Reflective Practice Group: Join Our Open Meeting in August

Have I ever told you about ‘RP Global’ I joined a couple of years ago? ‘RP’ stands for Reflective Practice (of course!) and it is a global one because we have members from different parts of the world. We are an actual group on Facebook, and we have monthly meetings to talk about teaching ideas and challenges, and to reflect on our practice. 

‘Global’, according to various dictionaries, is an adjective describing something…

• … of, relating to, or involving the entire world: worldwide
• … of, relating to, or applying to a whole: universal
• … encompassing a group of things: a global picture

On 29 August, we would like to have a Global Open Meeting about our Global RP Group, so that more colleagues were informed got curious about such a way to develop professionally, to share what the experience has been like for us, what we take out of it, and why we enjoy the meetings.

Here is a Zoom link to join us if you would like to talk and share: Join Zoom Meeting: Meeting ID: 951 1930 9743, Passcode: 0000. We may also be able to stream it on Facebook to reach more people (and to continue talking about this in a more asynchronous format).

Here is a summary of all the meetings so far. The ones I missed sounded especially amazing, for example, Conformity in ELT, or Critical Thinking in teaching English, to name a few.

2021

• February: Reflective Practice in Practice: tools, tips, insights
• March: Promoting/advocating for in-depth reflection among colleagues
• April: How do we find people to reflect with? Launching an RP Group in one’s institution. (with a great post by Anna after the meeting)
• July*: Reflection about Reflection (more about this meeting below)
• August (planned for 29)): Discussing RP Groups (in the ‘open’ format)

2020

• April: we talked with Eunice about teaching writing course online
• May: [I can’t remember the exact topic but the emotional bingo activity was wonderful]
• July: Collaboration in education during Covid-19
• August: A critical look at our assessment practices
• December: Reflection on the year

2019

• April: Formats in existing groups (Japan, Korea, Ukraine)
• June: Teaching Principles
• August: Teacher Evaluation
• September: Lesson Planning

*In July we discussed the following questions about our monthly meetings:

• What do we like about this group?
• What exactly do we do at the meetings?
• How does being an RP Group member help us?
• Why do we enjoy the process?

We keep adding more questions, for example

• How do we define an RP group? Or a ‘successful’ RP Group?
• Why are we coming to the meetings?
• In what ways do we feel such meetings promote Professional Development?
• How would one initiate an RP Group?
• What are some ‘Do’s’ and ‘Dont’s’ of RP groups (based on our experience, successes and failures)?

Resources and posts about Reflective Groups that may interest our audience:

• Starting a Reflective Group: Obstacles (Zhenya’s earlier post)
• How reflective group meetings can be planned and facilitated: Zhenya about the group in Ukraine, and Anna about one meeting in Tokyo (amazing activity shared!) 
• Zhenya’s Trainer Conversation with Burak where he shares experience of managing a group in Turkey, and of course Burak’s research and findings on the subject 

Please add ideas and questions and resources! And… hope you will be able to join us this time! Join Zoom Meeting: Meeting ID: 951 1930 9743, Passcode: 0000.