Abstracts
Abstract
Why do we emphasize reflective practice so extensively in pre-service teacher education? What evidence do we have that frequent references to reflection are improving the quality of the teachers we prepare for certification and careers in teaching? Whatever reflection and reflective practice are, they are not ends in themselves; hopefully, they are means to the end of better teaching practices and better learning by students in schools. In this article I explore reflection and reflective practice from several perspectives, including my personal experiences as a teacher educator working with individuals preparing to become teachers of physics. The question asked in the title captures my fear that the ways teacher educators have responded to and made use of the concepts of reflection and reflective practice may be doing more harm than good in pre-service teacher education. To begin, I consider teacher education practices before and after the arrival of the term reflective practice. I then consider elements of Schön’s (1983) work and review five articles about reflective practice in teacher education; this is not a formal literature review, but rather an effort to show how virtually every article about reflective practice seems to be driven by its author’s personal perspective. The article continues with personal interpretations and illustrations and concludes with five generalizations about teacher education practices that indicate that much more work needs to be done if references to reflection are to do more good than harm in preservice teacher education programs.
Keywords:
- reflective practice,
- teacher education,
- reframing,
- practicum
Résumé
Pourquoi avons-nous mis l’accent sur la pratique réflexive de façon si abusive dans la formation initiale des enseignants? Sur quoi nous appuyons-nous pour avoir la certitude que de développer la réflexivité permet l’amélioration de la qualité des enseignants que nous préparons ? Quelle qu’en soit sa forme, la pratique réflexive, ne doit pas être une fin en soi: elle est un moyen qui permet d’atteindre une finalité qu’est l’enseignement, voire, une finalité de développement des apprentissages des élèves. Dans cet article, nous explorons la réflexivité à partir de plusieurs angles d’entrée, y compris nos expériences personnelles en tant que formateur d’enseignants travaillant avec des personnes qui se préparent à devenir des enseignants de physique. La question posée dans le titre exprime notre crainte quant à la finalité de la formation des enseignants que les formateurs d’enseignants attribuent parfois à la pratique réflexive; ce qui, à notre avis, peut faire plus de mal que de bien dans la formation des enseignants, avant l’emploi. Nous nous attarderons d’abord sur la différence entre les pratiques de formation des enseignants avant et après l’arrivée du terme pratique réflexive. Nous examinerons ensuite les travaux de Schön (1983) à travers cinq articles sur la réflexivité en formation des enseignants. Il ne s’agit pas d’une revue de la littérature systématique, mais cet effort démontre comment presque tous les articles sur la pratique réflexive semble être dictés par les intérêts personnels de ses auteurs respectifs. Nous poursuivront avec des interprétations et des illustrations et terminerons par cinq généralisations au sujet des pratiques de formation des enseignants qui indiquent qu’un travail colossal reste à faire afin que les références à la réflexivité fassent in fine plus de bien que de mal dans les programmes de formation des enseignants.
Mots-clés :
- pratique réflexive,
- formation des enseignants,
- pratique,
- recadrage
Appendices
Bibliography
- Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.
- Calderhead, J. (1992). The role of reflection in learning to teach. In L. Valli (Ed.), Reflective teacher education: Cases and critiques (p. 139-146). Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Eraut, M. (1995). Schön shock: A case for refraining reflection-in-action? Teachers and teaching: Theory and practice, 1(1), 9-22.
- Fendler, L, (2005). Teacher reflection in a hall of mirrors: Historical influences and political reverberations. Educational Researcher, 32(3), 16-25.
- Hatton, N., & Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 11, 33-49.
- Ireland, D., & Russell, T. (1978). The Ottawa Valley teaching project. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10(3), 206-208.
- Larrivee, B. (2000). Transforming teaching practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1, 293-307.
- Lortie, D. A. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Queen’s University Faculty of Education. (2012). Program – Consecutive education. Retrieved from http://www.educ.queensu.ca/teachereducation/programs/consecutive.html
- Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey and reflective thinking. Teachers College Record, 104, 842-866.
- Russell, T. (2005a). Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice, 6, 199-204.
- Russell, T. (2005b). The place of the practicum in pre-service teacher education programs: Strengths and weaknesses in alternative assumptions about the experiences of learning to teach. In G. Hoban (Ed.), The missing links in teacher education design (p. 135-152). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
- Sarason, S. B. (1996). Revisiting “The culture of the school and the problem of change.” New York: Teachers College Press.
- Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
- Schön, D. A. (1987a). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass..
- Schön, D. A. (1987b, March). Educating the reflective practitioner. Lecture presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC. Transcription retrieved from http://post.queensu.ca/~russellt/howteach/schon87.htm
- Schön, D. A. (Ed.) (1991). The reflective turn: Case studies in and on educational practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
- Schön, D. A. (1995). The new scholarship requires a new epistemology. Change, 27(6), 26-34.
- Schuck, S., & Russell, T. (2005). Self-study, critical friendship, and the complexities of teacher education. Studying Teacher Education, 1, 107-121.
- Valli, L. (Ed.). (1992). Reflective teacher education: Cases and critiques. Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Zeichner, K. (1996). Teachers as reflective practitioners and the democratization of schools reform. In K. Zeichner, S. Melnick, & M. L. Gomez (Eds.), Currents of reform in pre-service teacher education (p. 199-214). New York: Teachers College Press.