Employing reflective practice to inform adjunct-faculty onboarding

The Canadian Journal of Higher …, 2005

Studies in English Language and Education

Reflective practice in pre-service language teacher education is required as a tool to critically evaluate the link between theory and practice as well as to explore the beliefs and practices of pre-service English teachers during the teaching practicum programs. This study was aimed to explore the strategies of reflective practice used by pre-service English teachers during their teaching practicum to promote professional development. A case study was adopted as a research design and reflective journals were employed to collect data. The participants involved were six pre-service English teachers who had joined teaching practicum at schools for three months. This study employed thematic analysis for analysing the data from reflective journals. The results revealed that three strategies of reflective practice were identified: recollection, reflection-in-action, and mentoring process. In each strategy, the participants reflected differently based on the learning experiences they had,...

Pakistan Journal of Education

Reflective practice since its inception became a significant part of teacher preparation and professional development programs around the world. Teachers like any other professionals are expected to review and reflect upon their current practices for improving their future performance. This paper explores the current exercises of reflective thinking and practice within an undergraduate teacher preparation program at a state university in USA. The findings are based upon descriptive and narrative data analysis of interviews conducted with two professors and six course and field instructors. After open coding with question oriented analysis, the author has reduced the analysis to current practices and suggestions for improvement in relation to the related literature.

Issues in Teacher Education, 2006

This study provides an overview and exploration of 23 national and international reflective teaching research reports. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent that reflective teaching can become a strategy for language teaching professional development. Based on content analysis four main topics emerged: (a) reflective teaching as an approach to enhance the language profession; (b) impact on teacher's performance; (c) support, time, and effort; and (d) in-service professional development. Conclusions indicated that reflective teaching is an alternative to raise awareness about English language teaching, and as a means to encourage teachers to open their minds, update their teaching methodologies, and make adjustments to their lessons.

This study examines the reflections of four university based pre-service teachers of English undertaking a practicum. The focus of the research is formal reflective processes introduced to explore the levels of reflections made in relation to activities planned and the influences on their teaching practice. This is a qualitative case study that comprised a seven - week intervention in which interviews with a stimulated recall protocol and group discussions prompted pre-service teachers’ reflection on their practicum experience. Drawing broadly on a Cultural historical activity theory perspective, the different levels of reflection (in-on-for action) undertaken by the pre-service teachers are examined. Findings suggest that the pre-service teachers’ levels of reflections are mostly descriptive. Participants’ reflections focus most on: features of teaching; beliefs about students, being teachers and teaching; emotions and the settings involved in the practicum. Reflective practice has shown that it can enhance the process of learning to teach and thus suggestions are made for future studies in this field.

This study has been meticulously designed to portray English language teachers’ reflective practice which is known as a strong pillar of continuing professional development. To that end, full-length research articles published between 2009 and 2019 in esteemed journals across the globe in the discipline of foreign language studies were identified and incorporated into the analysis according to eligibility criteria. This review revealed the current trends in reflective practice by generating themes. Hence, content analysis method was utilized. Finally, it was discovered that studies majorly handled reflective practices of in-service teachers through qualitative methods rather than discussing the cases of prospective teachers as research group. Moreover, findings of this analysis would indicate that ‘raising awareness towards teacher education through reflective practice’ was the most researched aspect of reflective teaching, and strong liaisons must be maintained between pre-service and in-service teacher education. This principled review also offered some suggestions for further directions.

Educational Foundations, 2012