Private blog reflections connecting course content with field experiences: preservice teachers grapple with teacher identity

A challenge experienced within teacher preparation programs is the ability to help preservice teachers connect educational theory with teaching practice. Guided by Dewey's phases of reflective thinking and Schön’s reflection on action as an ethic for inquiry, we embedded a systematic reflection of written responses, recorded in a private weblog over the course of a 15-week intermediate reading methods course. Inductive thematic analysis of responses revealed the following themes: visceral thought, vulnerability, interpretation of course content, and identity formation toward becoming a classroom teacher. Our findings exemplify how systematic reflection in a private digital space contributed to the development of preservice teachers’ professional identities.     

Rumination,emotional intensity and emotional clarity

It has been suggested that a high tendency to ruminate presents a deficient emotion regulation. Past research found that people with high tendency to ruminate show sustained attention for negative stimuli and increased negative thinking, which may result in intensified experiences of negative emotions. Moreover, high level of rumination was associated with low emotional understanding. Accordingly, we hypothesized (1) high ruminators (HR) experience more intense emotional reactions than low ruminators (LR) for negative but not positive emotions, (2) LR have higher emotional clarity than HR, and (3) there would be the same pattern of results for brooding but not for reflective pondering. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a rumination response style questionnaire, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II. They also rated emotional intensity and identified emotion type for scene pictures from the CAP-D (Categorized Affective Pictures Database). The highest (HR) and lowest (LR) quarters of ruminators were compared on levels of emotional intensity and emotional clarity. We found HR experienced negative emotions more intensely than LR, with no difference for positive emotions. In contrast to our hypothesis, the two groups did not differ in their emotion understanding. This pattern of results was found for brooding but not for reflective pondering. Our research sheds light on the mechanism underlying rumination and emotion regulation.     

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.     

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.     

Reflecting on being an effective teacher in an age of measurement

This reflective study examines what effective means in terms of teaching in secondary schools in England. The article questions whether quality assurance and observations produce better teachers or better ‘fabricators’. The study explores the pressures of performativity and the resulting fabrication: the ‘ticking of boxes’ in order to be classed as ‘outstanding’ and ‘effective’. A journey to recapture the pleasure in teaching and learning through reflective diaries will be considered. Here the process leads to the outcome without an overemphasis on assessment criteria and performativity or extrinsic motivators which can counter intrinsic motivation and professional judgement.     

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.     

Pedagogical imagination and practical wisdom: the role of success-narratives in teacher education and professional development

There is an increasing awareness that teaching is a practice where moral action is inseparable from pedagogical action, and where wise deliberation or reflection on what course of action to take as an educator is an important part of being a good teacher. This article focuses on rethinking the role of narratives as an articulation of such practical knowledge and the enrichment they might bring to a teacher’s pedagogical imagination. Working within a conceptual framework drawing on Schön and Aristotle, the study presents a group of narratives describing successful conflict resolution told by students at a newly launched teacher education program. These are discussed as part of a teachers practice repertoire and the argument is made that the local and personal repertoires of practitioners need to be complemented with elements from the repertoire of others, something systematic research into narratives of teaching in action can be part of.     

Reflecting on a journey of resilience in children’s blood and cancer nursing

Reflective practice is recognised as an integral part of being a highly skilled and successful health care professional. Many benefits have been identified from being a reflective practitioner including the opportunity for critical thinking, growing self-awareness and supporting individual resilience. There is a growing body of literature recognising the negative emotional impact that caring for children with cancer and blood disorders can have on health professionals. Currently there is an emerging interest in a more strengths-based approach focused on maintaining staff wellbeing. Resilience has been suggested as a framework for coping and maintaining wellbeing in areas, like children’s oncology and has been used as a term to describe the ‘surviving’ health professional. This paper explores the first author’s (GA) experiences of being a children’s oncology nurse and paediatric palliative care nurse specialist in the context of existing empirical and theoretical literature, with a particular focus on how GA developed resilience. Reflective examples of practice are used within the context of themes identified from a recent literature review exploring how resilience is defined within empirical literature.