Journal Entry. Critical Incidents

Critical Incidents: An essential tool for Trainee Teachers

According to Kennedy and Wyrick (1995), a Critical Incident (CI) is a method of reflective practice.  Critical Incidents include unusual situations teachers may encounter during their practice, and can be sources of reflection and learning.  The importance of using critical incidents at Teacher Training College (TTC) is asserted by  Fernández González, Elórtegui Escartín and Medina Pérez (2003), who claim that future teachers need to analyze critical incidents and think of possible solutions so that they can gain experience  to deal with unusual situations in  their future practice.

At TTC, students gain extensive knowledge about the subject they will teach, but, is this sufficient? It may not, as teachers encounter unexpected critical situations in the classroom.  Therefore, this aspect should also be taken into account when training future teachers.  How can this be done? As trainees have little or no working experience, they would profit from the use of critical incidents at college.  Fernández González, Elórtegui Escartín and Medina Pérez (2003) propose using critical incidents as case studies and illustrate how this was done at TTC for secondary school for Natural Science teachers. Students were given different critical incidents to read and discuss.  The results show that in solving those problems students were engaged in effective reflexive practice, and thus the activity provided the students with background knowledge, resources and experience for their future teaching profession.

Teachers usually feel at a loss when encountering problems in the classroom.  It is for this reason that the use of critical incidents at college can be a powerful resource to prepare future teachers to tackle unexpected problems when they graduate and start working in the classroom. Moreover, critical incidents are part of teacher development in general, and introducing them at college may encourage teachers to write them in order to share their experiences in the classroom with other teachers or teachers-to-be. 

References

Fernández González, J., Elórtegui Escartín, N., & Medina Pérez, M. (2003). Los incidentes críticos en la formación y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de Ciencias de la Naturaleza. Revista Universitaria de Formación del profesorado, 17 (1), 101-112. Universidad de Zaragoza. Zaragoza, España. Retrieved October 2011 from http://redalyc.uaemex.mx

Kennedy, R. L. & Wyruck, A. M. (1995). Teaching as reflective practice. Tennesee. The University of Tennessee.