Becoming an effective teacher involves far more than acquiring knowledge about teaching. It requires future educators to examine their assumptions, learn from experience, respond to feedback, and periodically consider how their decisions affect learners.

A research chapter by Associate Professor of English Rula Diab and former LAU Associate Professor of Education Rima Bahous explores how this process is embedded throughout LAU’s BS in Education program. Their work, published in Developing Reflective TESOL Practitioners Through Teacher Education by Springer Nature in 2024, examines how pre-service teachers at the School of Arts and Sciences progressively adopt critical reflective practices from their early university courses through their final practicum.

Such practices in the Lebanese education system are typically saved for the professional level, as part of teachers’ Continuous Professional Development. The Education Program at LAU makes self-directed learning a component of the academic experience of all pre-service teachers. Rather than treating it as a single assignment or end-of-course exercise, the program integrates it across the curriculum.

As students, pre-service teachers are encouraged to plan, teach, receive feedback, and reflect on their experiences to improve subsequent practice. This approach is guided by the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards, which provide a framework for teacher development and professional growth.

“Critical reflection involves more than describing what happens in a classroom or stating whether a lesson went well,” said Dr. Diab. Students are encouraged to consider their own experiences and beliefs. As they advance, they design lesson plans, discuss and critique them with instructors and peers, engage in presentations and debates, and begin applying education theories to practical situations.

For example, in one activity, students were asked to examine their multilingual education in Lebanon and consider how these experiences might inform their approaches to teaching Arabic, English, and French. In another exercise, they reflected on how they learned to read, their attitudes toward reading, and how they could apply effective strategies to support their own students’ progress.

This hands-on approach can be applied to real-world experiences as the students work alongside cooperating teachers and receive feedback on their performance. This provides them with insights to evaluate and improve their methods.

“The process creates a productive relationship between teaching and research,” Dr. Diab posited. “Classroom experience raises questions for further investigation, while research helps us refine our teaching practices.”

The study describes this critical methodology through the concepts of reflection-for-action, reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-action, which enable practitioners to examine their approach and adapt it dynamically both during and after class. It also underscores the importance of structured tasks such as journaling and developing portfolios to both track their own evolution and provide valuable data to advance the discipline.

The study acknowledges certain challenges in sustaining critical reflection across the program. The effectiveness of these practices depends on consistency and on faculty members’ continued engagement. Nevertheless, the findings demonstrate the value of helping pre-service teachers develop the habits needed to become more autonomous and responsive.

“The chapter grew out of our shared interest in reflective practice and teacher education, as well as our experience with the program at LAU,” said Dr. Diab. “The university provided the academic environment in which we could study these practices systematically and share our experience with the wider scholarly community.”

Drs. Diab and Bahous hope that LAU will continue to leverage critical reflection to produce new generations of continuously evolving educators, and that other institutions will follow suit.