Introduction

Reflections in teacher education (TE) is a disputed issue surrounded by “mixed messages and confusing agendas” (Fendler, 2003 p.20). According to Russell (2013), reflections have done more harm than good, especially when TE have forced their STs to reflect on theoretical matters and not on teaching practices. The “place to develop skills of reflective practice is in the practicum classroom as a novice teacher, not in the halls of the university as a student” (Russell, 2013 p.88). For that reason, my study focused on STs’ reflections on how they incorporated specified content into their teaching at practicum. The STs read about Assessment for Learning (AfL) at the university before entering their school placements. Research focusing on the link between universities and practicum is required since few studies on TE have “investigated how preparation [at the university] influenced candidates’ practice, […]to do the actual tasks of teaching” (Cochran-Smith et al., 2015 p.117).

I focused on whether STs' reflections were educative or non-educative (Dewey, 2015), and how contexts within school placements influenced STs' reflections on practicing AfL. An educative experience stimulates to further growth of STs' experiences of teaching situations (Dewey, 2015), which in this study is how STs' experiences of AfL gained at the university stimulate their further growth of experiences when incorporating AfL into their teaching practice. On the other hand, non-educative experiences stagnate STs' further growth (Dewey, 2015).  

Examining ST's reflections on their incorporations of AfL can give insights into how they experience their teaching, since “reflections are blind without experiences, and experiences are empty without reflections” (Wackerhausen, 2008 p. 19). These concepts are intertwined because present experiences influence how the STs frame teaching situations in their mindscapes, (Dewey, 2018) when reflecting on them so that they are enabled to teach more intelligently (Dewey, 2015). Intelligent teaching, interpreted in this article, is a matter of STs' judgment, and how they decided to incorporate AfL. AfL is based on research findings from Black and Wiliam’s (1998) meta-study, and Biesta (2020) is concerned with how teaching has come to be seen as an evidence-based practice. Biesta (2020) finds it problematic when teachers take research findings for granted when incorporating them into their teaching thinking that they can solve problems by applying them. Instead, teachers should incorporate findings by judging the situation and adapting them based on what they think is useful for their pupils in the situation.

Aim and research questions

The aim is to shed light on STs' reflection to get insight into how they experience the incorporation of AfL in their teaching and whether their experiences were educative or non-educative. This can be done by analyzing their reflections, and by looking at how they compose them with either educative or non-educative elements. For that reason, the following research questions guided my investigation:

-        Does context influence STs’ educative or non-educative reflections on using AfL and if it does, how?

-       How can STs’ reflections be described in terms of a composition of parts, shaping either educative or non-educative reflections?  

Analytical toolbox To analyze STs' reflections I used Wackerhausen’s (2009) reflection anatomy, consisting of four parts that can be used as tools to dissect STs' reflections (Johansson, 2023), by analyzing each part in a reflexive, non-linear process (Cohen et al., 2018 p. 649). The composition of the anatomical parts constitutes the “whole reflection”, called a reflection body (RB) (Johansson, 2023). A RB is a nuanced description, that can take different forms depending on how STs compose their reflections. The anatomical parts constitutes of STs' reflections: - Within a context, e.i. their school placement. All schools “have some code of manners” (Dewey, 2015 p. 59) that influences their teachers’ practice. - On their teaching with a focus on certain aspects when incorporating AfL. - With AfL, based on different understandings and perspectives, either AfL can be applied on-, or adapted to, the teaching situation (Biesta, 2020). - From a specific interest or intention, when incorporating AfL. Generating empirical material I video-recorded their lessons with a chest-attached camera, which enabled me to follow them freely in the gym. After conducting the lesson, I selected interesting clips from the recordings regarding AfL and constructed interview questions for each of the STs. The video recordings were solely used to stimulate STs’ reflections in the Video Stimulated Reflection interview (VSR) (Williams, 2020), and did not constitute any empirical material that is presented in the results. In the VSR, the STs were first asked to reflect and retell their experience of their teaching before I showed clips and started asking questions. I wanted their reflections as uncontaminated as possible. After their retelling, I continued to ask them what they saw in the clips, and if they did not see any of the interesting aspects that I thought they would see, I asked them directionally questions about it. Therefore, I had to be aware of the empirical material that I generated, since “the questions that the researcher asks during the interview will [...] influence the nature of the data (Vesterinen et al., 2010 p.189)”. The five participating STs read their last year in a TE program at a University in Sweden. They had a supervisor to discuss their teaching with at their three different upper secondary-, inner-city schools, called School A (ST A and B), School B (ST C and D), and School C (ST E).

Results Two RB emerged in the analysis: The mainly non-educative RB was composed of school C and B’s influence on STs experiences. The supervisors did not discuss AfL with their colleagues, instead, they followed old habits. This influenced to a composition of an unaware focus on using AfL. The STs neither applied, nor adapted, instead they copied how their supervisors used AfL, when reflecting with AfL on their teaching. They made it a habit, using it at the beginning and in the end of each lesson, without considering when to apply it and how to adapt it in their teaching. Seemingly, the STs reflected from an intention to activate their pupils physically, instead of directing the pupils’ attention on the potential learning aspects in the teaching situation. Therefore, their teaching did not seem to stimulate their further educative experiences as they used AfL habitually and not intelligently. The other RB, the partly educative, composed of STs reflections within school A. The supervisor had daily discussed with his colleagues, and they had worked-up strategies how use AfL. Hence, this school’s “code of manner” guided the STs practice of AfL. They had a clarified intention, that they used as a tool to reflect with when planning and analysing their lesson. Therefore, they experienced further growth of AfL at their school placement, which made these parts of the RB to be considered as educative elements. However, the STs seemed to have a taken-for-granted understanding of how their applied practice of AfL, would stimulate to higher grades. Their grade-oriented intention directed their pupils to focus on achieving high grades, instead of focusing on how to experience the taught content differently. Therefore, this RB also consisted of non-educative elements because STs intentions with their teaching stimulated them to interact mechanically following the school’s grade-oriented manner.

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