There are two main goals in our project: To develop the digital room as a meeting place for the interplay between theory and practice in teacher education, and to explore and develop writing as a mediating tool in teacher education. The focus in this presentation is on preliminary findings on how written dialogues in the digital room seem to empower the reflection processes in internship. We followed one group of student teachers having their field practice in their second year of initial teacher education. The six student teachers are dialogging with each other and two mentors and two lecturers considering the teaching and learning of first graders’ reading and writing. The research question in this presentation is: How is the dialogic reflections in the interplay between student teachers, mentors and lecturers on the internet manifested in writing?

Reflection is a key concept and a key activity in teacher education throughout the world. Programs (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005; Zeichner & Liu, 2010) and supervision models (Handal og Lauvås, 1983) are designed to promote reflection. Nonetheless, Norwegian studies (Haugan et al., 2012; Ottesen, 2006) show that reflection processes are hard to facilitate through oral mentoring. In the practice field the mentoring discourse appears to be bound within the context and centred on planning for and delivering lessons. Challenges are seldom discussed outside the school context on a generalized level (Haugan et al, 2012; Ottesen, 2006; Klemp, 2012). The written format seems to have a greater potential. Building on Vygotsky’s work, Hoel (2002), sees writing as the most important facilitator for reflection. While a Dutch study (Leeuw, 2006) found logs written daily during field practice to be poor texts, a recent Norwegian study found such logs used as multi tools in teacher education (Klemp, 2012). The reflections did, however, differ both in perspectives and quality. This could be due to lack of consensus concerning definitions of reflection, reflective practitioners and reflective teacher education (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2007). There seems to be unclear notions of what the student teachers actually are supposed to be reflecting on (Marcos et al., 2011). In the last decade there has been a rhetorical change in the literature on teachers’ professional learning from the need for reflection to a focus on evidence-based development processes (Klemp, forthcoming 2013). Taking Dewey’s thinking in account, both reflections ahead of the teaching and after teaching; need to be informed by such evidence.

Writing as a meeting point between student teachers, mentors and lecturers represents a supplement to rare visits across the two arenas. We explore what possibilities the new collaborative arena offers concerning the quality of student teachers’ reflections. In this way, our paper addresses what Orland- Barak and Yinon (2007) argue is a widespread call for moving beyond conceptual discussions concerning reflective practice in teacher education. They ask for more data-based accounts of the impact of particular teacher education activities for enhancing understanding on the meeting between theory and practice.

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