Search results for: Reflection

This paper reports on a two-year self-study exploring the author's roles and evolving philosophy as an early childhood teacher educator teaching diversity in the US. The author was interested in better understanding how and what she can learn from the complexity of her teaching experiences. She examined, when teaching diversity, how she constructed and navigated her roles, how the students constructed and perceived her roles, and how they have transformed her instructional philosophy and practices. The findings illustrated a dynamic and tension-filled experience of a teacher educator teaching diversity in the US as a perceived outsider, suggesting that it was a reflexive learning opportunity.

Utilizing the story as a research tool enables the individual to make unique voice heard and provides information regarding identity. In the education system, we study stories and place the emphasis on beginning teachers. During recent years, hundreds of stories have been collected from teachers in their first year of teaching. The stories were collected by means of a 'call' addressed to those individuals specializing in teaching to participate in a 'story contest'. As a result of the contest, we have collected thousands of stories, all of which enable us to examine the professional reality of beginning teachers in their first year of work. Two processes emerged: (1) the written stories describe and reflect the event that occurred in reality, and (2) the stories construct and shape reality. The processes of reflecting, constructing, and shaping are expressed on two levels: the individual level and the systemic-organizational level.

This article examines the development of reflectiveness and research skills in eight pre-service teachers, through their participation in a funded research project to develop the handwriting of children with literacy problems. The authors argue that this project is an example of evidence-based practice, which identified that it is the creation of the evidence which is important and the shared professional involvement with compelling outcomes for pupils which develops teachers as thinkers, not simply technicians. The experience of reflection and discussion about a shared topic has the potential to develop pedagogical thinking and a profound concern for the results and impact of research.

The purpose of this article is to look for clarity about what reflection is, what it is not, and how it works, by closely revisiting the seminal works of Dewey, Schön, and Wertheimer. It is argued that reflection is a descriptive notion—not a prescriptive one—and that it refers to the thinking process engaged in giving coherence to an initially unclear situation.