Critical Reflection for Transformative Learning: Understanding e-Portfolios in Teacher Education

✍ Scribed by Katrina Liu

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 153
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book provides a research-based guide to using ePortfolios to develop critically reflective teachers capable of transformative learning for educational equity. It begins with a conceptualization of critical reflection in teacher education, then analyzes the social discourse of prospective teachers' teaching practice through their ePortfolio reflections, triangulated by classroom teaching observations and interviews. The results of the research show that prospective teachers’ reflections are performative and do not typically trigger transformative learning, in large part because of discrepancies in the structures of the ePortfolio, the goals of the teacher education program, and the mentoring and supervisory practices. With this analysis in hand, the book turns to practical questions, providing a transformative framework along with examples and tips for teacher educators to use the author’s methods to understand and analyze prospective teachers’ reflection and support their transformative learning.

✦ Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Reflection and Critical Reflection
1.3 Social Context in Teacher Education
1.4 ePortfolios and Prospective Teacher Reflection
1.5 About the Research
1.6 About this Book
References
Chapter 2: Who Celebrates Kwanzaa? The Struggle for Critical Reflection and Transformative Learning
2.1 Tales of Success: Avoiding Critical Reflection with Positive Description of Technical Procedures
2.2 Absence of Evidence, Not Evidence of Absence
2.3 Critical Reflections Struggle to Emerge
Languages Spoken at Home are Comforts
The Principle of Equity Is What I Strive to Achieve In and Out of My Classroom
2.4 Performative but Not Transformative
Even Johnny, Who Should Not be Included, Worked Well!
I Think That’s Her Culture
2.5 Problematizing the Performance
2.6 Epilogue: Fading Memories
References
Chapter 3: Looking Back on What Was Good and What Was Bad: Prospective Teachers’ Understanding of Critical Reflection
3.1 Looking Back on What Was Good and What Was Bad
3.2 Reflection as an “Assignment Term”
3.3 Where You Go from Here
3.4 Epilogue: The Goal of Preparing Reflective Teachers
References
Chapter 4: It’s Me Doing Work for Someone Else: Prospective Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the ePortfolio Reflection Requirements
4.1 The Place of the ePortfolio in the Teacher Education Program
4.2 We Get Mixed Views
4.3 It’s a Good Form of Accountability
4.4 Epilogue: I Actually Benefit From It
References
Chapter 5: I Want to be Seen as the Best I Can: How the Teacher Education Program Conditions Prospective Teachers’ Reflection Strategies
5.1 Cherry-Picking
5.2 I Know Who My Audience Is
5.3 I Want to be seen as the Best I Can for My Job
5.4 I Present It in the Way to Meet Expectations of the Teacher
5.5 Disjuncture Between Performance and Program Expectations
5.6 Epilogue: The Performance of Reflection
References
Chapter 6: Awesome, Awesome: Missed Opportunities for Transformative Learning
6.1 Awesome, Awesome, You Guys Did a Great Job
6.2 I Don’t Really Have Anything for You to Focus on: Influences by Cooperating Teachers
6.3 I Think We Are Just Similar: Forming Conformity to Defend the “Outsider”
6.4 Teacher Educators Push for Transformative Learning
Transformative Learning Outside of the ePortfolio
Critical Reflection Through Reading and Discussion
6.5 Epilogue: Program Fragmentation and Lack of Support for Teacher Educators
References
Chapter 7: Supporting Prospective Teachers’ Critical Reflection for Transformative Learning
7.1 The Five Factors Affecting Prospective Teachers’ Reflection and Teaching
7.2 A Data-Driven Approach to Teacher Education
Build Consistency Within the Teacher Education Programs
Build Consistency Over the Semesters
Encourage More Faculty Involvement
Restructure the Supervision Model to Support TAs and Supervisors
Strengthen Connections with the Schools and Cooperating Teachers
Facilitate Critical Reflection among Prospective Teachers
Clarify the Concept of Reflective Teaching and Critical Reflection
Emphasize Prospective Teachers’ Teaching Practice Through Observations
Design Appropriate Assignments
Provide Appropriate Prompts to Engage Critical Conversation
Build a Nonevaluative but Supportive Environment
Engage the ePortfolio as a Research Tool
Become Critically Reflective Teacher Educators
Ongoing Data-Based ePortfolio Design and Modification
Make It Easy to Work on the ePortfolio
Focus on Quality of Analysis Instead of Quantity of Artifacts
Clarify the Purpose of Standards
Design Online Spaces for Collaborative Reflection and Dialog
Creative Activities and Assignments
Video-Recorded Lessons as a Pedagogical Tool
7.3 Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Coding and Analyzing Narratives to Foster Critical Reflection for Transformative Learning
8.1 Narrative Analysis in Teacher Education
8.2 Thematic Coding: A Priori and Grounded Theory Approaches
A Priori Coding
Open Coding
8.3 Transformative Protocols Through Data Triangulation
8.4 Conclusion
References
Chapter 9: Toward a Transformative Teacher Education Community
9.1 A Framework for a Transformative Teacher Education Community
9.2 A Potential to Achieve
References
Appendix: Multiple Sources of Data
ePortfolio Reflection Artifacts
Interviews with the Four Prospective Teachers
Interviews with Teacher Educators and Staff
Interviews with Cooperating Teachers
Observation of Prospective Teachers’ Teaching and Post-Teaching Conferences
Index