Conceptualising Reflection In Teacher Development

James Calderhead, Peter Gates

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135721923
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Reflection has become widely recognised as a crucial element in the professional growth of teachers. Terms such as 'reflective teaching', 'enquiry­ orientated teacher education', 'teachers as researchers' and 'reflective practitioner' have become quite prolific in discussions of classroom practice and professional development. It is frequently presumed that reflection is an intrinsically good and desirable aspect of teaching and teacher education and that teachers, in becoming more reflective, will in some sense be better teachers, though such claims have been rarely subject to detailed scrutiny.

Each of the chapters in this book is concerned with exploring the concept of reflection and considering its contributions to teacher education. The papers range across different stages of professional development, some focusing in particular on pre-service education, others on in-service or professional development generally. Some of the papers are concerned with particular strategies for promoting reflection and how they might operate in a teacher education context, others dwell more upon a theoretical appreciation of how reflection facilitates in the processes of professional development, and how it relates to issues of quality in teacher education.

1 Reflective Teacher Education Programs: An Analysis of Case Studies

Linda R.Valli

In 1987 some teacher educators who were working on sponsored projects to improve teacher preparation met to plan a conference on reflection.¹ One of the things we discussed at that initial meeting was evidence of improved student reflectivity. When asked about the program at my own university I responded that while most student teachers focused their reflection on issues of classroom control and instructional delivery, some were beginning to explore broader issues such as gender equity.

The quizzical reaction of my colleagues made me realize that my construction of the issue was different from theirs. After more dialogue, I realized that my frame of reference was what I later called a sociological perspective, while theirs was a psychological perspective (Valli and Taylor, 1989). I, in other words, used the expanding scope or content of students’ inquiry as evidence of improved reflection: What were students concerned about? What type of school or classroom problem mattered to them? My colleagues, on the other hand, had a more psychological perspective. They focused on the nature or quality of reflection: did we have evidence that inquiry-oriented teacher education programs improved student thinking? That programs increased the complexity and sophistication of their reflective processes?

In this chapter I explore the question of reflectivity by examining how seven teacher education programs in the United States deal with these content and quality issues.² I am not looking at what students learn from the programs, but, more simply, at what the programs themselves espouse as their goals and values.³ My approach is deliberately reductionist. I am looking primarily for commonalities, characteristics which programs mutually share; other authors have closely examined program differences (see Valli, 1992).

The cases were chosen because they represent a range of institutions in the United States which have given serious attention to program development and about which written materials were available.⁴ They represent public and private institutions, four- and five-year programs, undergraduate and graduate programs and alternative programs. Some programs are organized generically across grade and content areas; others maintain the traditional divisions between elementary and secondary preparation. Many have received state or federal grants and all represent attempts to incorporate reflection throughout professional preparation rather than in just a few courses or field experiences.

This programmatic level of intervention stands in marked contrast to attempts generally made to teach reflection. In a review of inquiry-oriented teacher education, Tom (1985) uses few examples which incorporate reflection throughout the various components of the professional education sequence. Instead, his examples come from particular strategies devised to promote reflection, from individual foundations or methods courses whose instructors choose to implement reflection, or from advocacy literature in which authors argue for some type of inquiry orientation in the preparation of teachers.

Zeichner (1987) similarly found that ‘most inquiry-oriented teacher educators have sought to prepare more reflective teachers by altering specific courses or program components within an overall program context which remains unchanged’ (p. 567). Yet this piecemeal approach generally fails to influence the perspectives of teacher candidates. For that type of impact, a more intense, coherent framework is necessary (Zeichner, 1987). As Barnes (1987) claims, ‘learning to teach, like any other complicated activity, requires building schemata that are well-organized and capable of directing one’s actions as a teacher’ (p. 14). Such schemata building can only be accomplished over time in programs which reinforce and build upon prior learning in a coherent and systematic manner.

Before proceeding, one concept important to the content and quality of reflective teaching needs to be introduced, the concept of a technical orientation to teaching. As used in the reflection literature, the term technical has actually developed dual meanings which have not been explicitly identified or separated. The first construction of technical has implications for the content or scope of reflection, the second for the equality of reflection.

In the first construction, technical refers to the means of accomplishing a particular goal. It embodies an instrumentalist orientation to teaching wherein ‘the primary concern is with fostering the development of skill in an actual performance of a predetermined task’ (Zeichner, 1983, p. 4). In an instrumental orientation, reflective questions focus on making the teaching/ learning process more effective and efficient (Van Manen, 1977). They address the means or procedures for delivering education while leaving important questions about the purposes, values and goals of schooling unexamined. In this sense of technical, the scope of reflection is restricted to the means of managing classrooms and delivering instruction. Technically reflective teachers would be concerned with such questions as: Was the class under control? Am I moving through the curriculum in a timely fashion? They would not question whether the curriculum was worth getting through or what harm certain behavioral techniques might cause.

Implied in this definition is a second meaning of technical: using knowledge in a straightforward way to direct practice. As Grimmett et al. (1990) describe it, in a technical approach to reflection ‘propositional knowledge is reflected upon and then applied to practice in an instrumental manner’ (p. 25). Teachers are urged to conform their practice to generalizations from empirical research (Grimmett, 1990; Tom and Valli, 1990). At times, as in state-mandated evaluation, this takes the form of reflecting on rules of practice. Since most of these rules or generalizations are derived from research on teaching, the focus of teachers’ attention again would be on generic issues of teaching, learning and classroom management. Under this meaning of technical, quality of reflection would be simply determined by the ability to match teaching behavior to the established codes.

As we shall see, neither of these uses of technical has predominately guided the development of the teacher education programs described in this chapter.⁵ Although there is considerable variation among the programs, technical approaches have been rejected as overly narrow in scope (unduly limiting the content of reflection) and as vesting too much authority and control in externally-derived research knowledge (adversely affecting the quality of reflection). Instead, the cases I analysed could be described as deliberative and dialectical modes of reflection (Grimmett et al, 1990).⁶

In deliberative reflection, knowledge about teaching is relativistic, dependent on context, and is used to inform, not direct, practice. It is similar to what McCarthy et al. (1989) call strategic reflection, in which problems in teaching are examined from several practical and philosophic perspectives before a decision is reached on a particular course of action. In dialectical reflection, externally-derived knowledge about teaching is less important. Instead, reflection is more personally grounded and is used to apprehend and transform experience.

More will be said about these approaches to reflection in the next two sections. After examining the content and quality of reflection in the seven programs, I look at these two concepts in relation to one another and then explore what aspects of reflection are missing from the programs. The chapter ends with a cautionary note about instructional strategies.

The Question of Reflective Content

One way of analyzing the reflective content of teacher education programs is to use Tom’s (1985) notion of arenas of the problematic. Tom specifies four arenas of the teaching situation, arranged by degrees of comprehensiveness, which can be subjected to doubt, inquiry and reflection. Moving from the small to the large, these arenas are the teaching-learningprocess, subject matter knowledge, political and ethical principles underlying teaching, and educational institutions within their broad social context.

Although none of the programs makes only the teaching/learning process problematic, most put primary emphasis on this smallest arena. The content they specify for reflection is instruction, instructional design, individual differences, group processes and dynamics, research on teaching, learning, motivation, effective teaching behaviors, discipline and classroom organization. The Masters Certification program at the University of Maryland, for example, has identified four arenas of inquiry as: research on teaching on effective psychology, models of teaching and research on effective schools (McCaleb, Borko, and Arends, 1992). The Reflective Inquiry Teacher Education (RITE) program at the University of Houston asks students to analyze different classroom management styles by having them record teacher time allocation, student time on task, and student-teacherinteraction patterns (Clift, Houston, and McCarthy, 1992). There is discussion in other programs of the new paradigm on how students learn and the set of pedagogical principles which inform teachers’ work. Given the difficulties beginning teachers have with discipline and classroom disorder (Veenman, 1984), this focus on the teaching-learning process is not surprising.

Secondary emphasis is placed on the broader arenas—ethical principles and social context—by including such topics as normative influences on schooling, cultural diversity and social forces which impinge on teacher decision-making. At Catholic University, faculty have developed a conceptual framework for the purpose of expanding the scope of students’ reflection to these broader arenas (Ciriello, Valli, and Taylor, 1992). This framework consists of three dimensions: Schwab’s (1973) curriculum commonplaces, van Manen’s (1977) modes of reflection, and Berlak and Berlak’s (1981) dilemmas of schooling. The Academically Talented Teacher Education Program (ATTEP) at Kent State University teaches students to use psychological, sociological and critical modes of inquiry to question teaching practice, make reasoned choices, and engage in complex problem-solving(Applegate and Shaklee, 1992). The three modes of inquiry guide the core seminars which ATTEP students take. Inquiry into Learning is guided by a psychological perspective, Research in Teaching by a sociological perspective, and Inquiry into Schooling by a critical perspective. A number of universities explicitly incorporate critical inquiry through which students must reflect on social and ethical aspects of schooling. At the University of Maryland, which has had a strong orientation toward research on teaching, a shift toward a more radical critique of schooling is underway.

Stating that programs have a primary and secondary emphasis, however, as though they deal with these issues as separate content areas, is misleading. If they did, in fact, put separate and primary emphasis on the teaching/ learning arena, they should be described as having a technical orientation since they would be focusing on the means of delivering instruction. But the programs do not do this. They include the broader arenas by relating them to the teaching-learning process. They teach students that instructional decisions are context dependent and that educational practice must be related to normative questions about the purpose and goals of schooling. In the Multiple Perspectives program at Michigan State University, for example, students consider how the various functions of schooling (academic outcomes, personal responsibility, social responsibility and social justice) can cause conflict within a teacher’s role and demand wise professional judgment. The program deliberately includes different levels of reflection (technical, clinical, personal and critical) to help prospective teachers relate these functions and develop their thinking (Putnam and Grant, 1992). Personal reflection, for instance, helps teacher candidates develop a professional sense of self and use that knowledge to create humane classroom environments.

So reflection on issues of teaching and learning does not occur in a vacuum but within broader questions of purposes, goals, values and constraints. In these programs, the teaching-learning process is best depicted not on one end of a continuum, but rather as a small circle within the larger circles of ethical principles and social institutions. This connection of the smaller arenas of the problematic to the larger supports Brennan and Noffke’s (1988) finding from action research projects that concerns about management and discipline often embody ‘the whole area of teacher-student relationships’ and provide a way to help prospective teachers consider the interconnectedness and ethical base of classroom issues (p. 6). This connection removes these programs from a strictly technical orientation to teacher preparation since reflection focuses on more than just the instrumental means of instructional delivery. As one set of authors put it; ‘Our vision of teacher as decision-maker challenges the orthodoxy of a single knowledge base where ends are undisputed and means are empirically revealed’ (Oja, et al., 1992).

One minor theme which does not fall explicitly into any of the four arenas was also evident in three programs, the theme of self as teacher which includes personal teaching styles, themes, or theories; professional growth; or, as one program calls it: ‘an effective teaching personality’ (Clift, Houston, and McCarthy, 1992). The focus here is on reflection for self-enlightenment:confronting the self to examine feelings and emotions about teaching, students and the school setting (McCarthy, et al., 1989). The term ‘co-explorers’ is used in the University of New Hampshire program to highlight the importance of making a methodological commitment to listen to the experience of others, to try to understand others in their own terms, and to expect to have the same effort made on their own behalf (Oja, et al., 1992). This theme suggests a strong developmental perspective: the personal construction of meaning in becoming a teacher. It is an example of the dialectical mode of reflection mentioned earlier. In this mode of reflection, official research knowledge as a guide to action is de-emphasized. Rather, students are urged to draw upon personal knowledge to transform or reconstruct their experience.

The Question of Reflective Quality

A different way of looking at issues of reflection embedded in teacher education programs is to examine what is regarded as reflective quality. This psychological orientation to reflection is rooted in the conceptual development work of Perry (1968), Kitchener and King (1981), and others which indicates that considerable growth in thinking occurs during the college years.

Although much research has been done in this area, none of these seven teacher education programs assumes the formidable task of improving conceptual level as an indicator of students’ reflective qualities. They do not explicitly try to move students from dualistic (right or wrong) to relativistic levels of thinking. Rather, they use more modest indicators directly related to program goals and strategies such as avoiding unthinking conformity, analyzing a problem from multiple perspectives, and using new evidence to reassess professional judgments.

Like content for reflection, where the teaching-learning process was the main emphasis, one predominent theme emerged from analyzing what program developers consider to be quality of reflection. While programs variously address the need for ‘scholarly’ reflection, different modes of inquiry, consideration of alternative explanations, and so forth, these indicators of reflective quality all point to the theory/practice relationship. They are all ways of problematizing this relation. What counts as quality of reflection is the ability to make the relationship between theory and practice problematic.

As mentioned earlier, using research knowledge to guide practice in a straightforward way is not valued by these programs. The programs present a more complex view of the knowledge-practice relation. With Schön (1983), they reject the concept of technical rationality, or ‘instrumental problem-solvingmade rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique’ (p. 21). Students are encouraged to explore the tentativeness and tenuou...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• 1: Reflective Teacher Education Programs: An Analysis of Case Studies
• 2: A Conceptual Framework for Reflection in Preservice Teacher Education
• 3: Theory, Theorizing and Reflection in Initial Teacher Education
• 4: Eliciting Student Teachers’ Personal Theories
• 5: Life-History Accounts as Mirrors: A Practical Avenue for the Conceptualization of Reflection in Teacher Education
• 6: Tutors’ Professional Knowledge of Supervision and the Implications for Supervision Practice
• 7: Changes in Beliefs About Learners Among Participants in Eleven Teacher Education Programs
• 8: Critical Attributes of a Reflective Teacher: Is Agreement Possible?
• 9: Supporting Reflection in Teachers’ Learning
• Notes on Contributors