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Smyth’s Model of Reflection: 4 Stages + Teaching Example

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Smyth’s Model of Reflection: 4 Stages + Teaching Example

Smyth’s model of reflection links four stages to questions about your teaching: describing your actions, informing their meaning, confronting how your approach developed, and reconstructing what you could do differently. John Smyth sets out these forms of action in his 1989 paper on critical reflection in teacher education.

Publisher: AcadFundu · Content revised

Sources and access note — four references

Access note: The two Smyth papers below were checked through their abstracts and university bibliographic records; full texts were not available during this review. The guiding questions are paraphrased, and the practical interpretations are labelled below.

Use your institution’s reference style and cite the source you actually consulted.

The four stages at a glance

Guiding questions paraphrased from the 1989 abstract; practical interpretations by AcadFundu
Stage Guiding question (paraphrased) Practical interpretation for this guide
Describing How am I acting in this situation? Give a specific account of your actions and observations.
Informing What meaning can I draw from what I do? Explore the belief or teaching principle behind your decision.
Confronting What has shaped my way of acting? Consider where that belief came from and whose needs it serves.
Reconstructing What could I do differently next time? Propose a different approach and a way to examine its effects.

Worked teaching example: the same three pupils answer

Fictional practice case: A trainee teacher leads a discussion in a class of 24 pupils. Three pupils answer most questions. The trainee wants to find out whether the discussion format gives the rest of the class enough opportunity to think and contribute. This case, its annotations and the worksheet below are original illustrations, not research findings or a validated assessment scale.

1. Describing: record what you can support

I asked six whole-class questions and took answers from pupils who raised their hands. Three pupils supplied all six answers. I moved to the next question after each answer. I did not collect written responses or check what the other pupils thought.

Annotation: The account identifies an observable pattern and the teacher’s part in it. “The other pupils were lazy” would be an interpretation without supporting evidence. For your own account, use details you recorded rather than adding precise-looking counts afterwards.

2. Informing: make your reasoning visible

I treated a quick spoken answer as a sign that the class was following the lesson. I also wanted to keep the discussion moving. My choice to take the first raised hand fitted those priorities, but it gave me little information about pupils who did not volunteer.

Practical interpretation: Here, informing means explaining the reasoning behind a decision. If you connect that reasoning to a theory from your course, identify the source you read and explain the connection.

3. Confronting: examine a comfortable assumption

I became used to fast question-and-answer exchanges when I was a pupil, and I have continued to associate a lively discussion with a successful lesson. That habit may favour pupils who are ready to answer aloud immediately. The lesson timetable also encouraged me to move on. I do not yet know whether silence reflected uncertainty, thinking time, reluctance to speak or something else. I need pupils’ feedback and a conversation with my mentor before choosing an explanation.

Practical interpretation: This guide distinguishes identifying a belief from questioning how it developed and whom it affects. The trainee examines a learnt classroom norm and a time constraint, while keeping alternative explanations for pupils’ silence open.

4. Reconstructing: plan a change you can examine

For the next discussion, I will give everyone time to note an initial response before inviting spoken answers. Pupils will also be able to submit a question in writing. I will ask my mentor to observe who contributes and compare this with the pupils’ written responses. After the lesson, I will ask whether the preparation time helped. If contributions remain concentrated, I will reconsider the question wording and the format with my mentor.

Annotation: The plan specifies an action, evidence to collect and a point for review. Compare spoken contributions with written responses: more pupils speaking would not, by itself, establish that everyone understood the material.

A short worksheet for your own reflection

Choose one incident you can describe accurately. Use these prompts as a planning sheet, then follow your assignment’s required structure.

  1. Describing: What did you do, and which details come from observation rather than inference?
  2. Informing: Complete the sentence “I chose this approach because…” Explain the principle behind the choice.
  3. Confronting: Trace that principle to an experience, expectation or rule. Consider who had an opportunity to participate and whose perspective is missing.
  4. Reconstructing: Propose a feasible change. State what you would need to observe before deciding whether to keep it.
  5. Evidence check: Mark any sentence that claims to know another person’s thoughts. Can you support it, ask them appropriately, or rewrite it as an uncertainty?

Remove names and identifying details from an assignment or public reflection, and follow your setting’s permissions for recording or sharing classroom information.

Smyth vs Gibbs vs Driscoll

The frameworks offer different prompts for examining an experience. The comparison below is a practical reading guide, not a ranking of their effectiveness.

Compare the questions your task needs
Framework Structure Focus when choosing a framework
Smyth Describing, informing, confronting, reconstructing. Examine how a teaching approach developed and how you might change it.
Gibbs Description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan. Use separate prompts for feelings, evaluation and analysis before planning a response.
Driscoll What? So what? Now what? Start with three broad questions, then add detail to develop your analysis.

The University of Edinburgh’s Gibbs guide explains the six-stage structure. Its three-question guide explicitly attributes Driscoll’s 1994 adaptation to questions originally asked by Terry Borton in 1970. Follow your course’s required framework; a shorter structure still needs analysis. Browse the reflective models overview or try the Driscoll Reflection Practice Kit.

Use the framework without turning it into a checklist

In a later paper on reflective practice, Smyth warns that the purposes of reflection matter: a useful approach can be redirected towards ends that do not serve teachers or students. That is a reason to ask what an assigned reflection is meant to help you understand, rather than treating four headings as proof of professional growth.

Before finishing, check the connection between your entries: does the planned change address the assumption you examined? Where information is missing, state what you would need to find out.