Collaborative Journals: Scaffolding Reflective Practice in Teacher Education

Abstract

Preservice teachers enrolled in a choral music methods class were asked to write journals about their field experiences in local schools. To foster reflective practice in a peer-supported environment, the students chose classmates to serve as collaborative journal partners. These narrative accounts of the students’ field experiences and the participants’ interactions were later collected as data for this study. Emergent themes included the development of pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact (Van Manen M, The tact of teaching: The meaning of pedagogical thoughtfulness, Althouse Press, London, 1991; The tone of teaching: The language of pedagogy. Althouse Press, London, 2002 AU: As per standard convention, the citations in the abstract are replaced by the respective references. Please check.) as the students considered not only their own actions but also the experiences of the students in their classrooms. In addition, students gained the “gift of confidence” (Mahn H and John-Steiner V, Learning for life in the 21st century, Blackwell, Oxford, 2002) as they provided a safe place for exchanging both joys and concerns. By seeing the “teacher” in the other, the students enabled a sense of “becoming” that supported their own emerging teacher identity.