In a reflexive teaching approach, student and instructor are colearners, and each has unique beliefs, knowledge, competencies, experiences, sensibilities, and motivation. Although viewed as colearners, each plays different roles in the context of schooling. The instructor has responsibilities to design and implement instruction, while students have responsibilities to engage and perform learning tasks. Multiple activity structures are employed to foster joint participation, including learning tasks, personal conferences, electronic mail, and text (Shambaugh & Magliaro, 1997). Learning of instructional design principles and processes are supported through participants' written and oral dialogue within these structures.
My teaching, which is a blend of directed and social constructivist approaches, and my graduate students' learning are open for discussion and appraisal through learning task assessment and formal and informal teacher evaluations. This reflexive teaching stance, in which varied “readings of the world” are encouraged, requires time for trust to develop; it also requires desire and sustained commitment over time, and a belief that a “teacher's thinking in authenticated only by the authenticity of the students' thinking” (Freire, 1998, p. 58). It begins with providing consistent and supportive written and oral feedback on student work. Some choice about learning tasks and negotiation of these tasks is also possible. Different types of participation, such as group activity, role playing, and discussion, also require modeling, structured guidelines, and some time to learn. I concentrate on ongoing assessment, viewing as particularly interesting how people move from novice to expert. The payoff to innovative change is student engagement with the learning activities and room for personal expression and responses to the assigned tasks.