Reflection: An Opportunity to Address Different Aspects of Professional Competencies in Mathematics Education

Abstract

One major challenge in early mathematics childhood education is to support children’s constructive learning. For this, different professional competencies are necessary. Nearly 100 years ago, Dewey already pointed out the impact of reflection on professional development in education. Reflection is still seen as an essential component or a key element of professional development, because in the reflection process, different aspects of professional competencies are interweaved like pedagogical content knowledge and action-related competencies as well as other aspects like beliefs and emotions. In this paper, an innovative in-service and pre-service education bachelor course for early mathematics education is presented. It is designed to give both professionals and students the possibility to develop various professional competencies. One major component can be identified in reflection. Therefore, selected evaluation results of the reflective modules will be presented.