The focus of this paper is to consider a Logotherapeutic and Phenomenological perspective on the reflective practice process with the aim of informing how teacher educators might engage student teachers in reflection.  The paper represents the initial findings of a research PhD evaluating the model of reflective practice used on school placement.  The research aims to propose an alternative model to school placement based on the outcome of this research project.

Initial analysis of the data gathered to date has attempted to take into account the breadth and depth aspects of Reflective Practice.  By examining what students were asked to “see” and what they saw, the question is posed: how might student teachers “see better”?  

Critical reflection is evaluated in the larger theoretical decision-making context.  By focusing on individual meaning and what student’s perceive on their horizon of significance, teacher educators can broaden student teachers’ fields of vision and help them to see beyond the limits of context.  A Community of Inquiry is offered as a framework for teacher educators to engage student teachers in meaningful dialogue and inquiry as a means to: examine assumptions and expectations; illuminate broader historical, socio-political and moral perspectives; find individual meaning.

If one considers the spectrum of reflective practice as: meaning-making; uncertainty/ disposition; inquiry; identifying assumptions and finding new perspectives; dialogue in community; establishing of values at an individual and systemic level; ability to decide, act and accept responsibility for our actions, then a Logotherapeutic and Phenomenological perspective on the reflective process is a means to synthesise the at times contradictory views of reflective practice which exist. 

Centring on the work of Viktor Frankl, Logotherapy is a phenomenological therapy and thus perspective is considered not just a sense experience of our environment or situation.  It is synonymous with our intellectual, social, personal, cultural, and historical self-understanding of the experience and the meanings one finds on the horizon of significance, and how we “cope with them in our practical circumstances” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. x).  Phenomenology is descriptive rather than explanatory or deductive, focussing on the human experience from a first person point of view.

While no Logotherapist prescribes a meaning he may well describe it.  By this I mean describing what is going on in a man when he experiences something as meaningful, without applying to such experiences any preconceived pattern of interpretation:

"In short, our task is to resort to a phenomenological investigation of the immediate data of actual life experience.  In a phenomenological way, the Logotherapist might widen and broaden the visual field of his patient in terms of meanings and values making them loom large as it were." (Frankl, 1973a, p. 24)

To “broaden one’s field of vision” therefore is more than simply seeing an event, action or challenge from multiple perspectives.  It is more than simply reframing.  It is instead about engaging individually in the process of identifying the “full spectrum of the possibilities for personal and concrete meanings and values” (Frankl, 2010, p. 89).

The outcome of this research will be an alternative pedagogical infrastructure for the development of reflective practice, a fundamental pillar in teacher education programmes in education and pedagogical faculties across Europe.  It offers a parsimonious, meaning-centred model which challenges traditional, utility-based and outcome-focused practices and which offers the potential for implementation, evaluation and collaboration at a pan-European level.

This paper is the result of the first and second phases of a project with the aim of evaluating the model of reflective practice used on school placement in a University in the Republic of Ireland. The project was approved by the University research ethics committee. The PhD study aims to describe and evaluate current student teachers' reflections, and exploring the extent to which a Logotherapeutic and Phenomenological analysis of their reflections can add to our understanding of the reflective practice process. To consider the students’ current experience of the reflective practice process, students in the second year of a four year undergraduate Education programme and students from the first year of a two year Professional Masters in Education (PME) programme were invited to participate. During school placements, students were required to write one weekly reflection as part of their placement portfolio requirements. Students were provided with a list of topics as well as a sample layout but were free to reflect on issues of concern to them. The reflective model within the programme emphasised the role of reflective practice in exploring and improving practice as well as critically reflecting on broader social and political aspects of classroom and school life. At the end of this process, all second year and first year PME school placement students were invited to complete an online questionnaire on the reflective practice process and to participate in focus group interviews. 207 students completed the online questionnaire while 8 agreed to participate in interviews. Focus group interviews took place post-school placement. Adopting a phenomenological lens, the data was analysed to consider if an understanding of Logotherapeutic principles might make visible previously unseen features of the Reflective Practice process as experienced by student teachers during their school placement. Phase two of the study is currently under way and involves a series of seminars in which student teachers meet as a Community of Inquiry prior to and during their School Placement experience. Previous scaffolding, such as suggested topics and sample layouts for reflections, has not been provided. Instead, the impact participating in this community process has on student teachers’ reflections and their engagement with the reflective process on school placement will be examined.

By beginning this dialogic process with “what looms largest on a student teachers’ horizon of significance”, teacher educators can better assist student teachers develop their capacity for reflective and critically reflective practice. When we make decisions, often what looms largest on our horizon of significance is based on what is available and what is useful at that moment. Adopting a phenomenological approach enhances our understanding of student teachers’ reflections by focusing on the role of individual meaning. By viewing the reflective process through the prism of meaning and Logotherapy, one can consider the range of often invisible elements at play in this dynamic decision-making process and thus enhance our vision of the reflective practice process as a whole. Only when this spectrum becomes visible to those involved in teacher education programmes, can existing school placement and reflective practice procedures be held up to the light in order to view the meaning potentials which exist. Budgetary and time constraints within Education Faculties can mean that efforts to engage student teachers in the process of reflective practice can often assume the form of a “one size fits all” approach. In administrative terms, complexity is a cost as tensions between broader social, political and economic demands are placed on education systems and on the stakeholders involved in teacher education. This paper attempts to move beyond an analysis of the content of reflection and attempts to open up the process of Reflective Practice and make explicit the latent characteristics and attributes at the core of this decision-making process, revealing the options and opportunities which exist for teachers educators and student teachers alike.

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