Critical Incident Analysis

 This blog post adopts a process suggested by David Tripp in his book, "Critical Incidents in Teaching: Developing Professional Judgement".  

A critical incident can be defined as an incident that has some significance in terms of your professional learning.  It doesn't have to be something dramatic or earth-shattering; it is an event that has made you stop and think.  Usually, but not always, it will be something that you remember for a long time.  

What follows is a retrospective account of a critical incident from my own personal experience of when I was training to be a teacher.  I'm doing this to show the process by which Tripp shows that critical incidents can inform professional reflection and development.

1. Choose one ‘moment of interest’ to explore. 

• Write about it in detail, telling the story of what happened. (e.g. What caught your interest? When did it happen? Where? What did you say? How did the children respond? What were you thinking? How did you feel?) 

It was my first lesson in my placement school. The class were a year 10 group, and I was teaching about a type of chemical reaction. I’d organised the lesson so pupils would do some practical work, and had written a worksheet with instructions on for them to follow. After introducing myself and giving some initial guidance about the subject matter, I briefly talked through what the practical work would involve, mentioned the safety precautions necessary, and referenced the worksheet with the instructions on. 

When the class started doing the practical work it became quickly evident that most pupils were not following the instructions. It was not that they were trying to follow them, but incorrectly: they were not even looking at my carefully prepared worksheet. Instead I observed some pupils just heaping random combinations of chemicals into the test tubes as if the aim was to produce the most interesting or exciting outcome. Few of them were diligently wearing the eye protection that I had told them they should wear. 

2. Explore in more depth. Consider the significance. 

• Why do you think it happened as it did? (What was going on? Consider e.g. environment, relationships, attitudes, your assumptions, prompts used, content, time, space…) 
• What was significant to you about this?

I think I had assumed that children would respond to me in the way I intended them to. Almost as if, by me thinking rationally about the sequencing of events and how to support these, I could pre-empt everything going smoothly. I had not considered enough that children might be a bit unpredictable; in hindsight I can see that this is a shortcoming in my conception of what I understand by ‘predictable’. I hadn’t imagined that children might simply not follow the instructions I’d given them, or that something I'd advised them to do might be ignored. This is because I was imagining they would think like me; the reality is that it is entirely predictable that, as individuals who are also children, they would not think like me. It wasn’t that they were being malicious or defiant; they simply didn’t recognise that to succeed in meeting the learning goals of my carefully crafted lesson they would have to engage with specific procedures. It was like the science lesson was just a 50-minute portion of the day that they had to tolerate somehow, and science practical work was a kind of ‘play time’ in which they didn't have to concentrate on anything hard. I realised I had to do some significant re-thinking of how this would work in future. 

3. Consider ‘non-events’, alternatives, possibilities and choices. 

• Instead of just focusing on what happened, think about some of the things that didn’t happen. 
• Consider ‘why’ each alternative didn’t happen. 
• What choices were made? What might have happened if different choices had been made? 

I think there were some problems with the worksheet – it assumed a level of reading ability which I had no real awareness of. There are some alternative approaches I could have used, so it made me think that worksheets themselves might not be that great.  I didn’t consider that pupils might actually need teaching or reminding how to follow a worksheet – I just assumed they could do this because they were in year 10. I should have checked that individuals understood what they should do before letting the practical get underway. I should have emphasised more what the safety precautions were, and perhaps asked pupils to talk to each other first to check they could explain to each other what they should be doing. Also I should have checked that they understood what the point of the practical was. 

4. Could you interpret this differently from another point of view? 

• Think about the critical incident again and consider it from as many different perspectives/points of view as possible e.g. the child, a teaching assistant, parents… 

I reckon that some children were not thinking about practical work as being about learning. I think their view might be that science lessons are periods of ‘theory’ work punctuated by some light relief during which they get to play around with stuff, and sometimes exciting things happen like things catching fire and so on. Then the teacher will explain what they should have seen, or what should have happened, so it doesn’t really matter whether they followed the instructions. If another, more experienced, teacher had been observing this I dare say they might have been able to see some of the shortcomings of what I was trying to do.   

5. What can you learn from this that will help you develop your practice? 

• What have you learned about teaching and learning? 
• What have you learned about yourself relevant to your role as a teacher? 
• What links can you make with wider understandings (e.g. with reading & research)? 

I’ve learnt that I need to think a lot more about my assumptions about children, and in particular how they are different to me. I also need to consider the way I engineer learning in the classroom, and in particular the active process of teaching – it is far more than just planning a sequence of events that seem logical to me. I have to be prepared to be much more responsive and proactive, rather than thinking I can just cover all the bases by having a good enough ‘advance schedule’.  I also need to re-evaluate how I think about practical work in science, so that it actually has some value in terms of learning.