Reflective Classroom Practice: case studies of student teachers at work

Abstract

This paper addresses the nature of reflective classroom practice in a setting where action research has been undertaken by both the student teachers and the teaching practice supervisor. It is based on a cross‐case study of the processes through which student teachers learn to teach. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how student teachers reflect on their experiences in learning to teach. The data are based on student teachers’ reported thoughts about their learning over a period of one year. The results contribute to the understanding of reflective classroom practice by highlighting first student teachers’ perceptions about learning to teach and second their reviews on classroom practice. The discussion also adds to the literature on teacher development taken from the novice‐expert research tradition. Accordingly, implications for curriculum development in teacher education are drawn.     

The process of reflective teaching

Abstract

The process of reflection is analysed into three components ‐an ego‐driven purpose, a restructuring capability, and a transforming perspective. Different types of reflection are argued to be instances of cognitive restructuring determined by purpose and by context. Procedures for resolving contradictions in the literature concerning ways in which ‘reflective teaching’ can be fostered are also suggested. It is argued that adopting any single model of ‘reflective practice’ can be unnecessarily restrictive given the ubiquity of the reflective process. Finally, the danger of claiming too much for a ‘reflective practitioner’ model is set beside clear benefits gained from promoting it.     

Work-based Learning,Action Learning and the Virtual Paradigm

Action learning is a central part of many work-based learning programmes, and, to be effective, requires the learner to engage in reflective learning. This article looks at how the reflective learning cycle can be integrated with action learning processes to create the dynamic of enhanced business effectiveness and individual understanding. Through a case study of a university‐corporate partnership, the article explores how a virtual learning environment (web-based materials and interactive forum) can be integrated effectively into the action learning-reflection cycle. It is suggested that the combination of action learning and virtual technology has the potential for enhancing learning, providing data for interactive discussions, and a means of disseminating new knowledge and management best practice within organisations.     

Prospective teachers’ perceptions of development during fieldwork: Tutoring as a vehicle for professional growth

Abstract

This study examines elementary and secondary prospective teachers’ perceptions of the ways in which their experiences as tutors in school‐based tutoring programs influenced their professional development. Data collected from a survey questionnaire, reflective papers, and individual and focus group interviews revealed five main ways that these undergraduate and graduate education students perceived the tutoring experiences contributed to their professional growth. They described development in the following understandings: school students, pedagogical strategies, relationships with colleagues in school settings, the teaching/learning process, and reflective practice. All of these understandings were reported as increasing their self‐confidence as developing educators.     

Lecturers’ perceptions: The value of assessment rubrics for informing teaching practice and curriculum review and development

ABSTRACT

The assessment rubric is increasingly gaining recognition as a valuable tool in teaching and learning in higher education. While many studies have examined the value of rubrics for students, research into the lecturers’ usage of rubrics is limited. This article explores the lecturers’ perceptions of rubrics, in particular, its use and design, the role it can play in informing one's teaching practice and in curriculum review and development. The data shows that many lecturers use the rubric in a very mechanical and unconscious manner and view it mostly as a grading tool with limited instructional value. While acknowledging the rubric as a reflective tool for students, lecturers do not perceive it as having the same benefits for them. The findings, therefore suggest more conversations around the role that rubrics can play in informing one's teaching practice and course design. It also suggests further research into this area.     

Models in Physics: Some Pedagogical Reflections based on The History of Science

This study aimed to assess the influence of a philosophy of science (POS) course on science teachers’ views of nature of science (NOS), perceptions of teaching about NOS, and instructional planning related to NOS. Participants were 56 undergraduate and graduate preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a two science‐methods course sequence, in which participants received explicit, reflective NOS instruction. Ten of these participants were also enrolled in a graduate survey POS course. The Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire — Form C coupled with individual interviews was used to assess participants’ NOS views at the beginning and conclusion of the study. Participants’ lesson plans and NOS‐specific reflection papers were analysed to assess the impact of the POS course on their instructional planning related to, and perceptions of teaching about, NOS. Results indicated that, compared with participants enrolled in the methods courses, the POS course participants developed deeper, more coherent understandings of NOS. Substantially more of these latter participants planned explicit instructional sequences to teach about NOS. Additionally, the POS course participants’ discourse regarding NOS progressed from a preoccupation with the technical, to a concern with the practical, and, finally, to a focus on the emancipatory. Their views of teaching about NOS in their future classrooms went beyond the customary discourse of whether pre‐college students should or could be taught about NOS, to contemplating changes they needed to bring about in their own teaching behaviour and language to achieve consistency with their newly acquired NOS understandings.     

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.     

SCHOOL INTEGRATION and related topics

This five-year study examined the effectiveness of an innovative approach to service-learning embedded in a one year site-based alternative route to teacher certification. The ten-week school-based study investigated the influence of service-learning on the multicultural perceptions, cross-cultural communication skills, and social justice cognizance of future teachers. The study participants consisted of 73 secondary pre-service teacher candidates. Data sources included: participant reflective journals, debriefings and final reports, letters from and discussions with host school service recipients, and investigator interviews and field notes. Study results indicate that service-learning within the time constraints of a one-year alternative route to teacher certification can provide future teachers with insight into the politics of education, increase their interactive proficiency with culturally diverse students, teachers and administrators, raise their level of multicultural consciousness, and augment their educational foundations and content knowledge while connecting theory to classroom practice.     

Training the Physical Education Teacher: A Worried Re‐Think

Abstract

The increasing demand on nurses to adopt the roles and responsibilities of full professional status have been reflected in nurse training by the move into higher education. However, while there are undoubted benefits to this move, the authors believe that it has been at the expense of student involvement in their courses and a widening of the gap between theory and practice.

This paper presents three strategies for addressing those problems. Firstly, the authors argue for a student‐centred humanistic approach to education within the constraints of a curriculum for professional training. Secondly, they present a strategy for narrowing the theory practice gap through the use of reflective practice. Finally, they outline an approach to continuous and ongoing course evaluation in which findings are immediately applied to produce a flexible and responsive curriculum. The paper concludes by arguing that this broad approach could be successfully employed in any professional training within the further and higher education framework.     

The Reflective Practitioner and Teacher Education: an answer to critics

Abstract

This article is an attempt to answer some of the criticisms of the notion of reflective practice in teacher education. It is argued that in a democratic society personal autonomy is an important ideal of education, including teacher education, and that therefore the notion of reflective practice should have a central place. The relationship between autonomy and the reflective self is clarified with reference to different models of the self. In the light of this, the purpose of teacher education for autonomy is defined in terms of the nature of the committed as well as the reflective aspects of the self. The argument is further illustrated and elaborated by examining Schb'n's attempt to reintellec‐tualize professional practice through an analysis of the reflective practitioner as artist. In addition to facilitating self‐analysis and reflection, teacher education should raise awareness of the need to produce and reproduce the milieu of democratic reform. In conclusion, the role of the disciplines is reviewed as a resource for pursuing the goal of autonomy in teacher education.     

Improving the Quality of Practicum Learning: Self-Study of a Faculty Member’s Role in Practicum Supervision

Abstract

This self-study of activities as a practicum supervisor in several secondary schools focuses on the supervisor’s contribution to the quality of a teacher candidate’s professional learning in the context of a familiar tension between on-campus courses and in-school practicum experiences. Data from both formal and informal supervisory experiences are taken from notes recorded in classes with those supervised formally, records of notes taken in practicum observations, and email messages exchanged with teacher candidates about their supervision experiences. Analysis of formal supervision experiences generated a series of insights into candidates’ experiences of the practicum, a modest innovation in supervisory practice, and important reminders arising from a significant error in personal practice as a supervisor. Informal supervision experiences involved visits arising from invitations to observe extended by candidates in the author’s physics methods course. These experiences generated opportunities to test an alternative supervisory strategy focused on candidates’ perceptions of their learning from experience. Related literature includes the topics of learning from experience, reflective practice, and the potential significance of an epistemology of practice. In closing, attention is given to trustworthiness, the personal significance of the study and connections to the teacher education literature.     

Opportunity Knocks? Professionalism and excellence in university teaching

Abstract

This paper proposes that excellence in teaching resides in a reflective, self‐critical, theoretically informed approach. A training programme for new teachers is used as an example of how the approach advocated can be put into practice. Evidence is presented which indicates that academic teachers pursuing such an approach develop conceptions of teaching which can contribute to improved practice; and which may also contribute to changing thinking about teaching and learning in departments. It is argued that encouraging reflective pedagogy has the potential of engaging academics in making the cultural changes necessary to professionalise and enhance the status of teaching. Finally, it is suggested that, although the methodology used by the inspection teams of the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) is problematic, the impetus provided can be used as an opportunity to explore and establish creative and worthwhile ways of improving the quality of teaching.     

Perceptions of Interaction: The critical predictor in distance education

Abstract

This study examined learner perceptions of interaction and satisfaction in a course delivered by interactive television. The participants were 123 K‐6 teachers in a Developmental Approaches in Science and Health program. Three sessions of the ten‐session course were examined. Significant correlations were found between perceptions of personal and overall interaction within the class. Perceptions of personal interaction were a moderate predictor of satisfaction. The critical predictor of satisfaction was the perception of overall interaction. These findings suggest that when learners perceive the level of interaction to be high, they will be more satisfied with instruction than when they perceive the level of interaction to be low. Overall dynamics in interaction may have a stronger impact on learners’ satisfaction than does strictly personal participation. Vicarious interaction within the class as a whole may result in greater learner satisfaction than will the overt engagement of each participant. However, both perceived level of interaction and satisfaction appear to decline with increased exposure to interactive instructional television.     

Implementing change: an autobiographical case study of introducing a technology innovation within a West Midlands HEI

abstract

This article outlines the evaluation of student‐led group work as the major vehicle for a professional course in education (PGCE whole school studies) which relies heavily on work‐based learning. Group work is found to be an effective means of enhancing reflective practice. Problems of engaging whole group responsibility for the tasks and activities can be effectively managed through appropriate structuring of the learning experiences, induction programmes in team work, review and tutor facilitation. Two issues are identified as problematical in longer‐term work of this kind. The first is that of the social cohesion of the groups; where this works well the learning experience is enhanced, where not students are deprived of an effective learning experience. The other is that of the appropriateness of this form of learning for all preferred learning styles. A flexibility of approach is recommended.     

Empowering Students in a Feminist Social Work Practice Course

Abstract

Since 1993, a faculty collective has team-taught a feminist social work practice course. The course, designed to heighten student knowledge of feminist practice, was expected to empower students. An overview of the course is presented with an analysis of its impact on student perceptions of personal and professional power. Pre and post measures of empowerment were analyzed and used to derive outcome measures of change in student views of themselves as empowered persons and practitioners. Findings indicate that students had significantly higher perceptions of their personal and professional power upon completion of the feminist practice course than before. Implications for social work students and practitioners are discussed.     

Preservice Students’ Perceptions and Level of Satisfaction with their Field Experiences

This paper reports on a study of students’ perceptions and level of satisfaction with the teaching‐learning process while participating in the field‐experience component of the four‐year Bachelor of Education course at the Australian Catholic University Signadou Campus in Canberra. It is argued that successful student‐teacher field‐experience programmes provide opportunities for ongoing renewal and growth. Essential to this process is the implementation of appropriate evaluative procedures which involve all the participating members of the programme. The success of the process is evidenced in the ongoing modification of the programme to accurately reflect the interests and needs of the participants. Such a process leads to higher levels of communication, satisfaction and reflection on practice by all interested parties. Through an analysis of students’ questionnaire responses, this paper provides insights into the changing nature of student perceptions about the quality of their field experiences and their level of satisfaction with the various components of the programme. The results indicate that as the focus moves from the university itself to independent student responsibility the levels of satisfaction increase.     

Change from Within: an account of school‐based collaborative action research in an English secondary school

Abstract

The paper argues that for change in schools to occur, the active collaboration of significant actors within each institution is essential. Attempts to introduce change are more likely to succeed if they: recognise the interdependence of individual actors and their institutional settings; are conducted in language accessible to the participants; start with the work‐a‐day experiences and perceptions of individual actors, both staff and pupils; address the ‘social’ as well as the ‘material’ realities and barriers within the institution's unique culture. In an English secondary school with a tradition of school‐based in‐service activities, a two‐term collaboration between a Norwegian ethnographic researcher, the school's professional tutor, and a voluntary teacher action research group of staff, used a variety of approaches, to attempt to change classroom practice and perceptions about school ‘realities’. The article describes how the collaboration evolved and the highly personal nature of change from within based on self‐help. It presents an alternative to other attempts to bring about change, which are based on the withdrawal of actors from the setting which they are seeking to change.