The Reflection Dimension as Investigation in Primary School Teachers’ Initial Education During Internship

Author(s):

Maria Cecília Bento(presenting / submitting)Fátima Pereira Amélia Lopes

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 06, Primary Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

09:00-10:30

Room:

322. [Main]

Chair:

Ninetta Santoro

Contribution

This study is a PhD project centered in reflection as investigation and its implications on teachers’ development during their internship. The study is focused in primary school teachers’ initial education institutions in Oporto, Portugal, after the transformations caused by Bologna Process.

Our main goal is to identify reflection practices during internship and in what way it becomes a disposal of investigation and professional development.

Initial primary school teachers’ education has been a subject of several changes (Pereira, 2007) and studies (cf. Estrela, Esteves and Rodrigues, 2002; Campos, 2013), but it doesn’t necessarily mean more quality (Zeichner, 2008). The last change occurred when the Bologna process was implemented. One of its consequences was the need of a Master degree to professionalization (cf. Campos, 2013). In Portugal, most of institutions, allied primary school teachers’ education with childhood education or with the 2^nd cycle (5 and 6 years of school education) teachers.

Internships are considered by authors (Lopes, Pereira and Sousa, 2014) and by students as well, as a very important part of initial education. This term is rich in activities which promote the application of the knowledge and ideas studied during training first years (Moreira, Paiva, Vieira, Barbosa and Fernandes, 2006). In this way, it is a proper moment for students to reflect about what they do in practice, which may lead to their growth. During this term, they are guided by a cooperating teacher, who as Pereira (2011: 47) says “constitutes the interface, the means of communication between the scientific discourse and the practice discourse”, and promotes “conditions that enabled the experimentation, confrontation and agreement on a sustained basis, both theoretically and empirically” (ibid.). Along with the internships, education promotes classes and seminars, where students may reflect about their practice and connect it with theory (Lopes, Pereira and Sousa, 2014: 80; Alarcão and Roldão, 2008: 54-55).

Zeichner (2008: 539) points that "the movement of reflective practice involves, at first sight, the recognition that teachers should practice, along with other people, an active role in the formulation of the purposes and objectives of their work and that they must take on leadership roles in school reforms". For that, training is the ideal moment to develop reflection abilities on students. In order to achieve it, professors must have a critical approach about their own practice.

Although “the official speeches reveal a tendency to reconceptualize the educational problems in technical terms” (Pereira, 2011: 34), nowadays we have moved from a technical-rationality paradigm and teacher is conceptualized as someone who finds problems and tries to solve them, instead as a mere technician, because “when the practitioner tries to solve the problem he/she has set, he/she seeks both to understand the situation and to change it” (Schön, 1995: 134; Campos, 2013: 26-27). It is said that schools are yet too much academic (Alarcão, 2001: 15) and researches don’t always pay attention to practice problems. In this way, academics and school teachers would beneficiate if they are partners on researches (Elliott, 1998: 142).

Furthermore, initial teacher education has a huge impact on teacher’s identity. Everyone has been at school and thinks to know what is like to be a teacher. Therefore, this is a time to rebuild the ideas students have about their profession. Pereira (2011: 44) says that “the professional development of the teacher is related to his/her capacity to discern the direction that an action should take in a particular case”. In this way, reflection allows the analysis of lived situations to take decisions in the future, which is reflected on personal and professional development.

Method

We use a qualitative approach (Bogdan and Biklen, 1994) to this study, in which we are concerned about the subjectivities of the contexts and the subjects’ opinions about the lived training. We focus this study in two Portuguese teachers’ initial education institutions, which were selected by the easiness to access the field. We are focused on the 2nd cycle of the training (master degree), in two courses: Master in Childhood education and Primary school teaching and Master in Primary school and 2nd cycle teaching. For the study development we collected some documents that allow us to characterize the training and its subjects; we did an explorative focus group with students and newly degreed teachers to try to understand meaningful aspects for them. We tried to understand the most and the least important aspects about their education and in what way reflection were present and had impact in their internship; we did individual interviews to students/newly degreed teachers, supervisors and cooperating teachers (these are in-service teachers which accept internship students – usually two – in their classrooms. These teachers are seen as very important by students, more than supervisors, usually (Alarcão and Roldão, 2008: 56), as they guide, help, and evaluate students, in a collaborative and developmental perspective and are sometimes referred by students as role models). We collect some internship’s reports. The connections we may establish between this and data we referred may give us information that allow us characterize what and how the internship has developed and in which ways reflection were present at that time. As we know, writing has an important role in reflection because while writing students can re-live, systematize and confronting it with what we have learnt (Van Manen, 1990, cit. in Vieira, 2006: 155). We use content analysis to analyze the documents, the focus group and the interviews. Content analysis allow us understanding messages in the discourse and work with it, by codified and categorize all that messages. Categories make possible to catalogue meaningful units (which can be full sentences, words, etc.) in order to understand the message given by the subjects (Bardin, 2004). Our categories emerged from the discourses because if they are talked by subjects, it indicates that they are important aspects to them. In the other hand, it also emerged from our theoretical framework, which has given clues and topics that are important from the conceptual point of view.

Expected Outcomes

The main aspect we would like to focus about curricula is the fact that the internship occurs mainly in the master degree’s last year and its hours are divided between primary school internship and 2nd cycle/kindergarten internship. This is confirmed in the focus group, in which students said that they feel the need of more time for this activity. It is also focused the importance of the relationship between the students and their partners and the teachers that guide them during this period. Official documents have also indicated that reflection and investigation are important, as well as the development of a reflective and researcher teacher. About reflection we may say that students have similar conceptual ideas about it, but there are some differences regarding its periodicity and intensity. Research appears specially connected to academic essays and to the preparation of internship activities. We will continue with individual interviews, in which we expect to be revealed some more aspects related to reflection and investigation, and we will try to figure out the way in which reflection promotes knowledge development in students. From the study as a whole, we expect to find out the mechanisms of reflection that students use, and how deep that reflection is. We also expect to see the impact that reflection may have in the professional and personal development in future teachers, and in what ways it is worked during internships, in all its dimensions – practice, seminars, classes, meetings with supervisors and cooperative teachers.

References

- Alarcão, Isabel (2001). Escola Reflexiva e supervisão. Uma escola em desenvolvimento e aprendizagem. In Isabel Alarcão(Org.) Escola reflexiva e supervisão. Uma escola em desenvolvimento e aprendizagem. Porto: Porto Editora. 11-23. - Alarcão, Isabel; Roldão, Maria do Céu (2008). Supervisão. Um contexto de desenvolvimento profissional dos professores. Mangualde: Edições Pedago. - Bardin, Laurence (2004). Análise de Conteúdo. Lisboa: Edições 70. - Bogdan, Robert & Biklen, Sari (1994). Investigação Qualitativa em Educação. Porto: Porto Editora. - Campos, Bártolo (2013). Políticas docentes: formação e avaliação. Porto: Mais Leituras. - Elliott, John (1998). Recolocando a pesquisa-ação em seu lugar original e próprio. In Corinta Maria Grisolia Geraldi, Dario Fiorentini e Elisabete Monteiro de Aguiar Pereira (Orgs.). Cartografias do trabalho docente: professor(a)-pesquisador(a). Campinas: Mercado de Letras. 137-152. - Estrela, Maria Tersa, Esteves, Manuela & Rodrigues, Ângela (2002). Síntese da investigação sobre formação inicial de professores em Portugal (1990-2000). Porto: Porto Editora. - Lopes, Amélia, Pereira, Fátima, & Sousa, Cristina (2014). Internship and education in Portugal in the new millennium. In Javier Mora, & Keith Wood (Eds.), Practical knowledge in teacher education: Approaches to teacher internship programmes. New York: Routledge, 75-89. - Moreira, Maria Alfredo, Paiva, Madalena, Vieira, Flávia, Barbosa, Isabel e Fernandes, Isabel Sandra (2006). “A investigação-acção na formação reflexiva de professores em formação inicial: percursos e evidências de um projecto de supervisão”, in Flávia Vieira, Maria Alfredo Moreira, Isabel Barbosa, Madalena Paiva e Isabel Sandra Fernandes, No Caleidoscópio da Supervisão: Imagens da Formação e da Pedagogia. Mangualde: Edições Pedago, Lda, 45-76. - Pereira, Fátima (2007). Idealizar a vida, gerir o presente e projectar o futuro: O governo da infância nos discursos em formação inicial de professores. PhD Thesis, FPCEUP, Porto, Portugal. - Pereira, Fátima (2011). In-service teacher education and scholar innovation: The semantics of action and reflection on action as a mediation device. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 36(11), 33-50. - Schön (1995). The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action. Aldershot: Arena. - Vieira, Flávia (2006). “Para uma pedagogia transformadora na formação pós graduada em supervisão”, in Flávia Vieira, Maria Alfredo Moreira, Isabel Barbosa, Madalena Paiva e Isabel Sandra Fernandes, No Caleidoscópio da Supervisão: Imagens da Formação e da Pedagogia. Mangualde: Edições Pedago, Lda, 151-187. - Zeichner, Kenneth M. (2008). Uma análise crítica sobre a “reflexão” como conceito estruturante na formação docente. Educação & Sociedade, 29 (103), maio/agosto 2008, 535-554.

Author Information

Maria Cecília Bento (presenting / submitting)

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação a Universidade do Porto

Maia

Fátima Pereira

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação a Universidade do Porto, Portugal

Amélia Lopes

Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences

Education Sciences

Porto

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