International Portal of Teacher Education

Source: Journal of Teacher Education, 66(3) May/June 2015, p. 261-271

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.

The article then identifies some aspects of how reflection works, and some current widespread assumptions about reflection, which are insufficiently warranted, either theoretically in the writings of Dewey or Schön or empirically in the observations of reflection processes.