Baring one’s soul, online: can it be good for trainee teachers?

Presenter: Philip Saxon

(Corvinus University)

Reflective Practice?

Teacher training?

1) Introduction

Short courses for language teachers typically involve observed teaching practice.

The feedback on this is valuable but the process can easily be rushed. Often trainees complain about lacking time to reflect.

So what if reflecting online – and openly – offers a solution to this problem? Let’s see.

Contents

1) Introduction

2) Reflection: what is it?

3) Rationale

4) The study

5) Results

6) Analysis

7) Conclusions

2) Reflection: what is it?

True reflection involves a critical examination of our assumptions (Dewey 1910:6).

We are prompted to reflect when real life does not conform to our expectations. We are confronted by a dilemma or “forked road” situation (ibid. 1910:11).

What happens when we reflect?

If we want to solve the problem, we have to take a step back and examine our assumptions. Were we on the wrong track?

A critical incident could be a learning opportunity. We need to ask questions of ourselves and our students.

Feedback can validate or disprove our hypotheses, and give us a basis for action. We are not alone (Farrell 2008).

If the action we take works, we adopt it as personal knowledge (Dewey 1910, cited by Roberts 1998:48).

Learning from experience?

Kolb (1984)

Not entirely!

In truth, we often “learn” from our perceptions of experience (Moon 1999:32).

Trainers must therefore draw trainees’ attention to what is most salient!

That’s why scaffolding, and structured questioning are so important.

(Usher 1985, cited by Moon 1999:33-4).

3) Rationale

So why go online?

And why ask trainees to “bare their souls” in front of peers? Won’t they feel EXPOSED?

Good questions – but I had my reasons…

Openness can lead to growth!

Face-to-face: obvious merits?

It can be good to talk!

And mutual support is commendable.

And afterwards?

Individuals may take things further privately.

(Mann & Walsh 2011)

But let’s not disrespect online!

It has certain advantages:– 24/7 availability = flexibility.– Take your time! No-one minds.– Post any time! No permission required.– No faces = no face issues! It’s SAFER for some.– Want to edit? Fine. Want a record? You got it.– Considered, constructive feedback? Students love

that.

(Salmon 2011:15-16).

Time to investigate!

An ePortfolio approach can scaffold reflection, it seems (Kurtoğlu-Hooton 2013). But is privacy paramount?

What if students saw benefits to openness? I wanted to see for myself!

4) The study

Participants: 15 trainee English language teachers from Japan.

Their task: to reflect on their practice experiences of teaching Japanese to secondary school pupils over a six-week period.

The learners: these were drawn from years 7, 8 and 9 of a secondary school in Coventry, UK.

The online platform: Edmodo (a virtual learning environment).

Triangulation: Focus group interviews were scheduled to take place once the teaching practice phase was over.

Project start-upParticipants were first introduced to reflective practice. They were told that for Dewey, reflective people have three attributes:

• Open-mindedness• Responsibility• Whole-heartedness

(Farrell 2008:2)

All 15 participants afterwards signed the ethics forms and we were off!

Project schedule

Date Activity

30 May Presentation: Reflective Practice

Post 1: Settling In

6 June Post 2: The learner experience

15 June Post 3: Implementing activities (1)

28 June Post 4: Implementing activities (2)

1 July Presentation: Classroom Management

2 July Post 5: Classroom Management

11 July Focus group interviews

18 July Interview with course organiser

Structured questions

Each week, I posed a different set of structured questions on Edmodo.

These aimed to elicit a personal response...

...as well as to scaffold reflection by gradually encouraging greater specificity.

Focus Groups

Participants were divided into three groups for this. 14 out of 15 students were available on the day.

Sessions each lasted 20 minutes. Discussions were recorded.

5) Results: Motivation

9 students completed all five posts. Four were keen, regularly posting first!

Of the other six, four failed to post more than once – they were not so keen.

Results: Levels of Reflection

Hatton & Smith (1995, cited by Moon 2006:40) have a scale for this:• Level 1 – Description (essentially non-reflective)• Level 2 – Descriptive Reflection (mostly only from one perspective)• Level 3 – Dialogic Reflection (engages other perspectives)• Level 4 – Critical Reflection (socio-political context is considered)

12 out of 15 students achieved only levels 1 and 2.

3 students achieved level 3 (only one was consistent).

No one achieved level 4 – but this was not expected!

Results: focus group feedback

“Culture shock” and personal language anxiety lessened (Q1).Critical, objective thinking was supported (Q2).They were helped to “take care of each other” (Q3).They became aware of alternative possibilities (Q4).It became easier to discuss problems with peers/UK teachers (Q4).“Sharing” reflections on Edmodo was no embarrassment (Q5).They could respond in their own time, in a considered way (Q6).

13 out of 14 participants strongly approved of using Edmodo for reflection.

Course organizer’s view (1)

Did discussions about teaching practice continue, post-online feedback?

•Not so much – but the whole Edmodo experience was “very new to students from this particular cultural background. Talking openly about failures isn’t too common in Japan”.•Face-to-face discussions were rather general, and “not too specific or personal”. Maybe some trainees became more open, but for openness to become classroom-wide “would require a much longer period of blended learning”.

Course organizer’s view (2)

Would you do it again? What is your overall evaluation?

•Definitely! It makes reflection so much easier.•You have more control as a trainer, too!•People can participate in their own time and at their own pace. Lurking is still okay. Asynchronicity is a virtue.•The project enriched the course – everyone benefited.•Openness and safety – Edmodo achieves the perfect balance.

6) Analysis

Strong endorsement of “sharing” = a significant finding!

Participants saw community benefits to openness.

The method was also viewed as time-efficient and effective!

Peer accounts were seen as reassuring – and this made it easier for motivated participants to self-disclose.

These appear to be powerful findings.

7) Conclusion (1)

Better methods might have yielded greater depth of reflection:•Routinely asking what could be done better as a final structured question might have achieved results.•Face-to-face, whole-class feedback responding to posts collectively might also serve a useful purpose.

A more tightly integrated “blend” of online and face-to-face training might just yield optimal results.

Conclusion (2)The project lasted only six weeks – we saw only limited gains in reflective depth! Did the students just need more time?

Maybe. Individual journals kept over an extended period in the past have achieved this (Samuels & Betts 2007; Harland & Wondra 2011).

However, whether a spirit of “community reflection” could be sustained this long is open to question.

Also, Japanese are very community-oriented. Would students from more individualistic cultures feel the same way about openness?

Doubts persist: but the methods used here are surely relevant to short courses everywhere. The case for further research appears strong.

References (1)Dewey, J. (1910). How We Think. London: D.C.Heath & Company.Farrell, T. (2008). Reflective Language Teaching: From Research To Practice. London: Continuum.Harland, D.J. & Wondra, J.D. (2011). Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on Clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments. In: Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, Vol. 27 No. 4: International Society for Technology in Education, 2011.Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Kurtoğlu-Hooton (2013). Providing the “spark” for reflection from a digital platform. In: Edge, J. & Mann, S. (eds.) Innovations in Pre-Service Education and Training for English Language Teachers. British Council 2013.

References (2)Mann, S. & Walsh, S. (2011). Shaping Reflective Tools To Context. Paper

presented at the Reflection in the Round: Discourses and Practices of Reflection at the BAAL/CUP seminar (Oxford Brookes University). Available online at https://wiki.brookes.ac.uk/display/RIR/June+24+BAAL_CUP+Seminar.

Moon, J. (1999). Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice. Taylor & Francis.

Moon, J. (2006). Learning Journals: A Handbook for Reflective Practice and Professional Development. Routledge (2nd edition).

Roberts, J. (1998). Language Teacher Education. London: Arnold.Samuels, M. & Betts, J. (2007). Crossing the threshold from description to

deconstruction and reconstruction: using self-assessment to deepen reflection. Reflective Practice 8(2), pp. 269-283.

Salmon, G. (2011). E-Moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online (3rd edition). Routledge.