DIVERSE EXPECTATIONS: INTRODUCING NEW PROFESSIONALS
TO REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Andréa Mueller, Assistant Professor in Faculty of Education
Queens University

Framing the Story

This paper presents two sides of a story about reflective practice: one side from the perspective of new professionals (teacher candidates in teacher education program) reflecting on their practices as they prepare to enter the teaching profession; the other side from the perspective of a new teacher educator (Assistant Professor in Faculty of Education) reflecting on her practice. Both teacher educator and teacher candidates reflect on their experiences and they conclude they were not what they had expected. As a beginning teacher educator I did not expect to introduce 27 teacher candidates and eight different associate schools (including administrators and teachers) to reflective practice. At the same time, my teacher candidates did not expect to inquire into how they could improve their teaching practices by conducting action research while on practicum. Nevertheless, listening to both sides of the story illustrates the importance of reflective practice and exposes some tensions and dilemmas in the profession.

The Setting

The Faculty of Education at Queen's University restructured its teacher education program in 1997 in order to emphasize "learning from experience." Ongoing faculty discussions about how to better prepare teacher candidates has created a teacher education program that seeks an interplay between on-campus coursework and school practicum experiences. At the same time, the new teacher education program seeks to underscore connections between theory and professional practice. For example, all teacher candidates are required to conduct an action research investigation inquiring into how to improve their teaching practices. Since the new program identifies learning from experience as important, an action research assignment seemed to complement this emphasis.

All teacher candidates (elementary and secondary) in the Faculty of Education at Queen's are required to enroll in a course entitled Theory and Professional Practice. The stated purpose of this course is to provide teacher candidates with links between the university learning context and the practicum learning context. More specifically, the on-campus component is used to interrogate various approaches to teaching and learning in the profession and to reflect upon their school practicum experiences. The practicum component is the action research investigation into personal practice as a beginning professional. The Queen's program intentionally places teacher candidates at schools in cohorts of 3 to 6 in order to facilitate discussion regarding teaching and learning experiences within the school setting. Sections of the course consist of school groups sharing a Faculty Liaison who visits each school two or three times during the term. Teacher candidates are required to meet formally with their peers in weekly school-based meetings and with their faculty liaison during scheduled visits.

Contexts for Reflective Practice

In my first term of my first year as a teacher educator I was responsible for supervising 27 young professionals in their practicum placements. They were placed in eight different schools, called Associate Schools, approximately 300 km distant from Queen's University. This was my first experience with supervision in schools and my first experience with guiding action research for teacher candidates in schools. Nothing in my doctoral program had prepared me for these experiences, but it was now one of many expectations in my new profession as a teacher educator.

Teacher candidates applied for and gained entry into our teacher education program knowing that they would have extensive practicum experiences. They expected to learn from professionals in schools and they expected to be evaluated for their teaching attempts. Moreover, they expected to be told what they needed to do "to get it right." They had never heard of action research, and they were not prepared to reflect on their practices as beginning professionals or to organize a written report about how they tried to improve their teaching practices. Inevitably, teacher candidates and teacher educator had diverse expectations.

As I reflect back on the structure of a ten-week school practicum in which small cohorts of young professionals have regular opportunities to come together, I see an ideal opportunity for reflective practice. In an attempt to guide these school-based meetings of young professionals a set of questions was provided for weekly discussion (e.g., general questions about curriculum implementation, assessment, legal issues, teaching problems, split grades). In reality, these school meetings were problematic for many teacher candidates and for their associate teachers. Some teacher candidates stated they did not know what to talk about after they answered the weekly questions. Others felt that "it was too difficult to get together at the same time" and that they were "missing valuable class time." Still others felt that this time to talk about their new profession was invaluable. Nevertheless, some experienced professionals in schools perceived this meeting time as "time off" from the profession and resented young professionals taking time away from the classroom. Now I wonder what direction I might have provided to young professionals and to school professionals about this meeting time. How might I have introduced the importance of reflective practice to both groups of professionals?

This missed opportunity to explicitly identify the significance of reflective practice has taught me something as a beginning teacher educator. It was extremely important to help teacher candidates understand why they were assigned five hours each week during their practicum to discuss issues of teaching and learning. Yet, as a beginning teacher educator in a new teacher education program structure, I had not yet internalized or experienced how this time might best be used. Moreover, these young professionals needed more contact and supervision regarding how to structure this time together. Through my supervision visits I learned that many teacher candidates had no idea how to begin this conversation. It was also important to directly involve professionals in schools so that they might experience the import of this time for young professionals. In some schools, administrators and teachers occasionally participated in these weekly meetings and the new teachers reported that these contributions from the teaching profession were invaluable.

What is it? Why do it? Do teachers do action research? When? How can we do it? What will our data be? How will we prove this? How will I know something changed? But these are just our own observations; our thoughts; our reflections. Who will believe us? Don't good teachers do this all the time? This isn't very scientific/objective is it?

The above questions represent a collection of issues raised about action research by a group of 27 teacher candidates in their Theory and Professional Practice course during the 1998-1999 year. How could I help these young professionals see that their own observations, thoughts, and reflections were critically important in their professional development? How could I guide them to learn from engaging in reflective practices?

Supervising and providing guidance for the action research component of the course was one of the most significant learning and teaching experiences I had as a new teacher educator. Each young professional required unique attention to his or her problems. Through continuous reflection-in-action (Schon, 1983) I constructed my responses using my background as a professional teacher. When I read their final action research assignments, I knew these beginning professionals had struggled significantly and productively with how to improve their own practice. And, this struggle is a salient experience for beginning educators as they realize that learning to teach will need to be part of their ongoing professional development (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Ontario College of Teachers, 1999). Put another way, teacher candidates come to recognize that there is no one right way to teach and that their profession demands continuous reflection. These young professionals experienced firsthand what it means to reflect on and take steps to improve their practices.

Young professionals ask, "How can I improve my practice?"

Listen to this report from one young professional Imagine the context. Listen to her observations and reflections as a beginning teacher thinking about learning to teach.

Brief quotes from one teacher candidate's action research assignment illustrate the nature of her responses to the six steps outlined for the action research assignment. The research assignment was to be 8-12 pages in length with additional appendices for data samples. Listed below are direct quotations from the six-step sequence outlined in the course's action research manual. All quotes are from one assignment (Gilbert, 1999) in order to provide a coherent sense of individual development.

Step 1: Where do you start? Focusing your inquiry
The school where I am teaching is located in a nice, middle class neighbourhood. Neatly trimmed lawns and beautiful gardens surround well-kept houses with nice cars parked in the driveways. But the children who attend the school don't live in those houses. They come from apartment buildings on major streets that border the subdivision where the school is located. Most of my students are recent immigrants to Canada. Their families are quite poor. As a result, many live in cramped quarters, and do not eat a healthy well-balanced diet. Lack of money, cultural differences and language barriers all contribute to stress at home. When the students walk through the middle class neighbourhood on their way to school each day, they bring these stresses with them.

Step 2: Formulating a question (identifying a topic)
Some of the classrooms I have seen in the school (Grade 6/7/8) have the appearance of well-managed classrooms. Rules are strictly enforced. Students are constantly directed and redirected. No noise is tolerated. The children give the appearance of learning ... This is not the kind of learning I want to be happening in my classroom. I want my students to want to learn for their own satisfaction and pleasure. ... I want to plant in my students a love of learning that will continue to grow throughout their lives. So my (action research) question is, What can I do to effect change in students' negative attitudes towards school and learning?

Step 3: Review of literature and resources related to resource question
Early on in my research for this action research project, I came across a paper by Alfie Kohn called, "Discipline is the problem--Not the solution." In his paper, Kohn presents the two-sided notion that teachers can manage kids' behaviour and try to control it with discipline, or they can motivate children to work hard and learn ... After weaving my way through piles of paperwork, watching videos and reviewing reams of old seminar notes, I finally came across some research done by teachers at a middle school in Florida. These teachers implemented a system of immediate feedback. ... Reading the reports of students and teachers involved in this research, it struck me that a system like this might be just what I need to encourage my students to take a personal interest in their schooling, and to motivate them to try and work hard and work at their studies. It is certainly worth a try!

Step 4: Collecting relevant data & ethical issues
Once I had determined what changes I wanted to make in my classroom, and had researched some of the theoretical background behind the issue of motivation, I was ready to proceed with the actual research. The first thing I did was to decide how I was going to collect information in such a way that I could demonstrate change--or the lack of it--to myself and others in a convincing way. I considered each of the changes I wanted to make in my classroom, and decided on a way to test its effects in my classroom.

Step 5: Analyzing and interpreting the data
After collecting and analyzing the students' writing assignments, I was able to identify things, in their own minds, that were highly motivating to students (see appendices A and B for pieces of sample writing and summaries of the children's responses). ... In the immediate feedback program, the students appeared to be more comfortable with the log sheets. They marked themselves even without being reminded. Generally, their marks became much more reflective of their actual achievement levels after I gave them the prototypes as examples. The classroom environment improved in that students began their work immediately upon receiving an assignment, and worked consistently to get it finished in the time allotted. Most students seemed much more concerned about getting their work completed, and several who had never done so before (according to my associate teacher) came for extra help or to finish work after school.

Step 6: Reporting results
... In conclusion, I have to say that I learned a great deal, but there is a great deal more I want to know. I want to continue using positive reinforcement with kids who dislike themselves, to see if I can eventually make them see that I believe in them; that they can believe in themselves. I also want to figure out how to get kids more involved in their own learning, and how to involve them in decisions about learning. Lastly, I want to use log sheets over a longer period of time, and follow their long-term effects in the classroom. To sum it up succinctly: I have a whole bunch of new questions!

These excerpts from one teacher candidate's action research assignment express a thoughtful reflective approach to teaching and learning. Specifically, her report reveals attention to the following issues: the social context of schooling, various interpretations of learning, current research findings, researching her own practice, and further interests in learning about how to teach. These are admirable and desirable qualities in a young professional who is just beginning to teach. Although each teacher candidate reported different findings, all 27 candidates demonstrated how their action research connected to current research and all 27 candidates reflected critically on their teaching practices.

The following action research questions provide an overview of the issues identified by teacher candidates in this class. I grouped teacher candidates' final action research questions under the following categories (three sample questions from each category):

I - Classroom management/teaching practices (10 of 27 questions)

• How can I quickly and effectively get the children's attention?
• How can I facilitate active listening of students in a Grade 2 class?
• How can I improve my teaching practice by using positive reinforcement strategies?

II - Social and emotional needs of students (8 of 27 questions)

• How can I help improve playground/classroom interaction between students, in order to avoid bullying, teasing, fighting, etc.?
• How can I create a class that works co-operatively and assists one another?
• What can I do to effect change in students' negative attitudes towards school and learning?

III - Individual student or individual population focus (6 of 27 questions)

• How can I modify my programming and teaching to better meet the needs of my E.S.L. students?
• How can I accommodate the needs of gifted or talented students in my inclusive classroom?
• How can I meet the varying needs of children in a segregated classroom?

IV - Academic organization/teaching goals (3 of 27 questions)

• How can I help the students improve their critical thinking skills?
• Will integration allow me to cover more of the curriculum while maintaining a high level of academic standard?
• How can I most effectively teach to the different levels within my class without leaving certain students behind or holding others back?
   
  The range of questions teacher candidates chose to pursue reflects their genuine interest in learning to teach as well as their recognition of the complexities of learning to teach.

Learning from reflections on practice

Providing guidance for teacher candidates about how to reflect on improving their teaching practices was a powerful learning experience for me as a new teacher educator. Even though an extensive manual existed for teacher candidates and for faculty liaisons to follow, I learned it was anything but a recipe to follow. More importantly, I now recognize that it would be impossible to "follow a document" on how to supervise reflective practice. As Schon (1983) points out, many professionals know much more than they are able to communicate about their profession. Many teacher candidates felt overwhelmed with the task of reflecting on their teaching practices. And, I too was overwhelmed as I attempted to address their diverse expectations and queries about reflective practices.

It was incredibly challenging to assist 27 teacher candidates learn about their roles as young professionals. In particular, I found it difficult to adequately supervise them when they were located in eight different schools in a large city 300 km away from campus. However, placing teacher candidates in small cohorts at each school did provide them with an opportunity to regularly discuss issues of concern in their practices. Ultimately, all eight cohorts formed an action research support group and shared their methods of data collection and recording. Unquestionably, navigating the action research experiences prompted closer attention to teaching and learning practices for young professionals and challenged me to find ways to support their reflective practices.

From my perspective, the two most critical learning events on campus occurred when teacher candidates sat in small groups sharing their thinking and their queries. This form of collaboration strongly supports Vygotsky's (1978) well-known definition of learning as the social construction of knowledge. Further to this, Caplow and Kardash (1995) remind us that one of the characteristics of collaborative learning is the "view that knowledge is not transferred from expert to learner, but created and located in the learning environment" (p.209). This collaborative learning environment appeared to be critical for teacher candidates' learning. In the beginning, teacher candidates placed their initial questions on the triple blackboard at the front of the classroom for all to read. As they read through peers' questions, I heard comments such as "that's a great idea" and "that's very similar to my question" and "I really want to discuss this." Similarly, toward the end of the course, candidates gathered and shared their action research data collection and experiences with each other. By listening to young professionals in each group for short periods of time, I realized how intensely they discussed issues of teaching and learning. In my new profession as a teacher educator I am convinced that creating opportunities for reflective practice should be a vital part of all teacher education programs.

Undoubtedly, conducting an action research project, writing a report, and presenting findings to a group of peers presented a challenge for most teacher candidates. However, in my reading and assessing all 27 reports, I am convinced that this struggle was a unique opportunity for these young professionals. For instance, teacher candidates developed a critical eye towards issues in schools, as well as an awareness of how pivotal their roles as teachers will be. They asked questions about teaching and learning that challenge professionals currently in the field. These new teacher candidates can infuse a critical dimension into the teaching profession as they learn to interrogate their own teaching practices. Comments from three teacher candidates in my course illustrate how they perceived the action research assignment after completion.

"Doing this Action Research project has taught me a lot. I have learned that a positive atmosphere allows for positive interactions and situations in the classroom. As well, I have learned a lot from sharing insights with my colleagues. Hearing what other people have done to alter their practice, who were dealing with similar situations, was extremely informative. I have come away from this learning that one question does not equal one answer. I have also been made aware of the different situations that may arise in any of my future classrooms and I have learned about the many different and creative ways to tackle them. I look forward to continuing Action Research practices in my future classrooms. Whether they will be written or informal, I will always look to ways to alter and improve my teaching" (Feldberg, 1999).

"Of course there is a time and place for all methods of teaching. There may be situations in which lecturing, or negative reinforcement are necessary, yet this research (my research) shows that in most cases there are much more effective methods that can be used. This (action research) project has shown me that with patience and practice one really can make the learning environment a positive experience for everyone, even with a difficult class. With a little creativity, something as basic as capturing a child's attention no longer needs to frustrate the teacher and can truly become fun" (Strobele, 1999).
"I feel that I gained a great deal from completing this action research project. Although I am unsure of whether or not my students gained any long-term benefits from my 'thinking' lessons, I am positive that they enjoyed them. ... As a result of this project, my views on teaching strategies have changed substantially. I feel that it has made me a better teacher. I now feel more aware of the activities that interest children and how I can help them to increase their thinking skills, which are vitally important throughout life. I will not fall into the 'trap' of handing out endless worksheets" (Graham, 1999).

Continuous Reflection

This paper provides a snapshot of how a new teacher educator and the young professionals she supervised engaged in reflective practices. Specifically, it addresses the ways in which reflection plays a significant role in the teaching profession and on how it might be learned most meaningfully. When young professionals ask "what do you mean 'reflect on my practice'?" it is critical that they be given opportunities to actually experience reflective practice, rather than be told that it is important. Similarly, if reflective practice is to be valued in the teaching profession generally, then it is absolutely vital that initiatives in teacher education programs be communicated to professionals in schools. This communication to current professionals also implies not simply telling, but creating and sustaining opportunities for experiencing the power of learning from reflective practice. Learning to teach may begin in teacher education programs, but it remains an important component over a teacher's professional life span (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999).

Upon reflection, I have only just begun to learn about how to introduce young professionals and experienced professionals to reflective practice. After my first year experiences as a teacher educator, I can now build on what I have learned to improve my practice. Examples of how young professionals attend to their teaching practice will be used to illustrate the significance of reflective practices for both beginning and experienced professionals. Moreover, the weekly school-based meetings can be organized so that both groups of professionals participate and learn from each other's discussions about their teaching practices. In addition, I plan to work closely with a small group of teacher educator colleagues in order to reflect together about how to create the best learning experiences possible for our young professionals. Although we did meet as a large group (25 +) throughout the year, it was not conducive to sharing the detail of our practice and its changes. In the end, I will remember to listen to both beginning professionals and experienced professionals in the field as I develop mindful ways to reflect-in-action.

References

Caplow, J. & Kardash, C. (1995). Collaborative learning activities in graduate courses. Innovative Higher Education, 19, 3, 207-221.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1999). The teacher research movement: A decade later. Educational Researcher, 28, 7,15-25.

Feldberg, J. (1999). Little changes that make big differences. Action Research Assignment, Queen's University, Kingston, ON: Author.

Gilbert, K. (1999). What can I do to effect change in students' negative attitudes towards school and learning? Action Research Assignment, Queen's University, Kingston, ON: Author.

Graham, C. (1999). How can I help the students improve their critical thinking skills? Action Research Assignment, Queen's University, Kingston, ON: Author.

McNiff, J. (1998). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new action researchers. Mississauga, ON: Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation.

Ontario College of Teachers. (1999). Standards of practice for the teaching profession. Toronto: Author.

Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books Inc.

Strobele, E. (1999). Action research assignment. Action Research Assignment, Queen's University, Kingston, ON: Author.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Welch, M. (1998). Action research assignment. Queen's University, Kingston, ON: Author.

Bibiographical Note:

Andréa Mueller is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, where her teaching responsibilities include pre-service courses in elementary science & technology and in theory and professional practice, as well as curriculum courses in the graduate program. Her research interests include action research, science & technology education, teaching and learning, and the professional development of teachers.

Andréa Mueller,PhD
Queen's University,
Faculty of Education,
Duncan McArthur Hall, A-315,
Kingston, Ontario,
Canada. K7L 3N6
Email: muellera@educ.queensu.ca
Fax: 613 533-6584