Questions Promote Reflection

Reflection has long been recognised as a fundamental aspect of professional learning.

Schön (1983) argued that professionals improve through reflection on their experiences, enabling them to make sense of complex situations and refine future practice.

However, meaningful reflection rarely occurs automatically.

Simply asking a trainee:

"How did the lesson go?"

often produces a brief response such as:

"Fine.","Rubbish.", or "Not great."

Whilst these responses may describe how the trainee feels, they do little to develop professional thinking. Instead, carefully constructed questions encourage trainees to move beyond description towards analysis.

For example:

Instead of asking:

"Did the lesson go well?"

a mentor might ask:

"At which point in the lesson do you think pupils made the greatest progress?"

Notice how this question changes the focus of the conversation. Rather than evaluating themselves globally, the trainee begins analysing evidence of pupil learning.

This encourages deeper reflection and helps trainees develop the habit of evaluating teaching through its impact on pupils.