Reflective Practice

ISSN: 1462-3943 (Print) 1470-1103 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crep20

‘What went well, what didn’t go so well’: growth of

reflection in pre‐service teachers

Christianna Alger

To cite this article: Christianna Alger (2006) ‘What went well, what didn’t go so well’:
growth of reflection in pre‐service teachers, Reflective Practice, 7:3, 287-301, DOI:
10.1080/14623940600837327

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940600837327

Published online: 20 Nov 2006.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1712

View related articles

Citing articles: 8 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=crep20
Reflective Practice
Vol. 7, No. 3, August 2006, pp. 287–301

‘What went well, what didn’t go so well’:

growth of reflection in pre-service
teachers
Christianna Alger*
San Diego State University, USA
Reflective
10.1080/14623940600837327
CREP_A_183668.sgm
1462-3943
Original
Taylor
7302006
[email protected]
ChristiannaAlger
00000August
and
& Article
Francis
Practice
(print)/1470-1103
Francis
2006Ltd (online)

Teacher education programs operate with the notion that reflection is a critically important
characteristic and skill of an effective teacher. The ability of a teacher to reflect on his or her teaching
practice is one of the State of California’s Teacher Performance Expectations (TPE) and the
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Standards for Teaching.
Because having a skill does not always translate into the doing of a skill, these institutions want
teachers to have the disposition to reflect. Teacher educators believe that having the disposition to
reflect is more likely to result in the doing of reflection. Much curriculum and many assignments
have been developed to foster reflection in novice teachers and teacher reflection has been analysed
and studied from many vantage points. The purpose of this study was to better understand the role
and development of reflection in novice teachers over time. I explored the effectiveness of a case
writing assignment designed to foster reflection given as part of a first semester education methods
course and then used the assignment to track the growth of reflection over time. Some of the guiding
research questions were: Does the student teacher’s analysis of the locus of the central problem in
the case change over time? Has the student teacher’s repertoire of strategies to solve the problem
increased over time? Do the quantity and quality of reflection increase over time? How does the
student make sense of reflection and how is it manifested in practice?

Literature review
The notion of reflection as it relates to teaching originated with Dewey (1933) who
conceptualized reflection as a form of systematic problem-solving while concur-
rently openmindedly considering the underlying beliefs inherent in both the prob-
lem and possible solutions. Hatten and Smith (1995) describe reflection as
‘deliberate thinking about action with a view to its improvement’ (p. 34). The act of
reflection is a tool for pre-service teachers to do the organizing and reorganizing of

*San Diego State University, School of Teacher Education, 5500 Campanile Dr. Mail Code 1153,
San Diego, CA 92182, USA. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1462-3943 (print)/ISSN 1470-1103 (online)/06/030287–15

© 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14623940600837327
288 C. Alger

their understanding and is considered critical to teacher development. Richards and

Lockhart (1994) describe a reflective approach to teaching ‘in which teachers collect
data about teaching, examine their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, and teaching
practices, and use the information obtained as a basis for critical reflection about
teaching’ (p. 1). Reflective inquiry should lead to continuous professional develop-
ment. Wallace (1991) stresses that reflective teaching is a cycle that includes reflec-
tion on both received knowledge, such as learning theory and pedagogy in teacher
education programs, and experiential knowledge, what happens within the context
of classrooms.
Many studies on teacher thinking focus on how teachers make sense of their
students and classroom events and how these influence the decisions they make. From
a constructivist viewpoint, teacher learning is described as a process of ‘organizing and
reorganizing, structuring and restructuring a teacher’s understanding of practice.
Teachers are viewed as learners who actively construct knowledge by interpreting
events on the basis of existing knowledge, beliefs, and dispositions’ (Uhlenbeck et al.,
2002, p. 243). What knowledge and beliefs about learning, teaching, students, and
content pre-service teachers bring to their student teacher education classes and place-
ments matter. These understandings and beliefs function as interpretive lenses
through which beginning teachers make sense of their experience. But what happens
as they gain theoretical and experiential knowledge of the classroom? The hope is, of
course, that with additional time in pre-service programs and guided experience in the
classroom that these lenses will change and improve the teachers’ understanding of
teaching and learning and, ultimately, improve their practice.
Teaching is complex. Teachers are continually balancing a large amount of stimuli,
in which they must take the best action in a given situation, often with incomplete
information and very little time, or criteria on which to base the action (Uhlenbeck
et al., 2002). Because of the complexity of teaching and the ‘real-timeness’ of teacher
decision-making, pre-service education programs promote reflection as a means to
inform future teaching.
As part of their credential coursework pre-service teachers engage in many types of
activities to foster reflection (e.g., action research, case studies, microteaching and
reflective writing assignments). One frequently used activity to foster reflection is the
writing and analysis of teaching cases. Pre-service teachers identify a dilemma they
are experiencing in the classroom and write a narrative or story about this classroom
event or situation that highlights the complexity of problem-solving and decision
making embedded in teaching and learning. One goal of the case writing process is to
help students learn how to observe and analyse their own teaching. This is an impor-
tant skill, because throughout their careers, teachers will spend little time being
observed by others. Another goal is to uncover beliefs and assumptions about teach-
ing. This is a critical process because, as Lortie (1975) pointed out over 30 years ago,
prior to entering schools of education, credential candidates have more than 10,000
hours of observations of teaching through their K-16 years of experience as students.
This long ‘apprenticeship’ exerts a tremendous influence upon student teachers’
often unexamined perceptions of teaching and learning. If left unexamined, these
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 289

memories can serve as ‘de facto guides for teachers as they approach what they do in
the classroom’ (Bailey, 1997, p. 5). Furthermore, these ‘de facto guides’ are often
obstacles to internalizing what student teachers learn in their credential programs.
Once the case is written, through a case conference, a collaborative analysis and
discussion of the case, the student teachers reflect on the embedded dilemmas,
possible solutions, and then relate the case to their own teaching experience. A
thoughtful and well-written case should provide a vicarious experience to those who
read the case.
Few studies have addressed changes in student teachers’ thinking through a second
analysis of a particular case. Lundeberg and Scheurman (1997) researched the effects
of reviewing a teaching case under different conditions related to timing of the case
analyses. They found that student teachers were better able to integrate theoretical
knowledge through a second reading. In Lundeberg and Scheurman’s (1997) study,
all student teachers read and analysed the same case. Many of these activities have
the potential to encourage reflection, but there is little research evidence to show that
as a result of engaging in these reflective activities that teachers develop a reflective
disposition or stance to their teaching once they leave their teacher education
programs.

Methodology
As a means to foster reflection in first semester, post-baccalaureate student teachers
enrolled in a year-long teacher certification course, I developed several activities as
part of a general methods course to both model for and elicit from the students reflec-
tion about teaching. First, I gave explicit instruction regarding the importance and
usefulness of reflection including examples of technical, ethical and moral dilemmas
they may experience in their classrooms. Students were also assigned to reflect upon
readings related to teaching in their content areas. In addition, we held several case
conferences that highlighted the complexity and uncertainty of teaching. As a
capstone project, each student was required to develop a teaching case regarding a
dilemma he or she was currently grappling with in the classroom. The purpose of the
assignment was to give each student an opportunity to reflect and focus on a dilemma
of practice and to provide his or her classmates a chance to engage in collaborative
problem-solving. Students were asked to describe the dilemma fully, including their
attempts to try and solve the problem. They were asked to consider why they chose
the strategies they tried and to speculate on why their actions had not been successful.
Each student then presented his or her case to the class for discussion.
At the end of the course, students were invited to be a part of a study that would
track changes and growth in their thinking about their dilemma and case through
individual interviews at the end of the second semester. Four male and five female
students representing three subject areas (two art, six physical education, and one
music) elected to participate in the study.
At the end of the second semester of student teaching I interviewed each participant
once about his or her case to track the development of student teacher reflection over
290 C. Alger

time. The audiotaped interviews took place at the university and lasted approximately
30–45 minutes. I used a semi-structured interview protocol in which I asked the
student teacher to restate and/or reframe the problem, review and evaluate the
strategies he or she used to try and solve the problem, and identify the criteria each
used for determining his or her strategies. We explored the final status of the dilemma
and alternate solutions. Finally, we discussed each student’s current pressing dilemma
and the role of reflection in his or her practice.

Analysis
I used a systematic coding and questioning process with both the cases and the
interviews to simultaneously uncover the key features, on the one hand, and expand
meaning to develop grounded research, on the other. Coffey and Atkinson explain
this paradox.
Coding can be used to simplify the data by reducing the data to equivalent classes and
categories. … Coding can also be conceptualized as data complication. It can be used to
expand, transform, and reconceptualize data, opening up more diverse analytical possibil-
ities. (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996, p. 20)

During coding, I continually checked and rechecked my coding assignments and

categories, using the constant-comparative method. As Strauss and Corbin (1994)
state, in the case where one begins with established theory, the coding is ‘elaborated
and modified as incoming data are played against them’ (p. 273).
First I identified the categories of the central dilemmas of the cases and how these
were framed, paying particular attention to where the student teacher placed the locus
of the problem. The location of the problem is important because it reveals the extent
to which a student teacher perceives he or she can impact the problem. I then tracked
the solutions student teachers initially utilized to try and solve the dilemma as
evidenced in the case and compared these with the data collected in the subsequent
interview. I did this in order to uncover the changes in the repertoire of solutions
available to student teachers, the value they placed on the effectiveness of the initial
strategies, and to identify the sources of knowledge responsible for changes in
thinking. I then analysed the interviews for changes in student teachers’ thinking
about the initial dilemmas. From there I utilized Hatten and Smith’s (1995) evidence
of reflection typology to code the quantity and quality of reflection in both the cases
and the interviews. Finally, I coded the interviews for student teachers’ conceptions
of reflection and how this manifested in their practice.

Categories and locus of case dilemmas

From the nine cases, I identified two broad categories of cases, six that are classroom-
based, and three that are systemically-based. Classroom-based dilemmas were prob-
lems between student teachers and their students. Three of the cases involved the
student teacher engaged in a discipline problem with one student. Two of the cases
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 291

focused on management issues involving multiple students and one case concerned
fair assessment for a student who was slow to finish her work. There were three
systemic-based dilemmas, one in each of the following categories, a problem as a
result of lack of resources, a problematic relationship between the student teacher and
cooperating teacher, and a conflict between a student and the coordinators of the
teacher preparation program. In all nine cases, the student teachers identified the
locus of the problems as residing outside of themselves, therefore leaving little room
for the possibility of impacting the problem. For example, Student Teacher 7
describes a student she is having difficulty managing. First she describes the ‘past
crimes committed at the school by the student’s family members’ and then writes:
This student is not pleasant to teach nor does she have any desire to learn. In her eyes she
knows everything there is to know and she thinks that she is better than anyone else. She
is rude to her peers and has no respect for anyone.

Between the negative family history the student teacher has heard about from other
faculty at the school site and the negative interactions with the student, the student
teacher sees little possibility for impacting the situation with the student.
In the interview I ask the student teachers to reflect on the initial dilemma and
consider whether they would frame the problem in the same way today. Of the nine
cases, six students had changes in how they framed the dilemma. In all six of the
changed dilemmas, the students were able to see additional nuances to the problem.
Student Teacher 2 initially writes, ‘I have one student in particular who has been a
challenge for me to teach. This student does not apply himself at all and he does not
care to’. During the interview, the student teacher hypothesized that the student, who
was a high achiever in academic subjects, may actually have been embarrassed
because he was not good in art. The student teachers were more likely to recognize
that the locus of the problems resided both in the students and themselves. In one
case, the student teacher originally placed the locus of the problem in her inattentive
master teacher, only to later state that classroom management was the ‘underlyer’ of
the problem.

Solution sets
I analysed solution sets two ways. First I analysed the cases for categories and
frequencies of executed solutions. This gives a sense of the general repertoire of the
solutions available to first semester student teachers. Then I analysed the solution sets
for each case individually and compared these with the interview data noting changes
in student teacher thinking.
Because the classroom and systemic cases are very different in the kinds of solutions
needed to resolve the problems, I analysed these types of cases separately (see
Figure 1). In the six classroom based cases, student teachers reported executing 56
solutions. Twenty-eight of these were categorized as ‘teacher behaviors for seeking
compliance’, 15 as ‘curricular and pedagogical solutions for gaining student compli-
ance’, eight were ‘help seeking strategies to gain student compliance’, and one was
292 C. Alger

(1) Executed solutions for classroom-based dilemmas

Teaching behaviors to gain Curricular/pedagogical Help-seeking solutions for Other
student compliance solutions to gain student gaining student compliance
compliance
Total 28 Total 15 Total 8 Total 1
One-way communication: Curricular Solutions: Contact parent 4 Question importance of
Tell student 3 Give additional instruction 5 problem 1
Warn/threaten 5 Explain relevance of content 2
Proximity 2 Give more time to finish 1
Ignore 2
Two-way communication: Grouping: Meet with student and
Talk with student/s 5 Isolate problem student/s 3 administrator 3
Negotiation 4 Group with motivated
Students 2
Assign leadership role 2
Punishment: Talk with counselor 1
Assign detention 1
Hold after class 2
Loss of academic points 1
Make example of student 1
Force student to play 1
Referral 1

(2) Student teacher solutions to systemic-based dilemmas of practice

Curricular 4
Seek Help 4
Ignore 2

Figure 1. Student teacher executed solutions to dilemmas of practice

categorized as ‘other’. Of the three systemically-based cases, 4 of the 10 executed solu-

tions were ‘curricular’, four were ‘help seeking’, and two were ‘ignore the problem’.
Student teachers’ understanding around solutions to the problems changed
Figure 1. Student teacher executed solutions to dilemmas of practice

substantially as did their understanding of the nuances of the dilemmas. Three

general trends emerged from the interview data: a movement away from behaviorist
approaches; a move toward relationship building; and, use of effective classroom
management strategies to curtail discipline problems.
In the cases, the student teachers often engaged in strategies to try and force the
students to be compliant. By the time of the interview student teachers were moving
away from behaviorist strategies of reinforcement and punishment. For example,
Student Teacher 2 said, ‘I want them to do the work, but if they want to fight me on
it, I’m not there to fight with them. I’d listen to them, and encourage them, but I
wouldn’t give them so much attention for it’. This is echoed by Student Teacher 7,
‘I think I was more dealing with the behavioral approach and asking, what’s wrong?
Why are you doing this? Instead of encouraging the positive behavior, I was dwelling
on the negative’.
Student teachers indicated that they were currently using more relationship building
strategies and, given the situation again, would incorporate more of these strategies.
Additionally, they would support development of students’ capacity to accept respon-
sibility for their own actions. Student Teacher 5 works hard to establish relationships
with her students. Though she teaches a class of 55 students, she communicates with
her students via journals. Unlike her case where she talked at students, she now concen-
trates on listening to her students. She tells them, ‘I’m so happy to be here. I love this
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 293

class! You guys are great! I really do do that almost everyday’. Student Teacher 7 tried
various methods to gain the compliance of one difficult student: warnings, referrals,
staring, ignoring and lecturing, none of which was successful for any extended period
of time. Toward the end of her first semester of student teaching, she tried giving the
student opportunities to take on roles of leadership. In her interview she related that
this strategy was the most effective:
… because she [the student] felt like she was important. She liked taking on a role. She
wasn’t the student in the corner that I was staring at, trying to gain compliance from her.
She now felt like she was doing well in the class and so, from there on, when I started being
more positive with her, I got more positive output.

Reflecting on how she would handle the situation now, Student Teacher 7 stated:
I would have a conference with the student, assuring her that I care about her and want
her to come to me with any problems and frustrations. I would talk to the student
frequently about school, sports, et cetera to show her I have a passion for helping and
teaching students. Hopefully, this would form a bond that would help the student to have
a better attitude in my class.

The participants all felt that they had improved their classroom management and
saw the value in classroom management procedures. Student Teacher 2 incorporated
self-monitoring mechanisms for students who had difficulty staying on task and
procedures for earning back privileges. Student Teacher 5 was beginning to focus on
proactive versus reactive classroom management strategies. She recognized the
importance of clarity of expectations of student behaviors and consequences. In the
interview she had more confidence in her ability to read her students.
I think I might have been a little lenient on them at the beginning, because, like I said, I
wasn’t a horrible classroom manager, but they’re sixth graders. I still viewed them as
elementary school kids and I was a little nicer and I let them get away with a little more
talking. … I seem a lot more strict as far as people talking when I’m up in front now.

In her second semester of student teaching, Student Teacher 7 was given a difficult
placement in a department that had many discipline problems.
When I came in, I have my lesson plan, I have drills, I have instructions. It’s the same thing
every day. My discipline was also the same every day. In having that guidance and that
consistency, the students started liking it. And even when they had the chance to switch
teachers, they didn’t.

Quantity and quality of student teacher reflections

Hatten and Smith (1995) have explored the question of what constitutes evidence of
student teacher reflection and developed an ‘operational framework’ (p. 40) that iden-
tifies four types of writing of which three can be characterized as reflection. Rather
than a focus on the central dilemma, the evidence is analysed by identifying instances
of writing that represent a complete thought and may be as short as a clause or as long
as several sentences. The typology is also hierarchical, with descriptive reflection being
a basic level of reflection and critical reflection being the highest level of reflection.
294 C. Alger

The first type of writing, descriptive writing is not reflective, but merely a description
of events without additional information related to reasoning or justification. It reads
like a report of actions. For example, ‘Using round robin reading, the students read
page 45 of the textbook. When it was Juan’s turn to read, he refused’.
Descriptive reflection moves beyond the description of the event by including some
rationale or explanation for actions. Using the same action as above, the writing might
look like this:
Because I could not get anyone to volunteer to read aloud, I used a round robin reading
strategy to have students read page 45 of the textbook. When it was Juan’s turn to read he
refused. Part of each student’s grade is participation. Because I want to be fair and consis-
tent with my policies, I had to deduct a point from Juan’s participation grade.

Here the student teacher is beginning to reveal his or her reasons for choosing a particular
action.
Hatten and Smith (1995) explain dialogic reflection as ‘a stepping back from the
events/actions leading to a different level of mulling about, discourse with self and
exploring the experience, events, and actions using qualities of judgments and possi-
ble alternatives for explaining and hypothesizing’ (p. 48). Statements in this category
are often in the form of questions, indicating that the student teacher is having an
internal dialog, or the use of verbs such as ‘wonder’ to frame thoughts. For example,
building again on the original round robin reading example, a student exhibiting
dialogic reflection might write:
In looking back, I wonder if round robin reading was the right approach to handle the
reading. When I asked for volunteers to read, no one raised their hands. It’s possible that
if I had waited longer, I would have gotten better results. When Juan refused to read, I
wasn’t sure how to respond. I did not want him to undermine my authority, but it occurred
to me that he might have other issues. I ignored Juan’s non-participation and called on the
next student to read. Silent reading with some guiding questions might have worked better
and everyone could have been involved.

Critical reflection honors multiple perspectives and expresses awareness that events
and actions may be influenced by sociocultural and political realities (see Hatten &
Smith, 1995, for a lengthier explanation of the typology.). Continuing with the round
robin reading example, the critically reflective student in this example expresses both
multiple perspectives and has a sense of the sociocultural context:
I felt remorse as soon as I implemented the round robin reading strategy. Though it is a
strategy that is easy for the teacher, round robin reading is a poor strategy that can actually
disempower students, particularly struggling readers. I think I resorted to that because
when no one volunteered to read aloud, I felt like I didn’t have control of the class. My
mistake hit home to me when Juan refused to read aloud. His reading level is one of the
lowest in class, and as one of only three Hispanics in the class, he is sensitive about both
his reading level and his accent.

I analysed the cases and the interviews to track and type the instances of reflective
thinking (see Tables 1 and 2). There are several important aspects of the data to keep
in mind. First, the cases are written and the interviews are a dialog. A dialog may be
more likely to elicit reflection through prompting. To account for this, as the interviewer
 Table 1. Quantity and quality of reflection by individual cases

Students Teacher 2 Teacher 5 Teacher 7 Teacher 9 Teacher 11 Teacher 13 Teacher 14 Teacher 3 Teacher 12
Subject Art PE PE Art PE PE PE Music PE
Case type Discipline Discipline Discipline Discipline Discipline 2 Discipline Lack of Master Pre-service
Reflection 1 student 1 student 1 student 1 student multiple students multiple students resources teacher program

Descriptive reflection 0 4 4 6 3 7 7 1 3
Dialogic reflection 0 0 1 0 4 3 0 0 0
Critical reflection 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Total 0 5 5 6 7 11 7 1 3
Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 295
 296 C. Alger

Table 2. Quantity and quality of reflection in interviews

Students Teacher 2 Teacher 5 Teacher 7 Teacher 9 Teacher 11 Teacher 13 Teacher 14 Teacher 3 Teacher 12
Subject Art PE PE Art PE PE PE Music PE
Case type Discipline 1 Discipline Discipline Discipline Discipline 2 Discipline Lack of Master Pre-service
Reflection student 1 student 1 student 1 student multiple students multiple students resources teacher program

Descriptive reflection 5 10 4 2 2 4 6 8 4
Dialogic reflection 1 7 3 0 2 1 1 0 4
Critical reflection 0 14 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 6 31 8 2 7 5 7 8 8
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 297

I tried to keep my responses to a minimum using such techniques as restating what

was said by the student teacher. I did not ask such questions as ‘What do you think
are the socio-political aspects of your case?’ In addition, the counts for descriptive reflec-
tion may not be meaningful because at the time of the interviews, there is an assumption
that the student teacher and I have shared knowledge of the original case. Thus, the
details are not recounted by the student teacher. What are significant are the frequencies
in dialogic and critical reflection.
I looked for patterns of reflection types and frequency attached to type of central
dilemma, but there appeared to be none present. However, seven out of nine showed
an increase in total instances of reflection with five of the nine increasing in dialogic
reflection. Two of the nine had evidence of critical reflection in their cases and six of
the students who had not expressed critical reflection in the cases still did not exhibit
critical reflection in their interview.

Value placed on reflection and implementation

All nine student teachers stated that they valued reflection. Student Teacher 3 high-
lighted the importance of reflection by stating ‘It’s kind of like if you don’t do them
[reflections], you lose out on yourself. You’re basically cheating yourself’. Student
Teacher 9 states ‘I think the reflection part is a really valuable component to the
teaching process. It’s been valuable to me. It’s even more valuable when you have
theory and also certain guidelines’. And all nine of the student teachers maintained
they were reflective practitioners, and that their ability to reflect had improved.
Student Teacher 2 stated:
I learned more about being reflective from the program because I’m more reflective now
than I was last semester. I wasn’t reflective at all in my first student teaching placement. I
said, what? Huh? OK. I just kind of went along with it.

But what does reflection mean to these novice teachers? How does it manifest in
their practice? When they reflect, what are they reflecting on? Has their reflection
practice changed over the course of their pre-service program and how do they plan
to maintain a reflective practice? These are important questions to consider.
For seven of the participants, reflection is a two-step process that begins with the
planning of a lesson. They perceive planning a lesson to be the same as reflecting prior
to teaching a lesson. In talking about planning, Student Teacher 11 states ‘I try to
visualize my lessons before I do them [lesson plans], and then I go, OK, this is not
going to work because it didn’t work with this other lesson’. Evaluating previous
teaching experiences to speculate on the efficacy of a future lesson plan, is a form of
reflection, one that is encouraged in the teacher education program. The second stage
of reflecting takes place after the implementation of a lesson by asking oneself what
went well and what did not go well. This mirrors many of the observation forms
completed by their university supervisors and is often the frame for reflective conver-
sations with master teachers. Six of the student teachers indicated that at the end of
a lesson they make mental notes or jot notes directly on their lesson plans with the
298 C. Alger

idea that they will make changes for the next time they teach the particular lesson.
While these jottings are a form of reflection, the student teachers reported that they
generally focus on the mechanics of the lesson with little thought to the unique
contexts of the classrooms. For example, in talking about reflection at the end of the
second semester, Student Teacher 6 stated:
As far as the way my lesson went, I make quick mental notes like I should have done this
different, I should have done that, but I don’t, I’m not really continually questioning
myself. I am just like today went wonderful, my students were great. Or I’ll be like so-and-
so did this today, got to work on this tomorrow. But no, I don’t go real in-depth like we
did in our class, where we talked about all the steps that you do.

With the focus on the mechanics of the lesson, student teachers are likely to exclude
dialogic and critical reflection.

Discussion
It is clear that growth in the students’ knowledge and thinking has taken place over
the course of their second semester. The lens through which the student teachers view
teaching has broadened. At the beginning of their student teaching, the participants
focused upon gaining control of the classroom and compliance from their students.
By the end of the second semester they are moving away from a teacher-centered
classroom to a more student-centered classroom. As evidenced by their ability to
reframe problems, and situate the locus of the problem with both themselves and
their students, the student teachers are able to see and better cope with the complex-
ity of teaching. Their increased repertoire of strategies for dealing with problems
shows promise and growth as well. But it is not only growth in knowledge and think-
ing that has taken place. The participants’ ability to reflect has grown as well. They
engaged in deeper analysis and evaluation in the interviews than they did in the cases.
While the study cannot definitively state that the quantity of reflection has increased,
the author believes that the increase in the quality of reflection may infer an increase
in quantity.
The fact that the participants’ value reflection is especially encouraging, particularly
in light of the importance placed upon reflection in teacher education programs.
Whether students have developed the skill of reflection deeply enough to be considered
a disposition is an important direction for further research.
If we accept Hatten and Smith’s (1995) definition of reflection, that it is ‘deliberate
thinking about action with a view to its improvement’ (p. 34), then reflection took
place in both the cases and interviews. However, in considering how student teachers
engage in reflection at the end of their second semester of student teaching when they
have less structure and more autonomy (i.e., jotting down notes on lesson plans as
opposed to writing a case), the ways in which reflection will manifest in the future prac-
tice of these student teachers may be more limited than I as a university professor
would like. The answer to this hinges on what Hatten and Smith (1995) term deliberate
and intentional (inferred from the second half of the definition of reflection).
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 299

How deliberate and intentional will these future teachers’ reflections be? The cases
and interviews indicate that the participants have developed the skill, but have they
in fact developed the disposition to be reflective practitioners? For the cases and the
interviews, the student teachers were given models, structure, and focus to foster
deliberate and intentional reflection. The cases required individual reflections, but
were written for a collaborative audience. This moved the reflections from a private
space, to a public space. The same could be said of the interviews. The structure of
the tasks, the audience, and the collegial collaboration helped to insure that the reflec-
tion moved beyond ‘a mood of idle speculation’ toward a ‘deliberate effort’ to
improve future actions (Convery, 1998, p. 198). Through these experiences, students
were required to not only reflect on their practice through writing the case, but also
share the reflection with their peers. The interviews required reflection that was
demonstrated through verbal interactions with the professor. However, by the partic-
ipants’ own admission, the forms of reflection they engage in at the end of the
program (e.g., making mental notes or jotting notes on lesson plans) lack the depth
necessary for dialogic and critical reflection.
Viewing a lesson from the perspective of what went well and what did not go so well
is an effective strategy when supported by classroom activities such as writing cases.
It can be a tool for fostering reflective dialog. However, it may be less effective when
student reflection is not supported by these experiences and may move from more
sophisticated forms of reflection that promote thinking about multiple perspectives
and the sociocultural contexts of teaching to focus on aspects of the mechanics of teach-
ing. Without a university supervisor, cooperating teacher, professor or other teacher
colleague to help probe the strengths and weaknesses of a lesson more deeply, once
student teachers leave the teacher education program dialogic and critical reflection
may be scarce.

Implications for practice

Convery (1998) argues that ‘reflective teaching requires an approach that is social and
collaborative rather than individually introspective’ (p. 204). To an extent, this study
supports that view. However, though there are reform movements such as small
learning communities in the schools that foster reflection and collaboration, teaching
is still fundamentally a private endeavor. Therefore, teacher educators must find ways
to help student teachers recognize the complex, multi-leveled nature of the
consequences of their actions so that when they become teachers they can use this
understanding to reflect upon and inform their practice (Harrington et al., 1996).
After reflecting on my students’ abilities to reflect it is clear to me that from one
perspective, the outcome is very positive; they have developed the skills to reflect.
Students value reflection and are committed to actively engaging in reflective
practice. For these students, it is part of the language and culture of teaching.
However, without the structure, audience, and collaboration provided in their teacher
education program, how can student teachers progress when reflection becomes
primarily a private endeavor?
300 C. Alger

If I want the quality of reflection to increase and for reflection to move beyond a
skill to a disposition, I need to be more proactive in teaching and modeling what that
reflection looks like. And I need to provide the student teachers with efficient and
effective tools to reach that quality of reflection when they do not have a university
supervisor or colleague to support a reflective dialog. One approach to this problem
is to help students develop a set of focused internalized questions that move them
beyond the general sense of the lesson (what went well and did not go well) and
toward dialogic and critical reflection. Explicit teaching about levels of reflection is a
good first step, one that I did not take with the participants in this study.
The second step is to ask student teachers to stop a moment and step into another
person’s shoes (i.e., student, parent, administrator) and consider how the person’s
perspective might be different from his or hers. Where are the differences and does
knowing the differences change the student teacher’s perspective? To foster critical
reflection, I need to be sure my students can place the situation in a broader context
of human behavior and interaction. They should consider the role of race, class,
ethnicity, and gender with regard to teaching dilemmas.
What went well and what did not go so well are good starting points for reflection
and when I teach this course again, I will start there. However, to foster dialogic
reflection, I plan to have the pre-service teachers identify two students on which to
focus their reflection—a student for whom school and the content come easily and
one for whom school and the content are problematic. To promote critical reflection,
one of the focus students must belong to a gender, race, or culture different from the
pre-service teacher. These students will metaphorically ‘sit’ on the teacher’s
shoulders and whisper in their ears what went well and what did not go so well.

Notes on contributor
Christianna Alger is an assistant professor in the School of Teacher Education at San
Diego State University. Research interests include teacher development, literacy,
and at-risk students.

References
Bailey, K. M. (1997) Reflective teaching: situating our stories, Asian Journal of English Language
Teaching, 7, 1–19.
Coffey, A. & Atkinson, P. (1996) Making sense of qualitative data: contemporary research strategies
(Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage).
Convery, A. (1998) A teacher’s response to ‘reflection-in-action’, Cambridge Journal of Education,
28(2), 197–205.
Dewey, J. (1933) How we think: a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative
process (Boston, MA, D. C. Heath & Company).
Harrington, H., Quinn-Leering, K. & Hodson, L, (1996) Written case-analysis and critical reflection,
Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(1), 25–37.
Hatten, N. & Smith, D. (1995) Reflection in teacher education: towards definition and implemen-
tation, Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(1), 33–49.
 Growth of reflection in pre-service teachers 301

Katz, L. G. (1992) Dispositions as educational goals. ERIC Digest: ED0-PS-93-10.

Lortie, D. (1975) Schoolteacher: a sociological study (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).
Lundeberg, M. & Scheurman, G. (1997) Looking twice means seeing more: developing pedagogical
knowledge through case analysis, Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(8), 783–797.
Richards, J. C. & Lockhart, C. (1994) Reflective teaching in second language classrooms (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press).
Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1994) Grounded theory methodology: an overview, in: Denzin, N. &
Lincoln, Y. S. (Ed.) Handbook of qualitative research (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage).
Uhlenbeck, A., Verloop, N. & Beijaard, D. (2002) Requirements for an assessment procedure for
beginning teachers: implications from recent theories on teaching and assessment, Teachers
College Record, 104(2), 242–272.
Wallace, M. J. (1991) Educating foreign language teachers: a reflective approach (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press).