Promoting higher levels of reflective writing in student journals

This paper traces the development over several years of an initiative involving student journals that was introduced into a tertiary science education course for pre‐service teachers to promote enhanced learning of how to teach science. Very soon after introducing the journals into course work the lecturer began engaging in ‘unplanned’ informal reflection (reflection‐in‐action and reflection‐on‐action) when she witnessed the shallow, often trivial nature of her students’ reflective writing and the lack of pedagogical insights they were gaining from the exercise. Motivated by her own ongoing scholarship the lecturer introduced purposeful coaching of reflective skills into her pedagogy to scaffold students’ learning and promote more useful reflection. The impact of these interventions on students’ reflective capabilities and learning were investigated using a formal action research cycle. Findings indicate that student teachers’ reflective skills improved and resulted in deeper and more focused thinking about how to teach science for learning.     

The Use of an Industrial Simulation in Initial Teacher Education: an exercise in reflective learning

Abstract

The schools‐industry movement advocates the development of greater industrial awareness in pupils through experiential learning methods. It follows that student teachers need to be prepared for this work in a similar way. Such experiential work, to be effective, needs to be reflective. The use of such ‘reflective practice’ is an important strategy in teacher education in its own right This paper explores these ideas in the context of an industrial simulation run in school, by students in Initial Teacher Training, involving local industrialists. Such an activity can play a valuable part in preparing such students for initiatives such as TVEI, and can enhance their personal and professional development. However, when several agencies are combining on a single project, they approach the activity with differing objectives. These need to be recognised in the planning, so that valid compromises can be achieved.     

Technology‐enhanced learning in higher education: How to enhance student engagement through blended learning

Blended learning has risen in popularity in the last two decades as it has been shown to be an effective approach for accommodating an increasingly diverse student population in higher education and enriching the learning environment by incorporating online teaching resources. Blending significant elements of the learning environment such as face‐to‐face, online and self‐paced learning leads to better student experiences and outcomes and more efficient teaching and course management practices if combined appropriately. Hence, an appropriate systematic and dynamic approach of blended learning design is crucial for a positive outcome, starting with planning for integrating blended elements into a course and creating blended activities and implementing them. Evaluating their effectiveness and knowing in which environments they work better and improving the blended activities designed from both the student’s and instructor’s perspective are critical for the next delivery of the course. This article aims to increase awareness of higher education educators about how traditional face‐to‐face learning can be transformed into blended courses so as to develop student engagement with both in‐class and online approaches, whilst being time effective for the instructor.     

Qualitatively different ways of experiencing student self‐assessment

In the literature, student self‐assessment as a practice and as a goal in higher education is generally emphasized for academics. This paper reports a study that investigates what academics emphasize in their experiences of student self‐assessment. The investigation focused on the different ways academics described their understanding and practise of self‐assessment. A phenomenographic approach was used to research and identify a set of progressive variations of academics’ ways of experiencing student self‐assessment. Altogether, 16 academics from a variety of disciplines and programs of study in three Australian universities participated in the investigation. The consequent research findings describe five qualitatively different conceptions that depict how academics understand and use student self‐assessment. These findings are subsequently discussed in terms of the potential for academics to understand and use student self‐assessment to enhance students’ self‐assessment ability, to further students’ lifelong learning and to empower, rather than discipline, students.     

Living with CATE: the case of reflective student teachers

This paper considers the effect of the introduction of market forces into teacher education both in terms of the loss of autonomy on the part of the providers, the teacher educators, and in terms of the growth of ownership by the consumers, the student teachers, of their learning. Specifically it identifies the paradigms of teacher education which are absent from the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) criteria, such as enquiry‐oriented teacher education, but which are important for promoting professional self‐awareness amongst teachers. This paper describes and evaluates an exercise undertaken by student teachers on a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) course which both promotes self‐reflection and meets some of the criteria set by CATE. It concludes that it is possible to promote self‐reflective teaching within the confines of the CATE criteria so long as certain procedures are followed.     

Learning to work together: health and social care students’ learning from interprofessional modules

This paper reports on a study of student learning about collaboration and discusses the effectiveness of different forms of assessment in facilitating learning. The study was conducted in a large health and social care faculty in which all students on pre‐qualifying professional programmes learn together in modules aimed at developing collaborative skills. Data about student learning were collected through interviews with 42 students and analysis of 53 students’ completed assignments. The paper focuses on two questions: (1) What did students learn about collaborating in groups and about their own collaborative skills? (2) Which forms of assessment were effective in recording this learning? Interview and assignment data demonstrated that students learned about groups and group participation, about themselves in group situations and about the relevance of interprofessional learning to working collaboratively in professional practice. Module 3 (third year) assessments provided evidence of transference of learning from module to practice. Whereas learning logs, completed during the module as a form of reflective assessment, appeared to promote self‐awareness about own collaborative skills, reflective essays, completed after module sessions had ended, provided more opportunities for analysis and to link theory to practice.     

Student‐teachers' perspectives on positive and negative social processes in school

In recent years, the Standards for Qualified Teacher Status in England have placed new emphasis on student‐teachers' ability to become integrated into the ‘corporate life of the school’ and to work with other professionals. Little research, however, has been carried out into how student‐teachers perceive the social processes and interactions that are central to such integration during their initial teacher education school placements. This study aims to shed light on these perceptions. The data, gathered from 23 student‐teachers through interviews and reflective writing, illustrate the extent to which the participants perceived such social processes as supporting or obstructing their development as teachers. Signals of inclusion, the degree of match or mismatch in students' and school colleagues' role expectations, and the social awareness of both school and student‐teacher emerged as crucial factors in this respect. The student‐teachers' accounts show their social interactions with school staff to be meaningful in developing their ‘teacher self’ and to be profoundly emotionally charged. The implications for mentor and student‐teacher role preparation are discussed in this article.     

Changes in instructors' assessment thinking related to experimentation with new strategies

Formative assessment has been recognised as a critical element in teaching for conceptual development. A case study research design was employed to: (1) characterise the assessment thinking of three science instructors at a research‐based university; and (2) examine the complex relationship between instructor thinking and practice by encouraging experimentation with alternative assessment strategies. Interviews, reflective journals, field notes and course documents were the data sources used to create a single case study that documented the development of these university instructors’ assessment thinking during their experimentation with formative assessment strategies. Throughout two semesters of experimentation, the instructors’ assessment thinking became more sophisticated; they grew to view the purpose of assessment less as a summative activity used for the assignment of marks and more as a tool for diagnosing student learning. However, more sophisticated thinking was not associated with revisions in teaching practice based on formative assessment data. Further investigations are needed to more completely understand the nature of assessment thinking and how assessment thinking influences assessment practices. Implications for professional development of university‐level science instructors include personalised experiences through which instructors can become active participants in gathering evidence of student learning that promotes growth in assessment thinking.     

Innovation in postgraduate teaching: mixed methods to enhance learning and learning about learning

Growing pressure to restructure and reform tertiary education is encouraging university academics to use innovative practices that assist students to develop ‘employable’ skills. The hybrid approach described in this paper stimulated students to be self‐directed adult learners who maximized their learning of content and skills by means of problem‐based learning and action research strategies. The lecturer also operated as a reflective practitioner and role model by using an action research approach. This paper demonstrates the value of student empowerment, communication and leadership in autonomous learning groups. It outlines methods by which academic teaching staff can build continuous improvement into a university unit’s curriculum design and processes. These can be powerful additions to lecturers’ teaching strategies and to students’ learning experiences.     

‘Teach as you preach’: the effects of student‐centred versus lecture‐based teaching on student teachers’ approaches to teaching

This study investigates the effects of teaching and learning environments on student teachers’ approaches to teaching and compares a lecture‐based setting to a student‐activating teaching environment, in which self‐discovery learning by means of authentic tasks is central. Data collection (N = 852) was obtained by a pre‐test/post‐test design including the Approaches to Teaching Inventory. Though student teachers’ approaches changed significantly, the direction is only consistent with the assumption that the student‐activating experiences push students towards conceptual change/student‐focused approaches; however, not away from information transmission/teacher‐focused teaching. In fact, students’ approaches to teaching at the start of the experiment are important predictors of their scores after they followed the course on child development under both conditions. Moreover, student teachers’ changes in approaches to teaching tend to be affected by variables such as performance, academic self‐esteem, perceived workload and students’ changes in approaches to learning: variables that operate in distinct ways for diverse categories of approaches and work differently in both settings. In addition, the willingness of students to teach in the way they have been taught is not as straightforward as might be expected. Although several students became convinced of the use of the teaching methods in the experiment for their own practice, the majority of students demonstrate reflective practices, make critical judgements, formulate terms or suggest amendments to the teaching methods before simply adopting them for their own future pupils.     

The reflection on the blackboard: student teacher self‐evaluation

A common aim of teacher education is to encourage prospective teachers to analyze carefully their instructional performance. Yet, research on teacher cognition heretofore has concentrated primarily on experienced teachers’ planning and instructional thinking. We need more information on how student teachers think about and engage in the evaluation of their teaching performance. This study used data from initial structured interviews to elicit student teachers’ self‐evaluation concerns and examined the student teachers’ journals, a final written self‐evalution, and tapes from post‐teaching interviews to create a profile of each student teacher's responses about self‐evaluation. In this paper I analyze the student teachers’ pre‐conceptions about success, examine their processes of self‐evaluation, and explore a conception of “interactive self‐evaluation.” I offer suggestions about the conditions that may enable student teachers to enhance their analytical processes.     

Using Reflective Journals to Enhance Impoverished Practicum Placements: A case in teacher education in Ethiopia

This article investigates the value of writing reflective journals for student teachers during practicum placement. The author invited 10 pre‐service education degree teachers to write a weekly reflective journal throughout their four weeks practicum teaching. Each student teacher was given the opportunity to revisit the issues in his journals through a subsequent reflective dialogue. At the end of the practicum, the student teachers were asked to complete one additional reflective journal to provide their views about how useful and challenging they found the task of writing reflective journals on their teaching experiences. The author also kept observation notes to reflect on his own experiences of involving student teachers in reflective journal writing. It was concluded that the student teachers benefited immensely from their experiences of writing reflective journals for the purpose of reflecting on their practical experiences. They reported that the activity helped them improve their teaching experiences and deepen their understanding of the complexities involved in learning to teach. The study has implications on the role of reflective journals as a means of engaging teacher candidates in reflective thinking, a recently emerging notion in the education of teachers in Ethiopia.     

Improving Design Understandings and Skills through Enhanced Metacognition: Reflective Design Journals

The main aim of this study was to investigate and discover whether going through the process of reflection by keeping reflective design journals (RDJ) enhances architecture students’ metacognition and whether this enhanced metacognition improves their design understandings and skills. The study was a mixed‐methods design and utilised content analysis method to identify the metacognitive actions of the participants. The study also investigated participants’ attitudes towards RDJs and their views regarding the effect of enhanced metacognition on their design understandings and skills. Twenty college students registered to an undergraduate course offered by the department of Architecture participated in the research. The findings of the study revealed that by writing in their RDJs, participants were able to progressively enhance their metacognitive skills and performed several metacognitive actions by using the four main metacognitive strategies: awareness, organisation and planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The results also disclosed that participants found RDJ keeping exceptionally effective and stated that their enhanced metacognition improved their design understanding and abilities.     

The role of student journals in facilitating reflection at doctoral level

Journal entries submitted by thirteen Doctor of Education students as a course requirement were analysed in order to explore the nature and content of their reflection and the effectiveness of journal writing in facilitating student learning. The findings confirm that journal writing encourages students to engage cognitively and reflectively with course concepts and content and to make connections between their academic learning and their personal/professional experience. Marked individual differences in response styles were apparent and these impacted on the learning outcomes reported by students. An ‘analytic’ approach to journal writing helps students to clarify, organise, evaluate and personalise ideas, an ‘extracting’ approach provides a useful record of ideas and issues, and an ‘affective’ approach encourages freedom of expression and self‐evaluation. Students who adopt a ‘course‐feedback’ style, however, receive little benefit from the activity. Suggestions are made for improving the effectiveness of student journals as a learning technique.     

Sustaining learning through assessment: an evaluation of the value of a weekly class quiz

Commencing each class session with a class quiz, which emphasizes the previous week’s work and is supported by immediate feedback, encourages students to revise their notes ahead of the session, undertake more reading and keep pace with course progression. It reduces the necessity for any spoken review of the previous week’s work, provides guidance on the status of current student learning, and creates a knowledge platform upon which deeper learning may be constructed. When pitched at an accessible level, regular class quizzes are popular with students because they reinforce student engagement with the course and provide immediate positive feedback and reward. In this case study, quiz results correlate significantly with many other forms of assessment, especially those that require immediate individual knowledge such as examinations, learning journals and spoken presentations. They do not correlate so strongly with assessments based on teamwork or deductive exploration such as problem‐based laboratory study or self‐directed field trails. Class quizzes and formal examinations, alone of the assessment strategies compared in this study, are associated with significantly higher marks from female students. It is recommended that the technique is used as part of a diversified assessment strategy.     

Teaching the teachers: emotional intelligence training for teachers

A growing body of research in recent years has supported the value of emotional intelligence in both effective teaching and student achievement. This paper presents a pre–post, quasi-experimental design study conducted to evaluate the contributions of a 56-h “Emotional Intelligence” training model. The model has been developed and studied in an attempt to address educators’ growing needs to practice and implement “emotionally intelligent” learning environments. One hundred eighty-six teachers from ten elementary schools in Israel participated in this study. Findings indicated an increase in emotional intelligence and empathic concern from the beginning to the end of the course. Further regression indicated that both expression and regulation of emotions predicted empathy at the end of the course. Participants’ reflective assignments indicated an increase in self introspection, emotional awareness, emotional regulation and understanding others.     

Constructing constructivism: how student‐teachers construct ideas of development,knowledge, learning,and teaching

This case study investigates the development of the understanding of constructivist theory among students in a Masters level elementary teacher education program within a particular course. The focus of the study is a seminar entitled ‘Advanced Seminar in Child Development’. The questions explored include: How do students’ ideas of teaching, learning and knowledge develop within the context of their experience in this course? How do they come to understand constructivism? What are their definitions of constructivism? What is the course of the development of this understanding? The nature of the students’ learning processes is examined through three sources of data: dialog journals, videotaped sessions and the instructor’s reflective teaching journal. The study looks both at student development and instructional practice to further understanding of how student‐teachers can learn to apply constructivist theory to their teaching and to understand the learning process, both within themselves and their students. Their development is placed in the context of Korthagen and Kessels’s model of teacher understanding and practice, and within a broader context of principles of practice that emphasize a belief in equity and social justice. The case illustrates how the way student‐teachers are taught theory can help them integrate their own ideas of learning and teaching with constructivist theory in order to think critically about their own practice in an ongoing developmental manner.     

A study of participatory action research as professional development for educators in areas of educational disadvantage

The main aim of this article is to explore the ways in which teacher educators can improve levels of reflection in postgraduate student teachers. The author argues that postgraduate student teachers are able to reflect on their practice in schools, and that the insights gained are useful in clarifying their own beliefs about teaching and learning. The outcome of such reflection at an early stage of their career may have implications for their ability to engage with the development opportunities made available to them as they move through their teaching careers. Using a qualitative approach, data from the learning journals and reflective writing assignments of student teachers, and a focus group interview, are examined in order to evaluate students' ability to engage in reflective writing at various stages over a 1 year course. The support given to students over the course of the year is examined with a view to evaluating its impact on students' abilities to reflect on their practice and their own learning. A number of recommendations are made for possible improvements to supporting student teachers in this important area of work.     

Teachers’ assessment practices in mathematics: classrooms in the context of reform

This article responds to calls that have been made for research into how teachers incorporate new assessment ideas into their practice. We draw on a large‐scale study that examined the implementation of reform in mathematics in grades 7–10 in Ontario, Canada. We present teacher questionnaire data, and focus on data gathered from case studies for details of what new assessment practices look like in classrooms. We show teachers using a variety of forms of assessment and using assessment to improve student learning. Observed assessment practices went beyond tests to include the use of journals, observation, questioning, self‐assessment and unique forms of ‘quizzes’. These practices allowed teachers to examine students’ mathematical thinking and provided feedback to students and teachers to improve student learning. We also observed the important role of collaboration, coherence, and the teachers’ beliefs in supporting new assessment practices.     

Student responses to criteria‐referenced self‐assessment

This paper reports on a study of undergraduate students’ experiences with criteria‐referenced self‐assessment. Fourteen students who had taken a course involving self‐assessment were interviewed in focus groups segregated by gender. The findings suggest that students had positive attitudes toward self‐assessment after extended practice; felt they can effectively self‐assess when they know their teacher’s expectations; claimed to use self‐assessment to check their work and guide revision; and believed the benefits of self‐assessment include improvements in grades, quality of work, motivation and learning. There were indications that some students sensed a tension between their own standards for good work and some of their teachers’ standards. There was no evidence of differences in the responses of male and female students. The paper concludes with the suggestion that self‐assessment involves a complex process of internalization and self‐regulation, and with implications for research and practice.