization and management and is the basis for transforming subject matter. Such knowledge is complex, often tacit, derived from exper ience . . . [Berliner, 1986, p. 10].

The schemata for organizing knowledge and experience are constructed by teachers over time as a result of their experiences, and so it is not surprising that experienced teachers will often be able to make sense of and respond to a given problematic situation in the classroom more quickly and effectively than novices would. Studies that suggest that expert teachers are able to deal with changes in lesson plans and problematic classroom situations far more successfully than are new teachers can be explained, according to Sparks-Langer and Colton,

• . . because (1) many of the routines and the content were available [to the expert teachers] in memory as automatic scripts and (2) their rich schemata allowed the experts to quickly consider cues in the environment and access appropriate strategies. [Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991, p. 38].

Schemata of the sort discussed here are constructed naturally over time, of course, but their development can be encouraged and supported by reflective practice• In other words, while good teaching practice does indeed depend upon a strong experiential base, reflective practice may be able to help us speed up the development of such an experiential base in new teachers. As Berliner has stated,

It is likely, therefore, that studies of how expert teachers perform and think about their performance of routinized procedures will be helpful in training cooperating teachers to articulate their knowledge in ways that might truly educate their apprentices [Berliner, 1986, p. 7].

If expert teachers can articulate aspects of the ways in which their knowledge base differs from that of the novice, in short, it may be possible to modify both formal instruction and clinical experiences in teacher preparation programs in ways that would encourage the development of such schemata.

The second element of reflective thinking is the critical element, which is concerned with " the moral and ethical aspects of social compassion and justice" (Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991, p. 39). The critical element of reflection of reflection is often identified with critical, or radical, pedagogy and pedagogical theory (see, for example, Giroux, 1983, 1988; McLaren, 1989), but this need not be the case. Educators have, after all, been concerned with issues of social justice,


ethics, and fairness since Plato, and a common theme in teacher training has long been the need for teachers to be socially and ethnically aware. Nonetheless, there is clearly a potential for an ideologically and politically critical focus in reflective practice, though this potential is far from certain, as John Smyth (1992) has stated.

The third element of reflective thinking, on the account of Sparks-Langer and Colton, is that of teachers' narratives. Teacher accounts of their own experiences in the classroom take many froms and serve a variety of different functions. The reflective journals commonly required of student teachers are an example of one fairly common type of narrative. Other kinds of narrative discourse on the part of teachers include descriptions of critical events in the classroom, various types of logs, conference reports completed jointly by teachers and supervisors or mentors, self-interviewing, and so on. The key aspect of the narrative element of reflective thinking is that such narratives, whatever their form, serve to contextualize the classroom experience both for the teacher him/herself and for others, and by so doing, provide us with a much richer understanding of what takes place in the classroom and in the teacher's construction of reality than would otherwise be possible. Narrative accounts are becoming far more common today, especially in the preparation of teachers and in qualitative research on classroom practices (see Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Goswami & StiUman, 1987; Zeichner & Liston, 1987), and there can be little doubt that they provide one of the more effective ways in which reflective practice can be encouraged. Although such narrative accounts are immensely valuable and worthwhile, and should be encouraged for teachers at all points in the career ladder, it must also be noted that they cannot be considered to be a necessary condition for reflective practice. Indeed, our experience would suggest that they are most useful with novice and relatively inexperienced teachers. For example, Sparks-Langer and Colton offer the following passage from a teacher's journal:

I think the most notable change for me was the ability to start backing away from the need to get an immediate solution to a problem. Instead, by using the problem solving/reflective framing format, I really feel like I'm giving the wealth of knowledge I possess about my profession a chance to come more fully into p lay . . . [Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991, p. 42].

Characteristics of the reflective practitioner

A useful way of thinking about both the reflective teacher and the nature of the reflective practice in which he or she will engage has been provided by Judith Irwin, who has suggested that:

A reflective/analytic teacher is one who makes teaching decisions on the basis of a conscious awareness and careful consideration of (1) the assumptions on which the decisions are based and (2) the technical, educational, and ethical


consequences of those decisions. These decisions are made before, during and after teaching actions. In order to make these decisions, the reflective/analytic teacher must have an extensive knowledge of the content to be taught, pedagogical and theoretical options, characteristics of individual students, and the situational constraints in the classroom, school and society in which they work [Irwin, 1987, p. 6].

Notice that this description includes virtually all of the issues that have been discussed so far in this article, and thus in essence functions to lay out what might be termed the necessary conditions of reflective practive. We see that the reflective teacher is first and foremost a decision maker, who must make his or her decisions consciously and rationally. Futhermore, the reflective teacher must base his or her decisions and judgments on a solid body of content, including both technical and content knowledge, which are organized and reinterpreted according to his or her unique experiences. The reflective teacher must also demonstrate both ethical behavior and sensitivity as well as sociocultural awareness. As Case, Lanier, and Miskel have suggested,

The attendant characteristics of professions include conditions of practice that allow professionals to apply this knowledge freely to the practical affairs of their occupation and to use their knowledge, judgment, and skill within the structures of the ethical code of the profession... (Case, Lanier & Miskel, 1986, p. 36)

Finally, it is important to reiterate at this point that reflective practice involves what the teacher does before entering the classroom (in terms of his or her planning and preparation, for instance), while in the classroom (both while functioning as an educator and in all of the other roles expected of the classroom teacher), and retrospectively, after she or he has left the classroom.

Much of the daily work of the classroom teacher actually involves making judgments and decisions, often with limited information. A strong case can be made for the view that teaching can be most accurately and usefully conceptualized in terms of the role of the teacher as a decision-maker. Consider for a moment the many different kinds of judgments and decisions that the typical teacher engages in during his or her normal daily routine. The teacher makes curricular decisions, methodological decisions, decisions about individual children--their needs and problems, decisions about classroom management and organization, decisions about both personal and professional ethics, and so on. The philosopher of education Robert Fitzgibbons has suggested that teachers make decisions of three types: those concerned basically with educational outcomes (that is, with what the goals or results of the educational experience should be), those concerned with the matter of education (that is, with what is, could be, or should be taught), and those concerned with the manner of education (that is, with how teaching should take place) (Fitzgibbons, 1981, pp. 13-14).

When a teacher makes decisions, she or he is doing far more than merely taking


a course of action or acting in a certain way. The process of decision-making should be a rational one, which means that the teacher (whether consciously or unconsciously) considers and weighs alternatives, and employs criteria to select a given option or course of action. Unfortunately, as Jere Brophy has reported, "most studies of teachers' interactive decision making portray it as more reactive than reflective, more intuitive than rational, and more routinized than conscious" (quoted in Irwin, 1987, p. 1). Good teaching, however, requires reflective, rational, and conscious decision making. This is every bit as true today as it was some two decades ago when Charles Silberman argued, in Crisis in the Classroom, that " W e must find ways of stimulating public school t eachers . . , to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it" (Silberman, 1971, p. 380). An important element in this process of reflective, rational and moral decision making is that teachers must be able to justify their decisions and actions in the classroom. In order to be able to provide such justification, the teacher cannot rely either on instinct alone or on prepackaged sets of techniques. Instead, she or he must think about what is taking place, what the options are, and so on, in a critical analytic way. In other words, the teacher must engage in reflection about his or her practice, just as the physician must reflect about the symptoms and other evidence presented by a patient.

The idea of the teacher as reflective practitioner is not, as noted earlier, a new one. Dewey wrote about the need for reflective thinking as early as 1903, and dealt with the role of reflection extensively in both How We Think (1910, 1933) and Logic: The Theory o f Inquiry (1938). For Dewey, logical theory and analysis was actually a generalization of the reflective process in which we all engage from time to time. Dewey recognized that we can "reflect" on a whole host of things in the sense of merely "thinking about" them; however, logical, or analytic, reflection can take place only when there is a real problem to be solved. As Dewey explained,

The general theory of reflection, as over against its concrete exercise, appears when occasions for reflection are so overwhelming and so mutually conflicting that specific adequate response in thought is blocked. Again, it shows itself when practical affairs are so multifarious, complicated, and remote from control that thinking is held off from successful passage into them [Dewey, 1976, [1903] p. 300].

For Dewey, then, true reflective practice can be said to take place only when the individual is faced with a real problem that he or she needs to resolve, and seeks to resolve that problem in a rational manner.

From this discussion, it is evident that reflection in teaching is a very complex process. The central question that has been address repeatedly in the literature, is: How can reflection be fostered or taught effectively in the process of teacher preparation? In this article, we ask a somewhat different question: Assuming that such reflective practitioners can be produced, how can they be evaluated in the school setting? We turn now to a discussion of the implications of reflective practice for teacher evaluation.


Reflective practice and teacher evaluation

The application of Dewey's theory of reflection to teacher evaluation calls for teacher evaluation to be redefined as "the production of critical knowledge through the process of critical inquiry" (Sirotnik, 1987, p. 51). Such a view of the nature and purposes of teacher evaluation is quite different from traditional perspectives, of course, and may require a reconceptualization of the process, and purposes, of teacher evaluation. Consider the following statement from The Personnel Evaluation Standards of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (Stufflebeam, 1988), which is intended to provide a compelling case for the need for and necessity of personnel evaluation:

The need for sound evaluation of education personnel is clear. In order to educate students effectively and to achieve other related goals, educational institutions must use evaluation to select, retain, and develop qualified personnel and to manage and facilitate their work [p. 5].

While we believe that an underlying point of this passage is the need for evaluation to facilitate professional growth and development, the rhetoric of the passage is nevertheless somewhat problematic. The view of the role and purposes of teacher evaluation that seems to color the rhetoric in this passage is very common; indeed, it is almost without doubt the dominant view in contemporary American education. While compatible with many views and models of teaching, and especially useful and appropriate for models that presuppose that good teaching is constituted by adherence to specific teaching competencies, such a description of the role and purpose of teacher evaluation is very problematic with respect to a view of teaching that emphasizes reflective practice. For example, one of the central features of reflective practice tends to be its emphasis on the need for classroom teachers to be empowered and enabled to construct, in large part, their own work environments. Rhetoric about evaluation helping "to manage and facilitate their work," however well intentioned, is basically incompatible with such a conceptualization of teaching, since it not only reifies the actions of teachers but also appears to us to presuppose a set of hierarchical relationships between teachers and administrators.

Sirotnik (1987) differentiates between what he terms "understanding" and "informed understanding." Critical inquiry envelops the ability to reflect earnestly and critically upon the meaning and activities of teaching, enabling the teacher to make informed and rational decisions about his or her classroom practice. Self- critique and reflection is crucial to the self-evaluative process in that:

. . . it poses both the current and historical context for issues and problems, it suggests the data to inform the process, and it demands explicit consideration of the often hidden values and human interests guiding educational practices [Sirotnik, 1987, p. 51].


However, the actual conditions of schooling provide little support for reflection and critical inquiry (Bird, 1990). Schools operate in the midst of tensions resulting from an historically entrenched bureaucratic model and an evolving professional model of teaching. The bureaucratic model represents an attempt to minimize uncertainty in the workplace and to standardize working conditions. It emphasizes routinizing the work of teachers (Bacharach, Conley, & Shedd, 1987), and to some extent favors generic curriculum packages (Altenbaugh, 1989), which inevitably, and on some accounts deliberately, constrain the decision making of teachers (Conley, 1988). Such bureaucratic forms of control trivialize teaching tasks, turning teaching into a series of "rule-based checklists" (McLaughlin & Pfeifer, 1988). The emerging professional model, in contrast, treats the uncertainty of teacher practice as a given in the work of any professional, and concentrates on aiding the professional's decision making when faced with uncertain conditions (Sch6n, 1983, 1987). Reflective practice, needless to say, is far more compatible with the professional than the bureaucratic model of teaching.

Teachers make decisions under uncertain conditions, which arise as a result of three major factors: (1) student needs are variable and constantly in flux; (2) teachers serve an interactive group as opposed to individual clients; and (3) the goals and purposes given to teachers are ambiguous, multiple and at times contradictory (Conley, 1988). Conley contends that today's teacher acts as a constrained decision maker, who must "deal with uncertainty by weighing alternatives and taking creative risks, while at the same time being aware that he or she is operating within a specific organizational context, characterized by goals norms, precedents and colleagues" (Conley, 1988, p. 397).

The teacher evaluation process may actually hinder a teacher's creative risk-taking and self-reflection. As Johnson (1990) argues, this is largely the result of antithetical assessment and improvement processes in teaching. The argument here, in essence, is that current assessment processes tend to foster caution among teachers, while real improvement in education depends upon teachers' risk-taking behavior and critical self-examination. Furthermore, Johnson's work suggests that teachers are well aware of this polarity. One urban high school teacher quoted in Johnson's work, for instance, asserted that evaluation is:

. . . an absolutely worthless process, in my opinion and I've said so publicly . . . . Evaluation allegedly is a tool to improve the quality of teaching. That's the avowed aim and goal of the evaluation process. In fact, I've never seen it either function that way or even be used that way. I've seen it used as an obligation: you have to observed three times during the school year; that's the regulation [Quoted in Johnson, 1990, p. 269].

Johnson found, in short, that teacher evaluation practices in general did not encourage teachers to improve or become reflective practitioners. An elementary school teacher sadly commented that even the so-called "good" evaluations left her questioning her competence:


I generally get an evaluation and it's "Check, check, check--no problem. I don't need to come back to see you"--which is all right, you know. In a way it's nice but in a way, I'm left thinking, "I know I could do a lot better. I know there are things out there that I should be doing" [Quoted in Johnson, 1990, p.274].

For teachers to develop, to become risk-takers and reflective practitioners, formative evaluation for improved performance must be separated from summative evaluation decisions that determine salary or job status (see Cangelosi, 1991: Johnson 1990). As Johnson concluded,

When teachers feel threatened, they conceal their fears and their weaknesses, treating classroom observations as occasions for parading their strengths and teaching surefire lessons rather than venturing forth in new ways [Johnson, 1990, p. 276].

Such scripted theatrics, in turn, erode the collegial and cooperative relationship between teacher and supervisor (Cangolosi, 1991), and cause teacher evaluations to function as no more than a yearly obligation on the part of both parties. Some researchers maintain that there exists "no clear evidence that teachers or administrators learn from evaluation" (Good & Mulryan, 1990, p. 201).

The historic problems preventing teacher evaluation practices from supporting reflective behavior on the part of teachers have been well documented (see Good & Mulryan, 1990). Administrators all too often develop evaluation criteria in the absence of teacher consultation or feedback. Evaluation instruments fail to recognize the multidimensional nature and complexity of teaching practice and school contexts (Good & Mulryan, 1990). Iwanicki (1991) has argued that the mismatch between instrument and context is the result of a lack of clarity between teacher and administer as to the purposes and goals of teacher evaluation:

Too often school systems become caught up in activities such as revising position descriptions, improving observation protocols, or simplifying evaluation forms, activities more related to how teachers are evaluated--when the real problem is a lack of common understanding between teachers and administrators as to the real purposes of the teacher-evaluation process [Iwanicki, 1990, p. 159].

School improvement must, in short, be a direct purpose of teacher evaluation (Iwanicki, 1991). In a study of four school districts, McLaughlin and Pfeifer (1988) found that teacher evaluation based on school improvement efforts supported reflective teaching practice. This was the case because the outcome of an individual teacher's evaluation was interpreted dualistically, both "in terms of the individual and in terms of the context in which the individual functions" (p. 85). McLaughlin and Pfeifer suggest in this regard that:

Teacher evaluation conducted in an institutional context of mutual trust and


support for evaluation thus initiates a cycle of reflection and self-evaluation at both the individual and the institutional level. It not only provides feedback regarding individual and organizational effectiveness, but it also serves as an institutionalized trigger to stimulate routine reflection about the assumptions, norms, and values that support professional practice in a school district . . . . It is through learning of this sort that teacher evaluation stimulates a self-renewing process of problem-solving, action and reflection... [McLaughlin & Pfeifer, 1988, p. 87].

What, then, are the implications of this discussion for an appropriate sort of evaluation for classroom teachers striving to become reflective practitioners? The key must be the use of more qualitatively oriented evaluation strategies, techniques, and approaches (see Fetterman, 1984; Patton, 1990). A central feature of such qualitative evaluation must be its emphasis not on standardized features of teaching behavior, but rather on the individual and contextual nature of professional decision making. It is essential that evaluators understand that practitioners do not merely take a given body of cognitive information, techniques, and methodologies and apply them in a neutral, more-or-less predictable fashion in the classroom. Rather, the individual classroom teacher in essence engages in the construction of his or her own reality, using as the basis for that reality the content of the teacher education knowledge base (see Shulman, 1987), personal experience, intuition, and so on. In other words, the qualitative evaluation of teachers must reject the overly simplistic view of the role of the teacher as an educational technician and instead adopt a view of the teacher as a professional functioning in a highly complex, individualistic, and often unpredictable working context.

To move toward assessment and evaluation procedures that are more appropriate for evaluating reflective practice will require peer evaluation procedures not unlike those utilized in the medical profession. Basically, what occurs in the medical profession is that the practitioner is observed both formally and informally by more experienced members of the profession through direct observation and by a peer examination of selected cases on a regular review schedule. In addition, on a periodic basis there will be a statistical examination of the results of certain treatments of various categories of disease or illness. If it is determined that an individual practitioner's success rates are falling, further investigation will be employed to try to pinpoint whether this is a problem, and, if so, where the problem is, to allow for remediation. This approach to evaluation is, at least in principle, collegial, collaborative, and field-based, and focuses on the improvement of practice. An important element of such an evaluative model is that it incorporates concerns about both the process of practice and the outcomes of practice--a dualistic approach that has obvious implications for education as well.

Another useful feature of the medical analogy for teacher evaluation has to do with the nature of the evaluation used to determine entry to the profession. Although there are numerous problems with current board-type examinations for teachers, the basic idea that practitioners should be initially tested on their


familiarity with and competence in the cognitive and clinical knowledge base of their field is not without merit. It is interesting to note in this regard that many medical subspecialties are now requiring not only initial board examinations, but con- tinuous, ongoing board recertification. (In pediatrics, for example, such retesting of board certified pediatricians now takes place on a seven-year cycle.)

Let us now attempt to apply this medical approach to evaluation to the case of teacher evaluation. Competent peers, who would be master teachers, would observe instances of practice, examine course materials, lesson plans, classroom evaluation instruments, and so on, to ensure that the individual being evaluated was performing his or her job in a professionally responsible and reasonable manner, and to offer the practitioner suggestions for improving his or her practice. Such assessment would not be based on tightly defined competencies, however, but instead would rely on collaborative discussion of broad areas of teaching competence, based on a model of the knowledge base of teaching such as that proposed by Shulman (1987), and would presumably include such areas as content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, development knowledge, ethical behaviors, and so on. As in the case of medical evaluations, statistical analyses of failure in school can illuminate sources of difficulty as well. Although student failure can be caused by a number of different factors, many of which the classroom teacher can in no reasonable way be held accountable for, an ongoing problem with a high rate of student failure (however such failure is determined) is an indication of a potential problem and should be subjected to further examination. Such examination may, as in the case of medical practitioners, focus our attention on areas in need of remediation and improvement on the part of the classroom teacher. Underlying such an evaluation process would be ongoing self-reflection as well, which is one of the ways in which the conceptualization of good teaching as reflective practice differs from most other models of teaching.

What we are suggesting here is not a replacement for traditional evaluation methods, however, but rather should be seen as a promising alternative for some aspects of traditional teacher evaluation practices and methods. Traditional methods and approaches to teacher evaluation have many uses, including their role in both the decision to grant tenure and ongoing evaluations of teaching effectiveness which must be made in light of the accountability regulations that now apply in most states. The point that we have tried to make here is that the standards and criteria for such traditional evaluations are, at best, "baseline" standards. In order to evaluate reflective practice effectively, different kinds of standards and criteria, grounded in a more naturalistic and inquiry-centered approach to evaluation, will be necessary.

Conclusion

In this article, we have attempted to provide a general overview of the nature of reflective practice as it is generally presented in the pedagogical literature, and of the


necessary characteristics of the reflective practitioner in an educational context. Using this discussion as a base, we have then argued that the growing popularity of reflective practice as a goal for teachers will require a reexamination and reconceptualization of the ways in which teachers are evaluated. Along these lines, we have suggested that there must be a necessary linkage or relationship between the way in which we conceive of teaching in general, and "good teaching" in particular, and the ways in which we seek to evaluate classroom teachers, it is our contention that only the use of a more qualitatively oriented approach to teacher evaluation, perhaps analogous to that currently employed to evaluate physicians, could be utilized in the evaluation of reflective teaching. Furthermore, such qualitative evaluation would of necessity be collegial and collaborative in nature, and would take into account the individually constructed nature of the teacher's world. Such an evaluative model does not now exist, but, we propose, it is time for its genesis.

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