Action Research On The Development Of Preschool Teachers' Teaching Reflection Ability

Reflective ability is the key to sustainable development of professionalisation.The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of kindergarten teachers'reflective competency on the aspects of cognition,emotion,and behaviour in action;to understand the relevant factors that influence the development of kindergarten teachers' reflective competency;and to try to find out the supportive measures.This research was based on the qualitative research approach and this is an action research,exploring the development of teachers ' reflective ability in case kindergarten.It also conducted action research by following the plan-action-observation-reflection cycle.During fall 2018 to 2019,the researcher summarized the reflections of the collective teaching activities under five teaching topics from two kindergarten teachers in Jiangsu Province.The datum included the information collected from the focus group interviews on those two teachers as well as that of the random interviews on kindergarten director Y.To analyze the datum,the collected reflections were randomly selected by the RANDBETWEEN function,and then those selected reflections were coded and analyzed based on the theoretical basis of Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK)and Langer's Reflection Level Classification(LRLC).The researcher conducted four rounds of action research from August 8th,2018 to January 25th,2019.Initially,teachers constructed the reflection framework considering PCK theory.They gradually sprouted interest in teaching reflection and demonstrated initiative.Subsequently,the triadic relation of each dimension was explored by teachers with less enthusiasm,manifesting a task-oriented tendency.Then,they improved reflection approach and emphasized on reflections and interpretations of phenomena whilst retrieval was the reflection enthusiasm and initiative.Ultimately,teachers formed reflection characteristics and utilized for high-quality reflection in practice,showing enthusiasm for persisting in characteristic reflection.In addition,the research group could clarify their roles and optimize the analytical framework throughout the research.As a result,the development of kindergarten teachers' reflective competency was the process which accords with the three realms theory discussed by Guowei Wang:highbrow(in Chinese ?),persistent(in Chinese ?),innovative(in Chinese?).At the same time,on the cognitive aspect,the level of kindergarten teachers'reflective competency and the understanding of the theoretical basis of Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK)were gradually improved.Furthermore,the content of reflection was gradually focused on how children learn.On the emotional aspect,the mood swings of teachers in educational activities went up during the reflective process and emotions could promote reflective behaviours of teachers.On the behavioural aspect,teachers developed a habit of reflecting timely and forwardly.The study proposed the following strategies:Apart from building the reflective approach based on the framework of the Pedagogical Content Knowledge,creating a relaxed and efficient reflective environment can improve the reflective competency of kindergarten teachers as well.