Developing reflective practice in student teachers ...isteam.wikispaces.com/file/view/developing+reflective+practice... · 96 M. Parsons and M. Stephenson Introduction The belief

Teachers and Teaching: theory and practiceVol. 11, No. 1, February 2005, pp. 95–116

ISSN 1354-0602 (print)/ISSN 1470-1278 (online)/05/010095–22© 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdDOI: 10.1080/1354060042000337110

Developing reflective practice in student teachers: collaboration and critical partnershipsMargaret Parsons* and Maggie StephensonSchool of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Sunderland, UKTaylor and Francis LtdCTAT110106.sgm10.1080/1354060042000337110Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice1354-0602 (print)/1470-1278 (online)Original Article2005Taylor & Francis Group Ltd111000000February 2005

This paper considers ways in which trainee teachers can be helped to develop their ability to engagein reflection on their practice. The context for the research is a Block School Experience developedby tutors in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Sunderland. Anexploration of the nature of reflective practice shows that a common element is the need for indi-viduals to be aware of, and able to monitor, their own thinking, understanding and knowledge aboutteaching and to be aware of the different kinds of knowledge upon which they can draw to helpdevelop their practice. Social interaction as a means of developing abilities in this area is consideredimportant. In order to help students identify their own understanding of their practice and to engagein reflection on this, a placement in which they work in close collaboration with a critical partnerfrom their peer group and members of school staff was introduced to their programme. The aim ofthe collaboration is to enable deeper thinking about practice in an atmosphere of supportive andconstructive but honest feedback. The placement also included structured tasks to give focus to thereflection carried out. On completion of the placement, a sample of students and the teachers withwhom they had worked completed questionnaires in which they were asked to respond to questionsabout the collaborative nature of the placement, the role of the tasks and the nature of the partner-ships(s) which developed. Analysis of the responses showed that the design of the placement hadencouraged students to consider a range of aspects of their practice and that the partnership withpeers and experienced colleagues had enabled them to gain more understanding of their teaching.Some reservations about the collaborative nature of the placement were also expressed; studentswere concerned about difficulties in establishing a working relationship with their partner, whilstteachers were concerned about equity within the critical partnership. Insufficient data relating to thestudents’ use of theoretical knowledge in reflection means that no claims can be made in respect tothe influence of such knowledge on their practice. The authors suggest that this is an area in whichfurther research would be valuable in light of the increased role given to use of research by initialteacher training students in DFES/QCA (2002) Qualifying to teach. Professional standards for qualifiedteacher status and requirements for initial teacher training.

*Corresponding author. School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Sunderland, DavidGoldman Building, Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter’s, St Peter’s Way, Sunderland SR6 ODD, UK. Email:[email protected]

96 M. Parsons and M. Stephenson

Introduction

The belief that a newly qualified teacher should be more than a technician who canachieve a list of standardized competencies has been the focus of much research inrecent years (Hoover, 1994; van Manen, 1995; Reynolds & Salter, 1998; Spilkova,2001). The new teacher who goes out into a first appointment should also be a reflec-tive practitioner. However, for all its popularity, the definition of a reflective practi-tioner is something that remains a matter of debate. This paper aims to add to thedebate about the nature of reflective practice and to explore ways of helping studentteachers develop the ability to engage in reflection. Two key questions will beaddressed. Does collaboration, with both peers and more experienced colleagues,help students to learn to think reflectively about their practice? Does the provision ofa structure help student teachers to develop abilities in this area? The paper draws ondata gathered in the first stages of an ongoing study in which student teachers at theUniversity of Sunderland School of Education and Lifelong Learning are encouragedto work collaboratively in order to critically consider their practice in the context of aschool placement in Nursery and Reception classes.

The nature of reflective practice

Attempts to define the nature of reflective practice have resulted in a wealth of writingon the topic. The work of Schon (1983) and his notion of reflection-in-action andreflection-on-action has influenced the thinking of many in this field of research. Ithas been suggested that the characteristics of reflection-in-action are closely allied tothe form of Dewey’s process of enquiry in which known facts are expanded to solve aproblem (Clandinin & Connnelly, 1986). Clandinin and Connelly (1986) go on tosuggest that one way of approaching Schon’s work is to see it as an expression ofDewey’s notion of a problematic situation. Both Dewey (1910) and Schon (1983)emphasize the problematic nature of situations in which reflection and growth takeplace.

One of the limitations of the work of Schon is that in his description of cases he actsas an objective observer and is therefore only able to record observable behaviour inthe problematic situations (Clandinin, 1986). This means that the thoughts, feelingsand tacit concerns of the practitioner are not captured and these elements are impor-tant in the process of learning to reflect (Clandinin, 1985a, b). Teachers’ personalpractical knowledge (which may be defined as the ‘knowledge which is imbued withall the experiences that make up a person’s being’ (Clandinin, 1985b, p. 362)) shapesa practitioner’s response to a situation and therefore plays a crucial role in the processof reflection. This personal practical knowledge includes evaluation (Clandinin,1985b) and this is a theme that is developed in other research. Leitch and Day(2000), for example, suggest that a reflective practitioner demonstrates ‘problemsolving and self evaluation capacities’ (p. 182). Copeland et al. (1993) identified 12critical attributes of a reflective practitioner. These include attributes relating to theidentification of problems, the generation of solutions, the testing of solutions and

Developing reflective practice in student teachers 97

learning from reflective practice. Teachers use this process to develop and reconstructtheir understanding of an aspect of professional practice. Other attributes of thereflective practitioner have been identified as viewing oneself as a resource, using rela-tionships with other teachers as resources and being aware of different kinds of knowl-edge from which to seek assistance (Kruse, 1997). Although not specificallydescribing reflective practice, Gunstone and Northfield (1994) stress the importanceof the student teacher recognizing their ideas and beliefs, evaluating them in terms ofwhat is to be learnt and deciding whether to reconstruct their beliefs. Evaluation andreconstruction, if appropriate, are key features in the way the authors view reflectivepractice.

One idea that consistently emerges from the various definitions of reflective prac-tice is the notion that students have to be aware of and able to monitor their ownthinking, understanding and knowledge about teaching in order to be a reflectivepractitioner. Reflective practitioners are able to identify a problem in their practice,the term ‘problem’ here meaning a situation/issue where there is some doubt abouthow to proceed. In this context, the problematic situation may not be of the type usedby Schon (1983) in his case studies but more the everyday routines that tell us somuch about classroom life (Connelly & Clandinin, 1985, cited in Clandinin &Connelly, 1986, p. 190). It may be the recognition that although something is beingachieved in a satisfactory manner, it could be changed or improved. It is interestingthat on occasions, the students who fail a school placement are those who do not seemto be able to identify such areas in their practice—they pursue inappropriate pathsseemingly unable to realize that an aspect of their understanding or knowledge isweak. They seem slow to learn from experience, an aspect of knowledge closelyrelated to reflection (Russell, 1993). In addressing these problems, Copeland et al.(1993) and Kruse (1997) suggest that reflective practitioners will seek solutions toproblems from a variety of sources. La Boskey (1993) emphasizes that when studentsare analyzing experience, they need to bring to bear ‘other knowledge, theoreticalprinciples [and] alternative interpretations’ (p. 11). This carries with it the implica-tion that an individual will be able to recognize the range of knowledge available toher/him and select the most appropriate route; ‘change is in the hands of the learner’(Gunstone & Northfield, 1994, p. 525). The notion of metacognition, of being awareof and able to monitor the development of one’s own learning and the application ofthat learning to their practice would therefore seem to be a feature of the reflectivepractitioner.

This idea that metacognition is an important element of reflection has shaped theway in which the authors of this paper have defined the term. We would suggest thatreflection is a process of dynamic action and learning that will enable students todevelop their practice in the light of their analysis and evaluation. Students are there-fore encouraged to consider ways in which children’s learning is promoted in theclassroom by considering not just their technical skills and how they ‘do’ somethingbut also issues and aspects of practice that go deeper than this. Reflection will notsimply involve deciding whether a lesson ‘went well’ or not but will identify reasonsfor success or failure. This identification of reasons should draw not just on past


experience in the classroom but also on theoretical knowledge and understandingabout children’s learning and pedagogy. Reflection therefore combines ‘experiencewith analysis of beliefs about those experiences’ (Newell, 1996, p. 568). Studentsneed to be aware of their own beliefs and learning in order to do this. This process ofreflection might lead a student to change the way in which something is done in theclassroom but it might also involve a student changing the way she/he thinks aboutan issue or a situation, based on new understanding or deeper insight; it may alsoinvolve a shift in values or attitudes. Again, reflection involves an individual in beingaware of her/his own thinking. It is equally possible that reflection may not involvechange—a student may, after reflecting, decide to leave things as they are. However,if no change takes place, it is as a result of thought and analysis not ‘because it hasalways been done like that’ and the student has made a conscious decision based onher/his own learning. In both cases, the student’s behaviour may be described aspraxis, that is informed, committed action. Bolton (2001) has provided an insightinto what we hope students will achieve by reflecting on their practice when she writesthat ‘effective reflective practice can enable the practitioner to provide care or educa-tion which is not a working out of their own needs and wants but is alert and alive to… the student’s needs and wants, whether professed or not’ (p. 22).

The way in which students working towards Qualified Teacher Status are assessedis currently a matter of concern for all who are interested in promoting this kind ofmetacognitive thinking. In order to achieve Qualified Teacher Status, students mustdemonstrate that they have reached ‘standards’ of practice and professionalism laiddown by government, and these standards are used as a measure both by HigherEducation Institutions and schools who host student teachers. The standards used bythe students in this research were those published in 1998 by the DfES, High status,high standards. (These have now been superseded by new standards published inSeptember 2002, Qualifying to teach.) High status, high standards placed great empha-sis on the demonstration of skills of practice and school based performance and thisemphasis remains in the new documentation. This trend towards assessment ofstudent teachers by demonstration of skills which enable effective teaching (Reynolds& Salters, 1998) is of concern to some teacher educators because they feel that it takesno account of the place of reflection as part of a teacher’s professionalism. Instead, itreduces teachers to ‘mere technicians who carry out a cookbook approach of patinstructional strategies and who, in turn, are evaluated by a checklist according totheir competency in doing so’ (Hoover, 1994, p. 83). The ‘old’ standards stated thatstudents are expected to be able to ‘evaluate their own teaching critically and use thisto improve their effectiveness’ (DfEE, 1998, p. 14). The emphasis is on improvingeffectiveness in the classroom. Reynolds and Salters (1998) suggest that this approachto reflection raises two important questions: what kind of reflection does this promoteand is it enough to promote appropriate practice? They suggest that this promotesreflection as a means of reviewing practice in the classroom. The purpose of reflectionin this model is to demonstrate that the student is aware of the effect on learning ofdecisions made relating to organization and the managing of resources. It is true thatdeveloping the skills required by the standards in the complex context of a classroom


is not a straightforward process for students (Simco, 1998, p. 123). However, reflec-tion as a means of reviewing practice may take account of the role of knowledge andunderstanding and does not require students to challenge current thinking in class-room practice or to deal explicitly with contradictions, which present themselves inthe course of teaching.

The implications of this for encouraging reflection in students are significant.There is a danger that students will see professional development as exclusively theacquisition and refining of performance skills and that reflection is only concernedwith determining the extent to which practice meets the standards. Reflection in thiscontext takes no account of the students’ own knowledge and does not require themto review their thinking or understanding of an aspect of their practice. It reducesreflection to evaluation of competencies and does not take account of the notion ofreflection involving identification of problems and the selection and monitoring ofsolutions. Concern over the results of the need for students to meet defined compe-tencies is not confined to England. Spilkova (2001) in a recent paper on developingreflective practice in students training in the Czech Republic suggests that ‘overesti-mation of the importance of standardization of teacher preparation … with exactlydefined output in the form of enumeration of competencies’ can lead to ‘an exces-sively technocratic and overly practice-orientated and mechanical conception ofteacher education’ (p. 61).

What kind of reflection takes place?

Students training to be primary teachers in the School of Education and LifelongLearning at the University of Sunderland have traditionally been required to write ashort evaluation of every lesson/session they teach. Furthermore, they are required toproduce a number of longer evaluations on teaching of specific subjects and onaspects of practice. An evaluation of the whole teaching practice is also written. Intheir short evaluations of every lesson students are expected to reflect on whether thechildren have learnt what the student intended them to learn. The handbook suppliedto all students, school staff and university-based staff suggests that they do this byconsidering the learning achieved by the class as a whole, in relation to the intendedlearning specified in their learning objectives. Comments about individual children/groups who found the learning easy (that is, were insufficiently challenged) or whoexperienced more difficulty than anticipated should also be made. Students are thenasked to reflect on how they have taught the lesson, considering features of the plan-ning and teaching which were successful in promoting learning, motivation, concen-tration and pace and to identify features which were less successful. The third elementof the evaluation requires the student to identify implications for the next teachingsession for either content or practice (or both). The subsequent lesson plan shoulddemonstrate that these implications are being addressed. Longer evaluations of eitherspecific lessons or aspects of practice give the student the opportunity to explore theirdevelopment in more detail and the evaluation of the whole placement specificallyasks students to draw on their learning that has taken place in the University, thus


giving them the opportunity to seek ways forward for the next placement from bothexperience and theoretical understanding (Copeland et al., 1993).

The inclusion of reflection as a standard to be achieved in order to gain QualifiedTeacher Status implies that it is something that can be ‘marked’ or ‘graded’. Reflec-tion, however, is a personal undertaking and the outcome may be sensitive. At thevery least, it is the product of an individual’s thoughts and judgements and is uniqueto them. Marking or grading the students’ evaluations is therefore a difficult issue. Isit appropriate to mark this? Would marking the product of a student’s thinking implythat there should be one right solution to a problem? Should the process, then, beassessed? This would open up the possibility of students feeling that there is a ‘right’way to engage in reflection on practice. However, if evaluations are not marked, howcan the student’s progress in this area be monitored? A further complication is theview held by a minority of students that something is only worthwhile doing if it is anassessed part of the programme.

The solution adopted to this dilemma is that evaluations are not graded or marked.However, in order to achieve certain of the teaching standards, students have todemonstrate that they have carried out all the required evaluations and that these arebeing used to inform planning in terms of curriculum content and teaching strategies.All parties involved in the school placement have detailed guidance of what is recom-mended to be addressed in the evaluations, a summary of which has been givenabove.

Despite this guidance, tutors in the School of Education and Lifelong Learningfound that many of the undergraduates found this difficult and that they tended todescribe what they had done rather than attempt to reflect on their practice. Therewas also a tendency to focus on their own behaviour and to limit comments to a vagueaccount of ‘how the lesson went’ rather than identify reasons for success or difficultiesand suggest action. Reference to learning other than from experience was largelyabsent. Korthagen (1999) also identifies this tendency of students to be self-centredand Spilkova (2001) found that many students in Charles University, Prague, tendedto ‘remain at the descriptive level or cling to simple value judgements’ (p. 64). Richert(1992) suggests that beginning teachers can be daunted by the complex process ofreflection: ‘overwhelmed with the demands of the job and fearful of failure andvulnerability, beginning teachers seem reluctant to look back on their work with a crit-ical eye’ (p. 189). She goes on to describe how students, even if they feel secure aboutsuch critical analysis, do not know how to think about their teaching in a productiveway. Thus, they remain at the level of reporting rather than analyzing. The studentsdo not seem to be drawing upon the learning that has taken place in other contexts(e.g., university-based sessions) and do not seem to be able to control that learningby applying it to the immediate context of a school practice.

Another reason for the apparent inability of the students to engage in reflectivepractice might lie in the idea of what distinguishes an expert practitioner from anovice. Cervero (1992, cited in Ferry & Ross-Gordon, 1998, p. 100) suggests thatexpert teachers ‘blend procedural knowledge with more abstract declarative knowl-edge to spontaneously generate solutions to problematic situations’. In contrast,


features of the practice of a novice might be that it is ‘highly influenced by observablefacts’ (Ferry & Ross-Gordon, 1998, p. 101). This is indeed evident in the highlydescriptive evaluations produced by many trainee teachers. La Boskey (1993) alsodraws attention to the significance of the way a student’s thinking might influencetheir ability to reflect on practice. Some may begin their training more inclinedtowards growth and enquiry (alert novices). Others may come with thinking which ismore difficult to challenge (common sense thinkers). This may explain why somestudents find it difficult to examine and explore their own practice than others.

Another feature consistently identified as important in the process of reflecting onpractice is the concept of reflection and reflective teaching as a social process(Richert, 1992; Ruddock, 1992; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1991; Russell, 1993;Copeland et al., 1993; Convery, 2001). The benefits of practitioners acting togetherto address shared problems is recognized by Kruse (1997) and Bolton (2001).Trainee teachers at Sunderland have traditionally worked as an individual in theclassroom and have written their evaluations alone. Perhaps the solitary nature of theplacements carried out by the students is also an influence on the way they reflectupon their practice.

In defence of change

How, then, could students be encouraged to move away from this descriptiveapproach to reflection and to engage in a more thoughtful enquiring form of reflectionin which they draw not just on experience but on a wider range of knowledge andunderstanding, reflection in which they draw upon their metacognitive knowledgeand skills? One possible solution may be in the practice adopted by the Departmentof Early Childhood Education at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Researchcarried out by Kupila (1999) focuses on how students are motivated to becomeresearchers in their own practice and to synthesize their personal and professionalexperiences. Reflective work is integrated throughout the learning, as an ongoingprocess. The students are offered structured methods of interaction and self-reflectionas support to help them gain new insights into their professional learning. Studentsare encouraged to assume responsibility for describing what they have learned andwhat they plan to do with it and those who have become more aware of their ownthinking can better meet that challenge (Kupila, 1999). The development of students’reflection is promoted through collaborative work. During the period of school prac-tice, the students in Jyvaskyla visit one other student’s practice for one day and thetwo students will engage in peer assessment. The school practice is also characterizedby dialogue between the student and mentor, the student and tutor and also dialoguebetween all three participants.

As a result of these observations, when a new four year undergraduate teachertraining programme was created at Sunderland, it was decided to include a schoolexperience for primary students based on this Finnish model. The placementprovided an opportunity to ‘devote attention to learning to reflect’ (Korthagen, 1999,p. 195) and it was used to introduce specific strategies designed to help students


achieve the kind of reflective practice that we are seeking based on the Finnish ideasof collaboration and dialogue.

The need to specifically address students’ ability to reflect towards the beginningof the programme was considered important, in order to prepare the students for theincreasingly demanding placements which they would encounter. Korthagen (1999)supports this view. In addition, it is important that student teachers are able to fullydevelop their knowledge and skills as prospective teachers and therefore a structurefor Block School Experience, which gave students the opportunity to develop theirknowledge and skills, take part in and understand the process of reflection was neces-sary (Korthagen & Wubbels, 1995; Amos & Postlethwaite, 1996). This processincluded the identification of the area of reflection, giving students a measure of inde-pendence in the reflective process. Korthagen and Wubbels (1995) make the pointthat students need to develop an understanding of their own value as reflective prac-titioners but Richert (cited in Munby & Russell, 1993) suggests that students do notalways work in a culture which enables them to express their growing understandingof their own practice. However, we recognized that a student working in theclassroom in isolation from peers or a teacher educator may experience erosion of anyself-confidence they may have built during the previous Block School Experience.Therefore a structure which enabled students to take risks in a secure environmentand offer time and support to reflect upon the outcome of any action was necessary.Integral to the establishment and maintenance of a secure environment is the teachereducator.

Consequently, collaboration between students and experienced teachers is at theheart of the Block School Experience. Schraw (1998) stresses the importance ofgroup activities that allow students to share their knowledge about their cognition andthe importance of seeing experts reflecting on what he/she is doing and how well ithas been done. The students work in pairs within one classroom, an arrangementdescribed as a critical partnership. The partnership is important because the ability toreflect is not necessarily automatic and it can sometimes be difficult to engage in thisprocess. It may be particularly difficult to precisely define a ‘problem’ or to find anappropriate solution. Collaboration with colleagues can make this process less diffi-cult and the observations of a critical friend may help students identify areas of prac-tice that could be developed; critical in this context is defined as constructivefeedback to a partner, identifying positive features of practice that can be built on anddeveloped and aspects of practice that have potential for improvement. The role ofthe critical friend is also to help with the identification of ways in which their partnermay develop and improve their practice.

The students share the teaching responsibility in the classroom and spend 40% oftheir time observing their partner and considering their own practice. Newell (1996)stresses the importance of social support for reflection and opportunities to learn frompeers. Through collaboration, students will develop their own ideas, defend theirapproaches and ‘consider the underlying reasons and principles’ for their beliefs(Newell, 1996, p. 568). At first sight, this appears to be a generous amount of timeand both students and teachers who expect block school experience to be a period of


intensive activity in the classroom have been somewhat perplexed by this. However,it is this notion that time in school is a period of intense interaction with a class whichis one of the barriers to developing students as reflective practitioners. There is adanger that getting through the placement becomes simply a matter of survival and itis unsurprising that the focus of a student’s attention becomes ‘what should I do next’rather than ‘why am I doing it’? By allowing students space in their timetable toobserve, evaluate and consider their practice and their partner’s, at the very least,provides an opportunity to step back from the pressure of preparing for the nextlesson and engage in deeper thinking about events and situations.

Moran and Dallatt (1995) stress the potential of undertaking reflective enquiry asa collegial activity. If students working in pairs, mutually observing each other, thismay encourage dialogue and discussion that will help students to identify, articulateand exchange ideas and views about their practice and with help, devise strategies forchange or development. Comeaux (1991) suggests that students can act as a scaffoldfor each other’s thinking and that the interaction of peers at various stages in thedevelopment of reflective thinking in activities that require questioning, joint decisionmaking and negotiation provides a context of uncertainty necessary ‘for change instudents’ thinking habits and skills’ (p. 161). Rudduck (1992) describes the benefitsstudents gained when working in a similar partnership. Richert (1992) also describesresearch in which students worked with a partner. In this case, students stated thatthe opportunity to talk with someone who had observed their teaching helped themto examine aspects of teaching and learning.

Collaboration with teachers in the schools in which the students would work wasconsidered important. The contribution of the experienced practitioner who couldhelp students articulate their thinking on practice and issues would provide vital expe-riences in learning how to reflect. Collaboration with teachers with a different level ofexperience will help students see new viewpoints (Newell, 1996). McIntyre andHagger (1993, cited in Moran & Dallat, 1995) suggest that mentors can help studentsquestion their preconceptions, offer them new ideas and guide them in the use anddevelopment of ideas. The role of the class teacher/mentor is therefore very much thatof sharing experiences and understanding that students can draw on and begin tomake their own. McIntyre (1993) stresses that student teachers are at a point in theircareer when they need access to the ideas of others and so it is important to providean opportunity for students to draw on the understanding of experienced colleaguesto help them make sense of their developing practice. A weekly meeting of thestudents and school staff, known as the weekly review, therefore also forms part of theBlock School Experience. The weekly review is intended to ensure that there is a timewhen the critical partnership and the host class teacher/mentor can focus their atten-tion on discussion of students’ learning and it provides a forum in which discussionand dialogue relating to the students’ practice may take place.

Oral interaction between student and student and students and teachers is animportant element of the placement. As McMahon (1997) points out, ‘if one acceptsVygotsky’s arguments that thinking begins on a social plane before it becomesinternalized, then asking prospective teachers to ascribe words to what they are


considering related to practice may prompt reflection or, at the least, provide a basisfor dialogue between the learner and “more knowledgeable others”’ (p. 201).Dialogue about situations or events that had occurred during the week would givestudents the chance to make explicit their ideas and their approaches to a situation.Spilkova (2001) emphasizes the need for ‘expressing in words what is sometimes onlyfelt’ (p. 62). The authors of this paper believe that this is necessary if students are tounderstand and make sense of what has happened in the classroom, to make linksbetween theory and practice and to use their newly found understanding to makechanges. Zohar, (1999) suggests that ‘using words to describe reasoning patterns isanother aspect of metacognition’ (p. 416). By naming a problem, students ‘open thedoor to a particular set of solution strategies. This is a special application of whatVygotsky described as the use of language as mediator’ (Zohar, 1999, p. 416). Thecombination of collaboration and time create a social context in which ‘students havevarious occasions to use language, trying to articulate thinking and receive feedback’(McMahon, 1997, p. 200). Through dialogue, students might also engage in the tell-ing of stories about their practice and experiences and through this, reveal to them-selves the values, feelings and attitudes that influence their practice (La Boskey &Cline, 2000). This would help make explicit to them knowledge that could be usedto analyze and evaluate practice, in short, to reflect.

A further consideration was the need to structure the students’ experience of theprocess of reflection. The students taking part in the placement are half way throughtheir second year and are still relatively inexperienced. Staff were concerned thatwithout guidance and direction, ‘reflection may become diffuse and disparate so thatconclusions or outcomes may not emerge’ (Boud & Walker, 1998, p. 193). Thedangers of requiring individuals to reflect on demand and of reflecting without learn-ing have been raised (Boud & Walker, 1998) but it was felt that a framework forreflection which made the ‘tacit explicit’ (Reilly Freese, 1999, p. 897) would be anappropriate approach. A framework would give the trainee teachers experience ofthe process of reflection through clearly defined situations (Korthagen, 1999).Reiman (1999) also suggest that a ‘guided reflection framework’ is useful in thedevelopment of reflection (p. 603) and Schraw (1998) suggests that explicit promptshelp students to regulate and monitor their cognition. Edwards and Collison’s(1996) research showed how conversations between mentors and students can focusmainly on planning activities for children and that evaluatory discussion was lessfrequent. Providing a framework of tasks which focus on observation and analysiswould perhaps help both students and teachers concentrate more on evaluation. Aframework of weekly tasks was therefore devised to give the partnership a focus forthis work (Figure 1).Figure 1. Summary from Block School Experience handbook describing tasks carried out with critical partnerThe tasks do not specifically ask the students to reflect; rather, they ask them todiscuss together an aspect of practice they have observed or experienced. Thestudents are free to decide themselves the specific lesson or situations upon whichthey will focus their thoughts. Not mentioning the word ‘reflection’ was a deliberatechoice in order to encourage dialogue rather than make the students feel that they hadto carry out a specific process or activity.



During the course of the Block School Experience, the students are developingskills in learning to reflect with the help of more capable others (teachers) and co-learners (the critical partner) (Reiman, 1999). The tasks provide a context in whichthis learning can take place and it is possible to see that a Vygotskyan zone of proximaldevelopment is created, in which students can begin to learn to reflect. As Tharp andGallimore (1988) point out, although the work of Vygotsky principally addresseschildren’s learning, ‘identical processes can be seen operating in the learning adult’(p. 31). It is important for teachers in Higher Education to be mindful of the waystudents might learn as it is for primary teachers when considering learning in theirclass. The process of creating and developing the placement has involved the authorsin reflecting on their own practice as teacher educators and in finding solutions to

Figure 1. Summary from Block School Experience handbook describing tasks carried out with critical partner


problematic situations by drawing on practical teaching experience and their under-standing of the way in which individuals of any age might learn best.

Sample and methodology

In order to identify whether the strategies adopted in the Block School Experiencehave helped students develop as reflective practitioners, whose reflection is character-ized by deeper thinking and metacognitive awareness, the progress of a sample ofstudents who carried out the Block School Experience in March 2001 is being moni-tored. Twenty-two students training to teach 3- to 8-year-olds volunteered to takepart in the first stage of the research and all are female. This was an opportunisticsample due to difficulties in access to students in the cohort concerned. The 22 classteachers with whom the students had worked also agreed to take part in the study,and again, all are female.

The fact that an opportunistic sample was used gave rise to factors that had to beconsidered carefully when collecting the data for the research, particularly thecomplex relationships between all parties involved. The nature of the relationshipbetween the students in the critical partnership could have an impact on the datacollected. For administrative reasons, the students are paired randomly and in somecases there may be tensions or difficulties that make the critical partnership less likelyto result in open dialogue. A good relationship between the students might producea more positive response to the placement whereas students who experienced tensionin the relationship might respond differently. The joint and individual relationship ofthe students with the class teacher may present similar issues. A further factor is thewillingness or ability of school staff to participate in the weekly review. In a busyprimary school opportunities for staff to spend time with students might be difficultto find. The school staff with whom the students work are also part of the School ofEducation and Lifelong Learning’s partnership group and have responsibility forassessing the students on teaching practice. The researchers are both teacher educa-tors in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning and work with the students inthe sample as teachers and assessors. The way in which the views and perspectives ofthe students and school staff were collected had to be approached sensitively. If theparties involved were to give as honest a response as possible, it was felt that anonym-ity would be important.

It was decided therefore, to use questionnaires as the main tool for data collectionrather than interviewing. This meant that although the names of the total sample wereknown to the researchers, individual responses could not be linked with a particularstudent. The students and teachers in the sample completed questionnaires designedto ascertain whether the students had, through the combination of collaborative workand structured tasks, drawn on their knowledge and learning from a range of contextsto reflect on their practice (Figures 2 and 3). The questions all demanded a freeresponse and allowed students and teachers to express their views and experiences.For students, this approach might avoid hesitancy on their part to say anything nega-tive about their partner that might lead to difficult relationships in the future. It would


also give the students the opportunity to give an honest response to questions aboutthe nature of the practice itself. This would allow them to freely express their opinionswithout fear of giving offence to the researchers, one of whom is the module leader ofthe practice and devised the framework of tasks referred to above. Experience ofcollecting feedback from students on other modules also suggested that they are morelikely to be honest about a course if they have the security of not being identified.Figure 2. Questionnaire used with studentsFigure 3. Questionnaire used with teachersData from the class teachers and/or mentors was collected in a similar way and forsimilar reasons. Completing an anonymous questionnaire would encourage the staffto recount what had actually happened during the practice. If, for whatever reason, ithad not been possible to fulfill all the requirements of the practice, teachers couldstate this without any concern of being identified as a school/class that did not meetall its responsibilities. It would also allow them to refer to the practice of individualstudents knowing that the students would not be labeled in any way in the future.

The questionnaire was given to students to complete during the semester follow-ing the placement, during one of the days the students were attending lectures. Thestudents completed the questionnaires between teaching sessions and all 22 werecompleted. The teachers’ questionnaires were sent out in the post and collected inperson. Most had been completed when a visit to the school was made and the lastfew were returned by post. All 22 teachers completed the questionnaire. The ques-tions for both students and teachers did not specifically use the word ‘reflection’

Figure 2. Questionnaire used with students


because it was felt that there might not exist a shared common understanding of theterm between all parties involved in the research. Instead, students were asked toidentify areas of practice that had been discussed and ways in which they hadworked with their partner and host class teacher. From this we hoped to be able todetermine whether the collaboration had enabled students to move beyond descrip-tion in their evaluation of their practice and whether the shared discussion had facil-itated this. Teachers were also asked to give examples of issues discussed andwhether students had used the discussion to influence their practice. Teachers werealso asked to give a perspective on the role of the critical partnership between thestudents.

Figure 3. Questionnaire used with teachers


Data analysis

The analysis of the data gathered from the questionnaires and interviews is focusedaround the two key questions posed in the introduction to this paper. Does collabo-ration, with both peers (the critical partnership) and more experienced colleagues(the weekly review) help students to learn to think reflectively about their practice?Does the provision of a structure (the weekly tasks) help student teachers to developabilities in this area?

Collaboration with peers

The students were asked to list some of the areas that had been discussed with theirpartner. The responses showed that a wide range of aspects of practice had beendiscussed. Examples included matters such as classroom management (threestudents), timing (two students), use of language including questioning (fourstudents) and alternative ways of managing behaviour (seven students). Individ-ual students also referred to topics such as planning, use of resources/visual aids anddemonstrating activities. Some of these relate to specific issues arising from the day-to-day life of the classroom, such as planning and resources. However, the issuesthat were discussed more frequently are those that affect and influence a student’sbroader practice and the quality of children’s learning. Some students stated thatthey had discussed issues with their peer and as a result, action had been taken inthe classroom to change the way an aspect of practice was carried out. One student,for example, noted that the use of language and questioning had been discussedwith her peer and then action was taken to develop the way language was used inthe classroom. Another said that she had been using behaviour strategies withoutrealizing which ones were working best and that her partner helped her focus on themost effective. In one case, a student stated that she had discussed discipline strate-gies with her partner and that they had learnt from each other’s knowledge. Theconsideration of issues and then acting on them, based on new understanding,demonstrates students taking control of their learning to the benefit of the childrenin their charge (Sternberg, 1998; Zohar, 1999). The students’ demonstrated praxis,action based on informed understanding, itself based on awareness of personallearning.

The students generally felt that the collaborative approach enabled them to gain adeeper understanding of their own professional development. One student stated that‘observation, reinforcement and discussion’ gave her more confidence in her practice.Another said that the criticism engaged in had been a ‘means of professional devel-opment’. One student also stated that the collaborative work had ‘helped put light onaspects of practice which I might not have thought about’. This view was repeated bythe class teachers with whom the students had worked. The teachers’ responsesshowed that they considered the student partnership a valuable aspect of the practicein that it allowed the students to share ideas, talk about successes and failures and tolearn from each other. Teachers were very positive about the role of the partnership


in promoting analysis of practice; 17 out of the 22 who responded to the question-naire expressed the view that it had helped the students in this way.

In collaborating with their peers, the students in the sample were doing much morethan describing their activities to their partners; they engaged in a much higher levelof thinking, characterized by awareness of their own learning in the classroom. Oneteacher also stated that the partnership allowed the students an opportunity to engagein problem solving, one of the characteristics of reflective practice (Leitch & Day,2000) and an activity that involves drawing upon existing knowledge and learning andapplying it to a new situation.

It is not possible, of course, to say whether or not the students in the sample wouldhave addressed the same issues and taken action based on their consideration of themif they had been working on an individual basis. All it is possible to say is that forsome of these students, the experience of working in a critical partnership allowedthem to explore problematic areas and take action following discussion. Moreover,this experience was not common to all students in the sample and there were, ofcourse, reservations attached to the partnership. For one student, problems lay in thefact that she was unable to enter into honest discussion about practice with her part-ner. Although she was sometimes able to discuss aspects of practice honestly with herpartner, it was sometimes ‘best not to comment as she got offended’. There was arecognition among teachers, however, that although some students may have foundit difficult to be honest with their partner, it was important for them to develop thistrait. Three teachers suggested that honesty about practice is a feature of profession-alism and they are keen to see this attribute developed in students. Difficulties arisingover the giving of honest constructive criticism may arise from the fact that not all thestudents worked with someone they knew well. For administrative purposes, studentsdo not choose the partner with whom they will work. Over the course of a five-weekplacement it might not be possible to build up the mutual respect and trust neededto engage in honest and open discussion of each other’s practice. This view isconfirmed by the words of one of the students, who wrote: ‘I felt able to be honestwith my partner as I am quite close and already have an established relationship [withher]. If my partner was a stranger I would have felt the need to develop a strongerworking relationship before commenting on their practice’.

The teachers’ reservations focused mainly on the equality of the partnership. Themain concern expressed by six teachers was that there could be a danger that onestudent might find that she or he was carrying an unfair workload or that a weakerstudent might rely too much on their partner. This is a significant issue that iscurrently under review and ways of making it easier to identify the individual contri-bution of each student are being considered.

Collaboration with experienced colleagues

The second area of collaboration investigated was the weekly review with the classteachers. The responses of the teachers showed that a wide range of issues werediscussed, including planning (eleven responses), behaviour management (nine


responses), individual needs (five responses) and assessment (three responses). Therewere also individual references to use of language, pace of lessons expectations of chil-dren, managing adults and philosophies of early years education. Again, collaborationprovided a forum where students could discuss aspects of practice that went beyondthe day-to-day routines of the classroom. Teachers also indicated that the studentswere proactive in their approach to the weekly review and brought with them issuesthat they wanted to discuss. One teacher stated that ‘the students brought theircomments to the review and they mostly took the lead’. In cases where class teachersinitially took the lead, as students grew more confident and relationships were estab-lished, so the students began to take more initiative in leading the discussion. Therewas a recognition among both students and teachers that the weekly review was a timewhen students could learn from their experienced colleagues. As one teacher wrote,‘I had more to contribute in experience but [the students] gave relevant ideas andobservations’. The students also responded positively to the weekly review, comment-ing on the value of the feedback received. One student appreciated the broaderperspective the meetings with the teacher gave her, whilst another simply said thatworking with other colleagues ‘made me think’.

There was an overwhelmingly positive response from the teachers to the questionof whether students had acted upon things they had discussed in the weekly review.Nineteen out of the twenty-two teachers stated that students had done this. Thisapplication of learning to practice is an important outcome as it suggests thatstudents, through collaboration with more experienced colleagues, are controllingand making use of new insights.

It must be pointed out, however, that in one case, the students felt that the teacherdid not value the work of the critical partnership or the weekly review and that staffwere not willing to make arrangements or time to discuss practice. The circumstancesin which this took place are, of course, unknown. Nevertheless, it is a matter of someconcern that this could happen and steps need to be taken to ensure that schools fullyappreciate the focus of this particular Block School Experience. It is intended that theinformation meetings held for teachers before the students go into schools will focuson the aims of the placement, the nature and importance of the collaboration betweenthe students and the importance of the weekly review. A summary of these points willalso be added to the handbooks that are produced for the schools and the students.

The weekly tasks

The majority of the students (17) felt that the tasks were valuable in enabling themto see aspects of their practice that they had not previously considered. For example,one student said that a task in which the students considered their use of language inthe classroom ‘highlighted the fact that we were continually asking the “what?” ques-tion’. Recognition of areas for development such as this is an important aspect ofstudents’ understanding of their own learning. Another stated that ‘we were able todiscuss points that otherwise may not have been recognized in the placement’. Thetasks therefore helped the students to recognize aspects of their own practice that


might not have been identified if working without the benefit of this structure. Thecollaborative nature of the tasks was also welcomed by the students with three statingthat this helped them to ‘analyze’, ‘evaluate’ and ‘reflect’ on the tasks. Simco (1998)suggests that focusing on specific classroom incidents is a helpful way to enablestudents to reflect, especially ‘if undertaken in the context of dialogue based on this’(p. 123). The students’ negative comments focused on the lack of available time tocomplete the tasks, with six making this comment. One student suggested that moretime was needed to carry out the task as they helped make aspects of classroom prac-tice obvious and explicit. Three students stated that they found the tasks pointless insome way and one felt that the tasks directed the students towards negative aspectsof their practice. Without being able to explore these responses in more detail, it isnot possible to determine what effect these views had on the learning experience ofthe students in question. It is a concern that some students may not have had a posi-tive experience of the tasks; perhaps the reason is lack of a clear rationale for the tasksand this has now been added to the student handbook for the placement.

The majority of the class teachers (nineteen) were also positive about the tasks. Oneteacher specifically stated that the tasks led to ‘deeper thinking about what was actuallyhappening’ whilst another said that they ‘brought into focus issues which could havebeen lost’. Another teacher felt that the tasks were helpful because they allowed thestudents ‘to observe and develop specific areas rather than doing general observations’.

One aspect of the nature of reflective practice that did not emerge in the responsesabout the collaborative nature of the placement or the value of the weekly tasks wasthe use of students’ knowledge and understanding of early years philosophy andtheory as an influence on their practice. In only three examples did the students citedrawing on this type of knowledge. One stated that thinking about the ways in whichchildren learn directed her teaching and one teacher stated that the students workingwith her discussed child development in the early years and the development of tasksfor stages in development. In a third instance, a teacher reported that students consid-ered the Early Learning Goals in relation to their practice in the weekly review.Although the students engaged in a high level of thinking about their practice, theybased this thinking largely on their past experiences in the classroom and on theteachers’ knowledge about classroom practice.

Before beginning the Block School Experience, all early years students complete ateaching studies module that introduces them to theories of learning and child devel-opment so all should have some knowledge on which to draw. One of the componentsof metacognition is knowledge of cognition (Schraw, 1998). Three kinds of metacog-nitive awareness are present: declarative knowledge (knowledge about one’s self as alearner and what influences one’s performance); procedural knowledge (knowledgeabout doing things); and conditional knowledge (knowing when and why to use declar-ative and procedural knowledge). The students’ responses showed that when reflect-ing on practice, they drew on past classroom experience (procedural knowledge).However, as mentioned above, only three responses relating to students’ use of knowl-edge and understanding of early years philosophy and theory were recorded. This lackof data referring to the use of theoretical knowledge of teaching and learning when


engaged in reflection means that we do not know the extent to which students mayhave deployed a wide range of declarative knowledge, including theoretical under-standing. A different methodological approach such as the use of daily research diariesor journals by the sample of students would have given more insight into students’thinking and influences on their practice as they were involved in the process of teach-ing. Schraw (1998), states that ‘effective learners know when and what knowledge torehearse’ and that conditional knowledge is important because it ‘helps students selec-tively allocate their resources’ (p. 114). This suggests that the ability to select from arange of knowledge, including theoretical knowledge, would be an important part ofdeveloping as a reflective practitioner (Copeland et al., 1993; Kruse, 1997).

Conclusion

The research described in this paper is a starting point for our own thinking about thenature of metacognition, reflective practice and collaboration. The collaborative natureof the Block School Experience and the weekly tasks did help the students in the sampledo more than simply describe their practice and they did demonstrate deeper thinkingabout their work in the classroom. Collaboration with a more experienced colleaguealso helped the students to reflect on their practice. However, the questionnaire usedin the research did not give the students the opportunity to comment on the extent towhich they drew on knowledge and understanding of theory when engaged in reflectionon practice. As reflective practice should involve drawing upon all aspects of learning,the ability of students to use theoretical knowledge would merit future research, espe-cially as the new Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status (DFES/TTA,2002) acknowledge the importance of student teachers improving their own teachingby learning from evidence such as research. In future, student teachers will have todemonstrate that they have drawn on their theoretical knowledge in order to meet thisstandard. The interaction between the school, the university and the student mightprovide a support mechanism which will allow the student to make links between thepractical and theoretical. The ‘Qualifying to Teach Handbook of Guidance’ (TTA,2002) points out that ‘during their training, trainees can be expected to use feedbackthey receive from more experienced colleagues and … show an awareness of where tofind, and how to critically engage with, evidence from sources such as research andinspection reports’ (p. 14). Whilst we welcome and support the sentiments expressedin the standards document to a commitment to professional development, this reliesupon students’ ability to synthesize different forms of knowledge. We would suggestthat future research focuses less on the structure of the school experiences and moreon the collaborative interactions which consider classroom practice alongside ‘researchand inspection reports’ (TTA, 2002, p. 15).

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