Abstract:

With this research we aim to analyze the relationship between the written production of digital teacher diaries and the reflexive practice of teaching. To do so we will study the diaries of six teachers of various teaching grades and of several schools, analyzing in what way their writing induces reflexive and self-supervision habits on their practices. These teachers are all in different stages of their profession, which will allow us to analyze the impact of the writing of the teacher diaries along these different stages, and be able to see their reaction to what they write, in this kind of learning with themselves along their professional lifetime. The diaries were written using freeware resources, available to anyone who uses the internet, which give the advantage to its writers, to be able to update them anywhere at any time. We also aim to discover what are the aspects that favor, or otherwise, are an obstacle to the writing of these diaries.

A qualitative approach is inherent to this investigation, based on the content analyses over the data collected through the digital teacher diaries produced, but also through semi-structured interviews with the actors in the production of the digital teacher diaries, as well as through the investigators narrative, aiming to analyze, through the data collected, the teacher diaries as instruments to promote the teacher’s reflection.

The results analyzed so far, reveal an intimate relation between the writing of these digital diaries and a bigger predisposition to reflect and analyze their own educational practices. With this in mind, we see the digital diaries as powerful tools at the grasp of teachers worldwide, to help them become more reflexive about their practices, which in the end, will favor a most effective learning by the children, which is our major goal.

We hope that this research will contribute to a greater discussion between the relationship of the instruments to promote teacher’s reflection, in this case the digital teacher diaries, and the reflexive practice of teaching.

Keywords:

Teacher Development, Reflection, Self-supervision, Digital Diaries.