Challenging Thoughts,Changing Minds: Preservice Teachers' Reflections on Their Experience Working in an Alternative School Setting

This study was designed to use critical reflective journaling practices to explore the experiences of preservice teachers working in a juvenile justice education program called the Reach Academy. Using a qualitative case study design, the researchers explored how 48 preservice teachers utilized critical reflective journaling to examine their own identities in relation to working in this unique school setting. Three major themes emerged from the reflective journal and interview data: (a) participants preconceived notions were challenged based on their positive interactions with Reach students, (b) preservice participants engaged in critical observation of the Reach Academy teachers and their interactions with students, and (c) participants' focus shifted from themselves to their students' needs. Findings suggest that preservice teachers reflective journaling process facilitated their ability to examine and reconsider their preconceived notions about working with students at the Reach Academy and in other diverse schooling settings.     

Intercultural language teaching as a catalyst for teacher inquiry

This study investigated how two teachers of languages, facilitated by university researchers, developed their practices with regard to intercultural language teaching. Taking a qualitative case study approach, we collected data from classroom observations, interviews, debriefing conversations, and guided reflective pieces written by the teachers. Findings indicate that the opportunities for teachers to inquire into their own practices shifted these teachers' approaches to language teaching to accommodate a curriculum expectation to develop students' intercultural communicative competence in plurilingual contexts. The study offers valuable insights for teacher education into the ways teachers' inquiries can support teachers’ responses to curricular change.     

Confession,in‐service training and reflective practices

This article focuses on how confession operates in contemporary discourses on reflective practices. By revisiting and mobilising Foucault's genealogy of confession in relation to how reflective practices are mobilised in an in‐service training programme for healthcare assistants (HCA) in elderly care, it is argued that the HCAs are shaped as their own confessors. It is further argued that we need to take into account traces from both Stoic and Christian times to fully understand how reflective practices operate and shape subjects. The empirical material consists of interviews with HCAs, their managers, supervisors and teachers in an in‐service training programme where the use of reflective practices was a key component.     

Encouraging the habit of seeing in student teaching

This article addresses how mentoring can move the student teachers' process of learning towards constructive teaching forms. An underlying assumption of such an approach is the need to understand what pupils know and say. The focus in the article is on how Sara, a cooperating teacher in Norway, encourages student teachers to start their student teaching by developing a mindset where seeing the kids is in focus. She does so by designing and taking care of natural learning situations, and by assisting them to develop their habit of seeing through their own teaching.     

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.     

Beyond the ‘good teacher’: guiding pre-service teacher reflections on culturally diverse students

This article explores how reflective practice may be facilitated among pre-service teachers preparing to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. The significance of the mentor teacher’s ability to reveal her/himself as a reflective practitioner in order to promote student reflection is well documented. The article specifically addresses one teacher educator’s approach to offering mentor support with a focus on reflective practices related to cultural diversity. She explores how her ethnographic doctoral study on the classroom participation of adult South Sudanese students in different Australian learning environments has informed her own practice as a teacher, and ways in which her teaching philosophy and values were influenced by the sustained reflection needed to complete the study. By making explicit an aspect of her reflective practice, she aims to add to the growing body of literature on how to engage pre-service teachers meaningfully in reflection on their own classroom practice, especially in relation to teaching to diversity.     

Student Teachers' Resistance to Exploring Racism: Reflections on 'doing' border pedagogy

While teachers have a responsibility to teach in a way that is anti-discriminatory and inclusive of all students irrespective of students' gender, 'race'/ethnicity, social class, disability or sexual orientation, in this paper my focus is on 'race' and racism and the ways in which some teacher education students resist examining their own racialised assumptions. Given that 'race' is invariably constructed in terms of the 'Other', it is imperative, as Gillborn (1996, p. 165) has suggested in the British context, for whites to 'reflect critically on their own assumptions and actions as whites'. It is equally imperative in Australia for 'white' researchers and teachers who are committed to anti-racism to turn the gaze inward and to reflect on our own racialised assumptions. Within this context one of the key concerns of this paper is the extent to which teacher education students can be given the freedom to express their views and explore their value positions without however slipping over into perpetuating racist stereotypes.     

Ethical bases of moral agency in teaching

This article introduces a qualitative study entitled ‘The moral and ethical bases of teachers’ interactions with students'. The main focus of the study is on the teacher's role as moral agent and the orientations within the classroom to issues of right and wrong as identified by teachers and the researchers. The primary intent is to combine empirical investigation and philosophical inquiry in order to explore teachers' ethical knowledge related to both what they hope to teach and model for students and how they hope to govern their own behaviour. This article explores some of the theoretical complexities of the study and presents some of the interview and observation data, focused primarily on the case of one of the teachers.     

Why is Finnish teacher education successful? Some goals Finnish teacher educators have for their teaching

In recent years, Finnish research‐based teaching, according to international surveys, has been shown to lead to excellent results. Previous research has demonstrated that teacher education has often had difficulties in incorporating theory into practice, and that the effects of teacher education on the prior beliefs and views on teaching and learning of student teachers have been weak. The aim of the present qualitative study was to find out how the Finnish teacher education system deals with these problems by investigating the current goals Finnish teacher educators have for their own teaching in theoretical courses. A total of 18 teacher educators were interviewed in five focus groups on different teacher education programmes in Finland. The interview results showed that Finnish teacher educators transmit theoretical and pedagogical aspects by using them in their own teaching, which is research‐based. They also aim to educate reflective and exploring teachers by using a variety of methods in their own pedagogy. The exemplary role the Finnish teacher educators have can be helpful in influencing prospective teachers' behaviour and thinking.     

Working with uncertainty to support the teaching of critical reflection

This paper explores the cumulative reflections of lecturers examining their tacit assumptions of teaching practice. Despite extensive literature on the educational value of reflection, there is less visible research on teachers assessing their own reflective thinking. This longitudinal interpretive study uses Larrivee's assessment framework with a purposive sample of UK business students. Findings reveal insights for teaching reflection; acknowledging the discomfort of reflexive practice encourages learners to experiment with knowledge interpretation. The students' struggle to engage in reflection resonated with lecturers' parallel difficulties. The teaching approach balances deliberate structure with uncertain outcomes to trigger fresh interpretation of developmental theory and workplace relevance. Practice implications for lecturers are that harnessing uncertainty can provoke deeper insights that enable students to direct their learning and develop reflective skills. This case study offers a practical assessment example to enrich reflexive teaching, with scope to compare and replicate in different disciplinary settings.     

Values in teaching

As in many other Western countries, in The Netherlands in recent years a discussion has started about the possibilities and necessity of teachers paying more attention to values in schools. In this article we will give a review of research regarding values and education, and make a conceptual clarification. We will analyse how values and communicative skills to reflect on values can be part of education, and will discuss school culture as part of a moral education. We argue for a more integrative approach. This implies at the same time the stimulation of certain values by the teacher, teaching and learning of skills to better communicate on values, and increasing the active participation of students. Throughout the article we focus on the pedagogical and didactic approach of the teacher, the way teachers are confronted with values, and how teachers' own values are part of their teaching practice.     

Other Teachers' Teaching: Understanding The Roles of Peer Group Collaboration in Teacher Reflection and Learning

Although most innovative professional development encourages reflective dialogue among teachers, we still know very little about how such dialogue enables teacher learning. This study describes how teachers make sense of the conflicts among their intended goals and actual practices by responding to their peers' teaching. Four teachers in a large urban high school each taught, evaluated, and shared four lessons they designed to enact self-identified goals absent from their practices. Patterns across the critiques, questions, compliments, and self-critiques that the teachers used to respond to others' lessons indicate the different ways they used the peer context to diversify, personalize, or slow down their thinking about their own teaching, and cross-case patterns reveal how they all learned in ways that would have been less likely in non-peer contexts. The findings suggest why diverse reflective peer groups are crucial starting points for larger professional networks designed to support systemic changes in teacher practices.     

Teachers as writers: learning together

This paper reports upon the insights gained through working with teachers as writers at their own level. As part of a two‐year research project into the development of children's voice and verve in writing, a group of fourteen teachers' reflective journeys as writers were documented. Two other groups of teachers and one group of student teachers also took part in writers' workshops across the same period. The data encompassed: questionnaires, observations and teacher commentaries on their own writing, as well as interviews. A number of issues emerged, including: the tension between public and private writing and the security of the writing environment; authenticity in modelling writing; the importance of re‐reading writing at the point of composition; the significance of choice and autonomy in writing and the potency of drama as an ideational and reflective tool. The consequences for classroom practice are also considered. It is argued that in order to enhance the teaching of writing, teachers and student teachers need real opportunities to write at their own level and reflect upon the process.     

Using ‘Fictional’ Story in Teacher Research

A deputy headteacher in a mixed comprehensive school of some 1200 students, aged 12-18 years describes her responsibilities, which include ‘continuing professional development’. She began an action research project in 1991 on how to develop not only her role in becoming more reflective in her day to day practice, but also how to develop opportunities for teachers to take time out of everyday ‘busyness’ in order to reflect on and improve pedagogical practices. She set up an action research group for teachers in school and many of the projects undertaken were validated by Kingston University, thus enabling teachers to gain a postgraduate Diploma in Action Research as part of an in-house course, in which teachers chose their own focus for development, and learnt to support and critique each other's work. As part of the methodology they used ‘story’ to help come to a focus, to put their thoughts in order, to clarify what they were thinking and to move forward their professional development. What follows is one account of how story was used to begin to develop thinking.     

Demystifying Critical Reflection: Defining criteria for assessment

Many university teachers in the social sciences and humanities, especially those interested in emancipatory educative practices, wish to see their students develop a capacity for critical reflection, considered essential for the development of higher-order thinking. However, critical reflection is rarely precisely defined nor are clear indications given about how teachers can develop appropriate criteria for assessing how well students reflect. This paper offers a framework for identifying indicators of a capacity for critical reflection in the social sciences, as well as demonstrating how criteria can be developed for assessing students' capability for critical reflection, including making distinctions between reflection on values, beliefs and assumptions. It is argued that offering clear criteria can assist in providing guidance to both students and teachers in developing critically reflective capacities.     

浅议未来小学英语教师反思性教学意识的培养

通过调研分析,并综合国内外的有关研究成果和教学经验,制定了包括反思性学习习惯的养成教育、教学、录像、对话等一系列的反思训练方案,培养未来小学英语教师反思性教学意识。本文重点在于未来小学英语教师反思性教学意识培养的意义以及反思训练方案的操作程序。     

Personally driven professional development: reflective self-study as a way for teachers to take control of their own professional development

This article is about personally driven professional development through the use of reflective self-study. The argument that teachers need to take responsibility for their own learning while also taking decisions on how and in what areas to develop is strongly made throughout the article. Data for this article were gathered over a 10-year period where the author engaged in several studies using self-study as methodology. Between studies, the author kept using reflective self-study as a professional development tool, and it is these data between various studies that were analysed using thematic and reflective analysis. Such analysis resulted in various overarching themes that show how reflective self-study can be of benefit if used by teachers researching their own classrooms. Benefits include teachers taking full ownership of their learning, relevance of learning, learning that is ongoing and not restricted to specific times and places, taking problematic situations as learning opportunities and how other sources take on new relevance through reflective self-study. Some implications for teacher-education programmes and current school structures are also discussed.     

Teaching nature of science through inquiry: Results of a 3‐year professional development program

This study assessed the influence of a 3‐year professional development program on elementary teachers' views of nature of science (NOS), instructional practice to promote students' appropriate NOS views, and the influence of participants' instruction on elementary student NOS views. Using the VNOS‐B and associated interviews the researchers tracked the changes in NOS views of teacher participants throughout the professional development program. The teachers participated in explicit–reflective activities, embedded in a program that emphasized scientific inquiry and inquiry‐based instruction, to help them improve their own elementary students' views of NOS. Elementary students were interviewed using the VNOS‐D to track changes in their NOS views, using classroom observations to note teacher influences on student ideas. Analysis of the VNOS‐B and VNOS‐D showed that teachers and most grades of elementary students showed positive changes in their views of NOS. The teachers also improved in their science pedagogy, as evidenced by analysis of their teaching. Implications for teacher professional development programs are made. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 653–680, 2007     

新课标下中学英语教师自我发展的内容及策略

新一轮基础教育改革对广大的中学英语教师提出了更高、更新的要求,为适应这次课程改革的要求,培养全面发展的人才,中学英语教师应自觉地进行自我更新,不断地提高自身素质。通过解读英语新课程标准,提出中学英语教师自我发展的内容,并对中学英语教师应如何更新教学观念、优化教学方法、注重自我评价、合作学习、网络学习和在实践中进行教学反思进行了论述。     

The challenge of involvement in reflective teaching: Three case studies from a teacher education project on conducting classroom discussions on socio-scientific issues

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn more about how teachers deal with a reflective teaching approach aimed at developing their competencies in analysing and facilitating classroom discussions on socio-scientific issues. Three cases of teachers' journeys through the project are reconstructed and characterised. We posit that each teacher benefited from the project according to his or her individual situation, needs and learning style. A number of modifications to the project design are proposed and can be summarised by the idea of assisting teachers more closely and more individually as they pass through the reflective teaching process.