From reflective practitioner to comprehensive teacher

The work of Donald Schön has drawn attention to the paradox inherent in the activities of teaching and learning. His own concept of the reflective practitioner tries to offer a way through this paradox for students arguing that by risking the power inequalities of being a learner they can eventually empower themselves as self-educators. However, it is argued below that Schon has not applied these insights into the paradox of teaching and learning to the activity of reflective practice nor to the identity of the reflective practitioner, and that therefore his educational model is not genuinely comprehensive. The failure by the reflective practitioner to risk the negativity of self-relation within the dialectic of reflection reduces its educational potential, and holds back the education of the philosophical consciousness, which characterises the truly comprehensive teacher     

The reflective dimension in teacher education

The terms “reflection” and “reflective practitioner” are now common currency in articles about teacher education and teachers’ professional development, especially in British and North American research. In this chapter, the term “reflection” as it relates to teachers and teacher education will be problematized, drawing particularly on Schön's (Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) terms “reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action.” Differing definitions of reflection will be put forward, their inter-relationship explored, and how these relate to courses of initial teacher education in a variety of countries and cultural contexts. Questions about the value and purpose of reflection will also be raised, as well as to its practical relevance to teacher education.     

Reconstructing teacher education for disadvantaged communities

Can teacher education be reconstructed to help teachers acquire the knowledge and skills they need to teach disadvantaged populations as proposed by new theories of learning? What shape should this type of teacher education take? After making a case for a transformative teacher education, responsive to current thinking in teaching and learning, I present two instances of school-based approaches to educating teachers that incorporate elements of constructivist, cognitive, and developmental theory when teaching poor rural children. I discuss these cases vis-à-vis their reach and potential for the future of teacher education.     

Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education

Reflection has become an integral part of teacher education, yet its elusive boundaries make it difficult to define and teach. Examining the various facets of reflection with respect to teaching clarifies the concept, making it more accessible to pre-service teachers learning to reflect on their practice. This article explores those facets and provides a typology designed to guide teacher educators in teaching reflection to pre-service teachers.     

Evaluation of reflective practice in teacher education

Teacher education based on ‘reflective practice’ consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various stages of the education system, using an approach that combines quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews and reports) methods. While the study shows that the education programme generates high levels of satisfaction, pedagogical appropriateness and learning, its achievements in effectiveness are moderate. Although, in general, what is learned through teacher education is implemented in the classroom, it is done so in an isolated fashion, in other words, individually and without becoming a part of the culture of the school. The results show little evidence of its impact on student learning. The article offers proposals for improving the education programme, while, at the same time, analysing the usefulness of the approach and evaluation tools employed.     

The promise of action research for critically reflective teacher education

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the potential that action research theory and practice hold for educating preservice teachers to become more critically reflective. First, action research theory, especially as it informs current notions of educational research and practice, is reviewed. Then critically reflective teaching is described by grounding the term in critical social science views supportive of the social reconstructionist reform tradition in teacher education. Special attention is given in this review to the claims made by action research advocates regarding the power of action research to promote critically reflective teaching. Finally, to examine the empirical basis for these claims, a brief survey is made of several reports of the use of action research by teacher educators. The analysis reveals cautious optimism for the promise action research holds for critically reflective teacher education.     

Toward a redefinition of teacher education

This paper focuses on the relationship between a teacher education institution and its associate schools in effecting change. First, it notes factors that may have lessened the effectiveness of teacher training institutions as change agents. Second, it identifies characteristics of emerging contemporary schools and the capabilities teachers need to operate effectively in these schools. Finally, it describes some of the structural elements of the York program intended to correct past deficiencies and to graduate teachers capable both of working in emerging schools and of effecting change in schools.

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Résumé Le présent article fait le point sur le relation entre l'établissement de formation de maîtres et ses écoles associées dans la mise en oeuvre du changement. Il présente d'abord des facteurs qui ont pu contribuer à faire diminuer l'efficacité des établissements de formation de maîtres comme agents de changement. En deuxième lieu, il identifie certaines caractéristiques des nouvelles écoles ainsi que les qualités dont les enseignants ont besoin pour fonctionner efficacement dans ces écoles. Enfin, il décrit certains éléments structurels du programme de York, lequel tend à corriger certains défauts rencontrés par le passé et à former des professeurs capables tant de travailler dans des nouvelles écoles que d'effectuer le changement dans les écoles.

     

Toward praxically-just transformations: interrupting racism in teacher education

ABSTRACT

Recognising the importance of learning from experience, this mixed methods study critically problematises how teacher educators position student teaching as pivotal in teacher education programmes’ inability to focus on racial equity. Through learnings from a survey of US university-based teacher educators who constructed student teaching placements in schools serving students of colour as problems, this article unveils how the concept of quality cloaks the re-production of racism in and through teacher education. Seeking to address how teacher education is implicated in the re-production of racial inequities, a teacher educator partnered with teachers in the most segregated system of state schools in the US to transform student teaching. In describing a situated representation of an innovation at once practice-focused and theoretical, this article illustrates the power and potential for praxically-just critical transformations in teacher education. Findings shed light on the power of Freirean culture circles for transforming teacher education. Implications point toward the need to recognise, problematise, and interrupt ways in which the White-centric rhetoric and practice of teacher education continue to foster racism and re-produce injustice.     

Translating policy: governmentality and the reflective teacher

This paper deploys some concepts from the work of Michel Foucault to problematise the mundane and quotidian practices of policy translation as these occur in the everyday of schools. In doing that, we suggest that these practices are complicit in the formation of and constitution of teacher subjects, and their subjection to the morality of policy and of educational reform. These practices are some ways in which teachers work on themselves and others, and make themselves subjects of policy. We conceive of the processes of translation, its practices and techniques as a form of ethics, the constitution of a contemporary and contingent version of professionalism through the arts of self-conduct. In all of this, it is virtually impossible to separate out, as Foucault points out, capability from control. We argue that the development of new capacities, new skills of classroom management, of pedagogy, bring along with it the intensification of a power relation. We are primarily concerned with Foucault’s third face of power, pastoral power or government and how this interweaves and overlap with other forms of power within processes of policy and educational reform.     

Revisiting reflective practice in an era of teacher education reform: A self-study of an early childhood teacher education program

ABSTRACT

The authors describe a major program reform study of an early childhood teacher education program in a large, urban, state university in the United States. Over a 4-year period, our team of early childhood faculty undertook an intentional and reflective program reform study to better advocate for quality early childhood educational philosophy and practice, while ensuring our program aligned with the newer national accreditation policy and state teacher certification standards. In this article, we identify three core problems we encountered, articulate how we approached each of them based on our philosophical framework, and discuss further considerations of each.     

Counterfactual mutation of critical classroom incidents: implications for reflective practice in initial teacher education

This study explores reflective practice through the lens of counterfactual thinking and examines its role in encouraging student teachers to reflect on negative ‘critical incidents’. The study posits that reflections on critical incidents are often not ‘critical’ in nature. They more frequently result in counterfactual thinking processes which leads to a counterfactually mutated outcome congruent with one’s initial beliefs. To explore this issue, the study examined a collection of school placement reflections (n = 180) from a cohort of initial teacher education students on a 4-year B.Ed programme in the Republic of Ireland. The data revealed that, where present in the student teachers’ reflections, critical incidents of a negative nature did invoke counterfactual thinking. These counterfactually mutated scenarios and actions tended to draw on quite traditional views of teaching and tended to reinforce the idea that teachers should be authority figures. The study discusses some of the factors, specific to teacher education, that increase the likelihood that counterfactually thinking is invoked and raises questions about current practice in teacher education that contribute to this.     

Critically Reflective Teachers in a Devolving Educational Context: implications of Schon's proposals for the teacher as a critically reflective practitioner

The idea of the teacher as a critically reflective practitioner has implications for teaching and teacher development. These implications will become more significant as schools accept responsibility for teacher development and as school effectiveness and teacher appraisal are increasingly emphasised. Perceiving the teacher as a critically reflective practitioner stresses teachers articulating, sharing, criticising and reviewing their practices and pedagogical knowledge and supports a constructivist view. An emphasis on achieving school and teaching excellence, quality, efficiency and effectiveness through management strategies is based upon a technicist perspective. The implications for teaching of these contrasting perspectives are considered in terms of the separation of means and ends, of knowing and doing, and of research and practice. It is argued that critically reflective conversations on teaching are central to inquiring into teaching and teacher development and appraisal.     

Language,literacy and learning: modelling integration and reflective practices in preservice teacher education

This paper reports on the attempts to integrate literacy strategies across several strands (Pedagogy, Curriculum Studies and Study of Teaching) of a new Graduate Diploma of Education for preservice secondary school teachers. This paper focuses on the literacy demands the program placed on English majors, and the outcomes demonstrated by them throughout the one-year program. At the time that these data were collected, the writer was the inaugural Director of Teaching for the whole program, but with specific responsibility for Study of Teaching and English Curriculum Studies.     

Reconstructing science teacher education within communities of learners

This article is based on a paper which received the “Innovation in Teaching Science Teachers” Award at the 1993 annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science.     

Using electronic portfolios to promote reflective thinking in language teacher education

This study aimed at investigating the role of electronic portfolios in fostering pre‐service teachers’ reflective thinking. The research was conducted with pre‐service English language teachers enrolled in a practicum course in an undergraduate teacher education programme in Turkey. The data were collected through e‐portfolios and interviews. The findings revealed that e‐portfolios gave participants a sense of ownership, fostered reflecting thinking, supported collaboration and allowed them to make connections between theory and practice. With the on‐going nature of the e‐portfolio, participants had the chance of developing and reviewing their portfolio artefacts whenever and wherever they wanted. Therefore, electronic portfolios allowed teacher candidates to reflect more on their own work and thus engage in on‐going professional development.