Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher

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Stephen Brookfield―the award-wining educator and bestselling author―explains how to confront the ­contradictions involved in creating democratic classrooms by using critical reflection as a tool for ongoing personal and professional development.

All chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to reflect today's classroom formats, whether online or face-to-face, or in large lectures or small groups.Critical reflection can also aid in understanding and managing classroom power dynamics, modeling critical thinking for students, as well as working with the complexities of diverse classrooms.

Despite the continuity of the core thesis in the second edition, Brookfield has done something rather unusual for a new edition in completely rewriting “the whole book from the opening sentence to the last” (ix). Chapter 5 describes how to use learning journals, and other techniques to see through students' eyes. One particular dimension of this book that has served me well as a teacher is the Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ). Assumptions guide practice and only when we base our actions on accurate assumptions will we achieve the results we want.

Chapter 10 looks at the particular contributions that the literature of critical reflection can make to the reflective effort. Filled with illustrative examples from a wide variety of classroom settings, the volume explores in detail what critical reflection is and why it is so vital for becoming a skillful teacher. I have seen Stephen Brookfield in conferences and he is a brave educator, open to tackle some of the issues most of us would rather not.

All chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to reflect today’s classroom formats, whether online or face-to-face, or in large ­lectures or small groups.What I love about this simple, anonymous survey is that it provides clear insight into how students experience my teaching. The CIQ has surprised me on numerous occasions in which I thought I was "bombing" a teaching session. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This is the second Brookfield book that I have read, after starting with his revised edition of The Skillful Teacher (2015).

Chapter 3 establishes the importance for critical reflection of teachers analyzing their own autobiographies as learners. Houle Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education, he is the author of numerous books on teaching, including The Skillful Teacher (2015), Teaching for Critical Thinking (2011), and The Discussion Book (with Stephen Preskill) (2016), all from Jossey-Bass. Stephen Brookfield—the award-wining educator and bestselling author—explains how to confront the contradictions involved in creating democratic classrooms by using critical reflection as a tool for ongoing personal and professional development. Chapter 4 continues the discussion of the autobiographies and describes a number of practical approaches for doing autobiographical reflection. Educators with the courage to challenge their own assumptions in an effort to improve learning are the invaluable role models our students need.

Houle Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education, he is the author of numerous books on teaching, including The Skillful Teacher(2015), Teaching for Critical Thinking(2011), and The Discussion Book(with Stephen Preskill) (2016), all from Jossey-Bass. In addition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to align with today's classrooms, whether online or face-to-face, in large lecture formats or small groups. In his own personal voice Stephen Brookfield draws from over 45 years of experience to illustrate the clear benefits of critical reflection. The second edition that is being reviewed here saw the light of day in 2017, more than two decades after the first. Most appealing is Brookfield's openness to how the various techniques may be individually tailored by educators to fit unique situations.