Critical Self-reflective Engagement to Improve Professional Development for a Teacher Educator

Abstract

The conventional banking model (Kalsoom, Kalsoom & Mallick, 2020) of rote-recall culture of pedagogical practices might promote subject-centric memorizing, rather than understanding and critical exploration of knowledge. Critical reflection might articulate the depth and breadth of experiences of learners and might build connections between the past, and present and construct a vision for the future. In pedagogy, different forms like poetry and autobiographical reflection capture learners' personal experiences and can be considered as one alternative model for a meaningful and critical understanding of the core complex phenomena of the diverse world. To this connection, the paper investigates critical self-reflection as one of the transformative tools utilizing Habermasian Knowledge Consecutive Interests (technical, practical, and emancipatory) as theoretical referent and metaphors as a tool for critical discourses of phenomena. This paper tries to explore, creating connections between the issues raised and the learner's experience, might articulate the depth and breadth of the learner's experiences through critical self-reflection. Among many ways to express critical reflection, the first entails having the capacity to uncover, scrutinize, and modify our deeply ingrained preconceptions in order to potentially bring about significant change (Mezirow, 1991) and placed a strong emphasis on critical action while reflecting on power relations (Brookfield, 1995) of the pedagogy practice.