Promoting higher levels of reflective writing in student journals

Abstract

This paper traces the development over several years of an initiative involving student journals that was introduced into a tertiary science education course for pre-service teachers to promote enhanced learning of how to teach science. Very soon after introducing the journals into course work the lecturer began engaging in 'unplanned' informal reflection (reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action) when she witnessed the shallow, often trivial nature of her students' reflective writing and the lack of pedagogical insights they were gaining from the exercise. Motivated by her own ongoing scholarship the lecturer introduced purposeful coaching of reflective skills into her pedagogy to scaffold students' learning and promote more useful reflection. The impact of these interventions on students' reflective capabilities and learning were investigated using a formal action research cycle. Findings indicate that student teachers' reflective skills improved and resulted in deeper and more focused thinking about how to teach science for learning

Students’ Perceptions of Their Reflective Essay Writing Experience and Teacher Feedback Comments

“…Within the educational context, reflective writing is fostered through various tasks such as writing reflective portfolios, doi: dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v6i2.4845 journals, stories and essays. Despite the attempts made to develop this writing skill, scholars reported that the prevailing quality of RW appears to be lacking depth (Dyment & O'Connell, 2010;Hume, 2009;Roux, Mora, & Tamez, 2012). This is partly because RW is a complex ability which takes a long time to develop even by experienced teachers (Roux et al, 2012).…”

“…Each sheet contains points for action to guide the planning of personal development. Additionally, informal conferences, classroom discussions (Gorlewski & Greene, 2011) and purposeful coaching of reflective skills (Hume, 2009) have been identified as worthy activities for consideration.…”

Now what? First year student teachers' reflective journal writing

“…Their work has been applied to a range of contexts and recent teacher education studies continue to explore the impact of reflective practice (Cattley, 2005;Hume, 2009b;Raeburn, 2006;Seban, 2009). In theorising about teachers as reflective practitioners, researchers have identified open-mindedness, wholeheartedness and a sense of responsibility as key attributes for successful educational reflection (Bain, Ballantyne, Packer, & Mills, 1999;Le Cornu, 2009).…”

Using professional colleagues as interviewers in action research: Possibilities and pitfalls

“…This methodology, as outlined by Creswell (2005), comprises a general spiral of generic steps that allows the researcher to pursue solutions to identify problems in collaboration with other researchers or mentors, and to enter the spiral at any point appropriate to the particular action research project. I had used this practical action research design over a number of years with some success in my role as teacher educator to introduce and evaluate various initiatives in my teacher education programme, including reflective journals and co-constructive teaching and learning approaches (Hume, 2008(Hume, , 2009(Hume, , 2010. The CoRe initiative arose as part of this ongoing action research.…”