Reflective journaling: fostering dispositional development in preservice teachers

This study investigated the self-identified dispositions of 183 preservice teachers enrolled in a required philosophy of education course. The researchers coded their reflective journaling for the two essential NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) dispositions of fairness and the belief that all students can learn, as well as for other recurring, self-identified dispositions. These preservice teachers self-identified fairness much more frequently than the belief that all students can learn. The results point to additional recurring dispositional themes for consideration: critical thinking, caring, openness, moral education, and individual freedom. Further examination of the data revealed great variation in the preservice teachers’ interpretation of fairness, categorized as fairness through (1) inclusion of all socioeconomic classes and abilities; (2) culturally responsive teaching; (3) differentiation of instruction; and (4) fostering a safe learning environment.     

Ethical and political implications of reflective practice among preservice teachers

This study investigates the ethical and political implications of reflective practice among preservice teachers. The author reviewed previous research which suggests the need for a more critical analysis of teacher education programs to implement more intensive reflective methodologies that foster authentic, caring, dispositional development as a moral obligation toward socially just practice rather than mere audited compliance with standards-based technical training. This position paper then analyzes preservice teacher education as an interdependent process of methodological development, perceptive development, and cognitive/affective development. Finally, the author makes recommendations for program modification to better prepare preservice teachers to conceptualize their transformative role in society.     

Understanding own teaching: becoming reflective teachers through reflective journals

Reflective journal facilitates teachers to reflect on their teaching and then generate feedback for the improvement of their classroom practices. This study examined how in-service English teachers in a MA Linguistics program at a US Mid-Western University perceived the influence of reflective journals toward their teaching attitudes. At the time of the research, participants were 25 years of age or older. The findings generated from interviews indicated that most participants were convinced that reflective journals help them become reflective teachers. It also found that most in-service teachers regard reflective journals as an effective tool to increase teaching awareness, and thus improve their performance during teaching.     

Writing the (researcher) self: reflective practice and undergraduate research

This paper discusses the way in which postmodern emergence was used to assist a group of undergraduate students come to new understandings of research practice as they participated in a reflective component of an Undergraduate Research Summer School. Students were encouraged to ‘write the (researcher) self’ through a collaborative writing group based on the theoretical and pedagogical work of Somerville. Postmodern emergence highlights three stages of learning; firstly, assigning time for wondering, then a liminal space for becoming and finally an opportunity for generating new knowledge. This article is both the tangible product of this emergence reflective writing process and a recommendation about the capacity of undergraduate students to engage with their own professionalisation and meaning-making.     

Supporting the wellbeing of inner-city middle-school students through mindful and creative reflective activities

Inner-city middle-school students encounter many intersections of the social determinants of health, while expected to learn and to excel academically. However, they lack skills to deal with stress, anger, frustration and sadness, often associated with their social context. To support student wellbeing, we developed a 7-week, 1-hour-session program, which took place during regular class time. Through use of creative reflective activities, namely, Schwind’s Narrative Reflective Process and mindfulness, students learned skills that help support their social and academic wellbeing. Student feedback reveals that creative reflective activities and mindfulness helped foster their inter-intra personal skills in class, enhancing their learning experiences.     

Pretending to be authentic: challenges for students when reflective writing about their childhood for assessment

Critical reflection potentially allows social work and human service (SWHS) students to understand how past experiences can shape their future practice. This study of 20 Australian undergraduate SWHS students with a history of childhood adversity found reflective writing for this purpose was not a useful pedagogical practice. Rather than developing skills in critical reflection students found the task performative, linked to academic requirements, where they needed to display emotional containment. Consequently, SWHS academics need to examine reflective writing about childhood adversity for assessment as this process may not enable students to build skills in critical reflection that drive professional development.     

Development of the reflective practice questionnaire: preliminary findings

This study introduces a new reflective practice questionnaire (RPQ) that can be used to assess self-reported measures for investigating the experiences, benefits, and potential pitfalls of reflective practice and reflective supervision. This questionnaire sets itself apart from previous self-report measures of reflective practice by the ability to administer to individuals working in any service industry (e.g. psychology, nursing, education, and others). This will allow for future investigations that can compare and contrast across different contexts and professions. This will further the understanding of how reflective practice impacts those engaged with the process. The present study provides preliminary evaluation of the questionnaire with samples from the general public (Study 1), and mental health practitioners (Study 2). The questionnaire includes a number of short four-item sub-scales for evaluating reflective practice including: reflective-inaction; reflective-on-action; reflective with others self-appraisal; desire for improvement; confidence (general); confidence (communication); uncertainty; stress interacting with clients; and job satisfaction. A six-item attitude towards reflective supervision scale is also included in the research. Results suggest that reflective practice can foster confidence and further a desire for self-improvement. However, results also indicate how reflective practice might increase uncertainty and stress in some individuals. Study 2 reveals that a more positive appraisal of reflective supervision is associated with greater selfreported reflection, desire for improvement, and confidence.     

Challenges affecting the development of metalearning capacity in Taiwanese secondary school students

This paper examines the challenges faced in the Taiwanese secondary school context during the development of the students’ metalearning capacity. During two rounds of action research over the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 school years, 12 and 15 10th grade students respectively took full part in a metalearning programme as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) elective course. The students’ reflective journals and interview responses were qualitatively examined through content analysis. The results showed that despite the effects of the programme on the students’ development of metalearning capacity, challenges remained, including (1) the cultural norms in education; (2) scaffolding difficulties; (3) assessment of reflection; and (4) linguistic challenges.     

Developing a reflective practice model for engineering leadership

This paper advances discourse pertaining to the development of a reflective practice model in engineering leadership. It is based on reflective experiences over a four-year period that were developed as part of a Doctoral in Business Administration module. It is contextualised within an engineering consultancy and the narrative is described from an Engineering Leadership perspective; the narrative is also woven with theory and there is the inclusion of a DBA Practitioner lens on the findings. The paper identifies the model developed for reflective practice and presents evidence of personal learning and thinking styles as its outcome. The paper concludes that reflective practice is a personal journey of learning and that model development is a choice of what suits the individual.     

The staying power of intercultural learning through reflective inquiry

This paper focuses on the staying power of intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes for adult students who were engaged in reflective inquiry during a travel course. It addresses a need to assess whether new learning gained from reflection on experience persists over time and what factors may influence staying power. The main finding of the study is that intercultural competence developed through reflective inquiry is maintained and often deepened over time. This builds upon previous findings that skills and characteristics of effective intercultural interaction are advanced through using reflective inquiry to analyze observations and resolve puzzling problems triggered by uncertainty. The context for this qualitative inquiry is with undergraduate adult students participating in a travel course designed to develop intercultural competence. They responded to reflective prompts throughout the course and 18 months after completion. Cases are presented that analyze course and post-course responses. I conclude that the intersection of reflective inquiry and intercultural competence frameworks can influence the ongoing persistence of learning over time.     

Letter writing as a reflective practice: understanding the shuffling,shifting, and shaping of a researcher identity

This article presents letter writing as a form of arts-based inquiry and reflective practice. The author argues that letter writing can be employed to develop a reflective space for autobiographical reflection. The letter featured here captures and demonstrates the shuffling, shifting, and shaping processes of the author’s researcher identity through letter writing, and is informed by the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice. It records and investigates the experiences that the author underwent during a compulsory course in the first year of a doctoral program at a North American university. Three interrelated themes are identified in the letter: the researcher identity in crisis, the nature of research, and future researcher identity. It is concluded that letter writing can facilitate the self-evolution, self-introspection, self-awareness, and identity change that emerges with, and through, reflection. Letter writing as a reflective practice offers the benefits of developing self-knowledge, independent thought, critical thinking, and deconstructive understanding of one’s experiences.     

The impact of reflective practice in a university language class

This study by a university professor of foreign language examines what impact reflective practice has on students’ overall performance in a university language class. The findings support that reflective practice has a positive impact on students’ performance and their own role in learning. The intertwining nature of reflection in all contexts of learning processes strengthens instructional practices which students favorably described throughout this study.     

Reflective boot camp: adapting LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in higher education

This qualitative study investigates the experiences of using an adaptation of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® as a reflective practice pedagogy with occupational therapy graduate-level students and faculty. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is an innovative facilitated methodology that uses brick-building and metaphoric storytelling as a form of communication and problem-solving. Participants engaged in a four-step kinesthetic experience as a means to achieve a serious objective. Results of the study indicated affirmative participant outcomes that included: accelerated group cohesion; an appreciation for inclusive learning where student voice was amplified; a language for emotional content and deeper meaning-making; and an experiential process using materials that appealed to various learning styles. A small number of participants experienced minor tension with the process provoking unanticipated reflective learning. The results of this study indicate that using the kinesthetic brick modeling methodology for reflective practice is a promising higher education pedagogical option.     

Integrating reflective activities in eportfolios to support the development of abilities in self-managed experiential learning

This article presents the case for self-managing and self-regulating learners to link their various forms of reflection explicitly, and to do so within an ePortfolio, in order to support the development of higher-level abilities such as problem-solving, critiquing, decision-making, empathising and resolving conflicts. It explores the reflective options for self-managed experiential learning, and concentrates upon what three forms of reflection (reflection-for, -on- and in-action) entail, and could contribute to learning and development. It also addresses how linking previous reflections (composted reflections) can contribute to the development of higher-level abilities. An ePortfolio is taken as a natural and effective location for this integration. Guidance is offered, requiring modest tutorial activity to generate and maintain learner involvement in the development of linked reflections in a learner’s assorted records and reflections housed in an ePortfolio. Suggestions for gathering learner constructive feedback on such initiatives are included.     

Sailing through social LA GRRAACCEESS: tool for deconstructing and facilitating reflective and reflexive practice

Reflective and reflexive practice has become an integral component of practitioner professional training, particularly within professions associated with psychology and nursing. One way of facilitating reflective and reflexive practice is to integrate sensitivity of social interrelated constructs and social differences in relation to Gender, Race, Religion, Age, Abilities, Class, Culture, Ethnicity, Education, Sexual orientation and Spirituality as outlined in the GRRAACCEESS acronym. Inspired from the eighteen-century sailing vessel replica ‘La Grace’, this paper extends Burnham’s original GRRAACCEESS acronym by adding ‘Language’ and ‘Anatomy’ to form the ‘LA GRRAACCEESS’ model. This paper explores the merits and implications of the LA GRRAACCEESS model in order to assist practitioners with unravelling or deconstructing reflective practice and encourage ongoing mindful reflective practice.     

Where’s the GPS? navigating treatment with co-existing problems. A reflective journey amongst graduate practitioners

This paper examines reflective portfolios of graduate students studying co-existing problems (CEP) within an alcohol and drug studies programme in New Zealand. The methodology employs Todd’s principles of treating co-existing disorders (culture, management, engagement, assessment, integrated care, well-being and management). The metaphor, a GPS, is employed in the title to describe how Todd’s principles are used as a GPS to help navigate the murky waters of working with this specialised client population. The principles, allocated as themes within the portfolios, highlight how these principles are reflected upon within their workplace. Culture and engagement principles were the most endorsed themes within the portfolios. The reflective portfolios also allowed us to reflect upon the ongoing process of curriculum development for this specialised client population.     

Introducing dental students to reflective practice: a dental educator’s reflections

There is growing consensus that being reflective and developing reflective practice is an important part of becoming a healthcare professional, adding to and enhancing our everyday professional values, knowledge and skills. For dentists, reflective practice is an essential part of dental training and professional development with dental undergraduate curricula creating and scaffolding opportunities for students to be reflective and develop reflective writing skills. This article describes the introduction of a reflective portfolio to the undergraduate Bachelor of Dental Science (BDS) programme at the University of Bristol. This will be followed by the author sharing some personal reflections, as the faculty member overseeing the assessment of these reflective portfolios, on the first year of this initiative. Lessons learned from the exercise as well as areas for future work and improvement will also be mentioned.     

The evolution of epistemology and concepts in an iterative-generative reflective practice: the importance of small differences

Using a contextualist epistemology, it would be expected that regional differences in community psychology would develop over time. It is argued that the epistemology and theory of Western Australian community psychology, while largely based on North American approaches, has developed its own idiosyncracies. These developed through the integration of practice and theory in an iterative-generative fashion. The process of development is conceptualized in terms of Schön's and Altman's distinctions between foundational knowledge, and professional and socially responsive knowledge (I. Altman, 1996; D. A. Schön, 1983). It has also been characterized as an incremental development based on the reflection on tacit and conceptual knowledge. From the small differences that have developed between regions, a dialogue can emerge that will better allow understanding of how social forces shape people's actions.