Educational assistance to improve reflective practice among student teachers

Abstract

Introduction. Recent educational research suggests that joint reflection can enhance studentteachers’ reflections on their own practice if they have adequate tutor support. This studyaims to identify and characterize the assistance offered by college tutors in situations of jointreflection and analyses their contribution to the development of students’ ability to reflect ontheir teaching practice. More specifically, we aim to identify the kind of tutor assistance thatbest helps students to develop their reflective capacity and to understand the situations theyencounter during teaching practice.Method. The research uses a case-study design to analyse the process of joint reflectionengaged in by two groups of student teachers (13 and 15 students) with the assistance of theiruniversity tutors over five weeks of a teaching practice module. Data in the form of videorecordings were subjected to two kinds of analysis: interactivity analysis and content analysis,both with the aim of examining the assistance offered by tutors in relation to reflectivepractice.Results. Each tutor distributed assistance in a specific way, focusing on differentcharacteristics of reflection and prioritizing intervention in particular dimensions of it.Differences were also observed in the type and amount of assistance offered in eachdimension of reflection. The tutors also differed in the extent to which their assistancetargeted those dimensions of most relevance for an in-depth understanding of teachingpractice situations.Discussion and Conclusion. In general, the tutors appeared to be better at helping students toidentify the factors involved in their teaching practice experiences than they were in aidingtheir understanding through the identification and analysis of the characteristic dilemmasinvolved in these situations