Developing reflective thinking through theory-practice connection

Abstract

The present study aimed to improve reflective thinking skills of doctoral students from different fields taking the Instructional Planning and Evaluation course (IPE) during their studies in order to obtain findings that can contribute to enhance the quality of teaching at a state university. A total of 80 doctoral students in the spring (n= 47) and fall (n= 33) semesters of 2016 participated in the study which was conducted with the Technical/Scientific/Cooperative action research design and implemented two actions. Data were collected using the Reflective Thinking Scale and the Attitude Scale towards IPE Course. The main activities of the program implemented in the first action included small group work, teaching real students, writing reflective pieces and feedback. In addition, participants were better encouraged to think reflectively, participated in reflective discussions and took formative tests in the second action. Descriptive statistics results of the study showed that both actions helped the participants to reach the levels in the order of reflection, understanding, critical reflection and habitual action. On the other hand, participants’ attitudes towards the IPE course were found to be low. For future actions, it is recommended that participants gain experience in their own fields in order to improve their reflective thinking levels through theory-practice connection and conduct their reflection activities over these experiences.

How to Assess Reflective Writing in Computer Science Education? A Critical Analysis

“…Moreover, reasoning with previous practices and social ethics is addressed as a critical reflection in Larrivee [54] framework. The reasoning presented in the frameworks [17,28,29,31,33,37,38,42,48,50,[55][56][57][58] use the labels 'Explanation from theory', 'Dialogic reflection', 'Association indicator and integration indicator', 'Verifies learning', 'perspectives, general as well as personal', 'Reevaluate', 'Analysis', 'Dialogic reflection', 'Reflection on experience', 'Description of conflict', 'Dialogical reflection', 'Challenge', 'Analysis' and 'Process reflective', respectively. The reasoning indicator is indirectly represented in the frameworks of Tsangaridou and O'Sullivan [59] which used 'Description & Justification' to represent the process beyond understanding into analysis with a rational and logical explanation.…”

Analyzing of The Relationships Between Attitudes Towards Teaching Profession, Reflective Thinking and Individual Innovativeness

“…Then, he/she goes to the stage of recognizing, examining and evaluating all his/her observations. With all these features, reflective thinking that entails more reading, planning and thinking about teaching actually brings it along with critical, creative, metacognitive and scientific thinking (King, Goodson, & Rohani, 2009;Unver, 2003;Unver, & Yurdakul, 2020). In addition, teachers or student teachers that assess their innovative practices are expected to utilize reflective thinking skills for the purpose of improving present activities or developing them better in the future (Ekiz, 2006;McLeod, Vaughan, Carey, Shannon, & Winn, 2019).…”