DEVELOPING REFLECTION FOR PRE-SERVICE AND IN-SERVICE TEACHERS ON ONLINE CONTEXTS

Most of the teachers’ education programs consider reflection as one of the main skills that shall be developed by the future teachers. It is said that the guided and structured reflection has the potential to promote the capacity to constructively criticize their own beliefs and practices in the student teachers. However, if the reflection takes place without the proper orientation, the future teachers might not consider it important and conduct it as a ritual, not taking full advantage of its potential. There are many opportunities and ways to promote reflection but we believe that it is essential to explore those many ways emphasizing the analysis and the questioning on the practices while the interaction among peers, the individual writing and the scaffolding by experienced professionals takes place. The interaction among peers allows the exchange of ideas and opinions that may lead to self-questioning. This process shall be supported by the more experienced professionals. We consider very important that the scaffolding that is provided includes both cognitive and emotional aspects, essential to build strong structured reflections.
The study we here present explores the approach developed within the curricular unit of “Learning Assessment Models” belonging to a course for in-service teachers’ professionalization. The course took place in an online learning environment in the academic year of 2010/2011 and was attended by about 600 student teachers organized in 10 virtual classes. The pedagogical approach included the possibility of participating in various forums of discussion throughout the development of this curricular unit.
In this context, focused on learning, knowledge and assessment, we tried to understand how the student teachers analyze and reflect on their own practices of assessment, understand the way the forums for discussion promoted the sharing of perspectives, professional cultures of assessment and also how assessment tasks and the other mechanisms available were explored by the experienced professionals working in this curricular unit.
By the end of the course, we asked the student teachers to comment on the development of the curricular unit by filling a questionnaire that was available for them online. Through the analyses of this questionnaire we collected the students’ perspectives on the interaction developed with their peers and teachers throughout the semester and also on the development of the proposed assessment tasks.
To organize and analyze the data that was gathered, we used comparative analysis and appreciative inquiry methods and also quantitative analysis for the questionnaire. The results show that the pedagogical approach that was used, particularly the scaffolding that was provided helped the student teachers to organize and articulate a supported discourse of their own practices of assessment. However, the possibility to share their reflections on their own experiences in the forums was not fully explored.