A Study On Developing Pre-service Teachers' Reflective Ability

Since the reflective teacher education movement began in North America in the1980s,the training of teachers' reflective ability was considered as an important task of teachereducation. However, some results indicate that the teacher's reflection ability formed in thepre-service training stage can not become the sustaining power for their career development.Why? Is the reflection ability developed in the pre-service training stage not strong enough tosupport the sustainable development afterwards? Or, is the pre-service training stage notsuitable for training the teacher's reflection ability? The researchers have two basic judgmentsfor it. Firstly, the focus of the teachers' pre-service training plan is on the training ofpre-service teachers' instrumental reflection ability instead of their ontological reflectionability. However, the ontological reflection ability is closely related with the sustaining powerof teachers' professional development. Secondly, compared with in-service teachers, the realeducation and teaching experience of the pre-service teachers that can be used to reflect isdeficient, hence, the training of this instrumental reflection ability is lack of reliable andeffective support. Therefore, the core problems of this thesis are determined to be: Whatshould be done and what can be done for training teacher's reflection ability in the pre-servicestage? It can be decomposed into the following sub-problems: firstly, what is the currentsituation of the pre-service teachers' reflection? Secondly, what are the limitations for trainingthe instrumental reflection ability of pre-service teacher? Thirdly, what is the necessity of thecultivation of pre-service teachers' ontological reflection ability? Fourthly, what is thepossibility of the cultivation of pre-service teachers' ontological reflection ability?Based on the above research questions,32pre-service teachers and5teacher educatorsare selected from D Normal University as the research objects under the qualitative researchparadigm and the interviewing method is applied to collect data. The questions forinterviewing the pre-service teachers are designed based on the “analytical framework of thepre-service teachers' reflection” constructed in the research.The study finds that the pre-service teachers' reflection is in a “simple” state. Such“simplicity” is firstly shown on its understanding on reflection and the words of “reflection”,“consideration”,“survey”,“recall”,“comprehensive assessment” and “transformation” aremixed and exchanged to use. Besides, the first-year and second-year pre-service teachers donot show the professional characteristics of teachers when reflecting. Secondly, the experiencefoundation for the pre-service teachers to reflect is the resource for them to form their understanding on education and teaching. Specifically, it includes the apprenticeshipobservation experience in the elementary education stage, course experience of teachereducation in the pre-service training stage and life experience of the pre-service teachers.Such experience can be collectively referred to as the growing experience of pre-serviceteachers. In addition, the education experience of pre-service teachers in the elementaryeducation stage can help them reflect on teacher role and the professional image of teacher.The course experience of educational practice in the teacher education training plan cangreatly facilitate them to do the task oriented reflection. Meanwhile, different from the formerresearches that divided reflection hierarchically, the study finds that the reflection contents ofpre-service teachers are mostly shown as dimension relationship instead of hierarchicalrelation and is only reflected as the difference that whether the viewing angle has breadth ornot. Secondly, in the aspect of the reflection opportunity, the pre-service teachers talks mostabout the reflection on action, that is the critical thinking on the incident or what happened inthe class after finishing one thing or a class. However, in the conversation, we can feel thecurrent reflections of the pre-service teachers on their future teaching profession. In themeantime, the pre-service teachers seldom reflect during the action. The “trigger point” thatpromotes the pre-service teachers' reflection is shown as the “frustration experience” of thepre-service teachers and the course arrangement in the teacher training plan can greatly affectthe reflection. At last, the pre-service teachers scarcely detect that they follow certain steps orprocedures during the reflection process; however, in the conversation with pre-serviceteachers, we can know that they follow certain steps.For the cultivation of pre-service teachers' instrumental reflection ability, there arelimitations on the reflection basis. There are also limitations on the reflection contents.The necessity for cultivating the pre-service teachers' ontological reflection ability is firstlyshown on the fact that the ontological reflection ability is more sustainable. Secondly, thereflection ability is established based on the comprehensive understanding on the learning forteaching. At last, it is shown as the manifestation of the subjectivity of pre-service teacher.As for the internal factors, the possibility for cultivating the pre-service teachers'ontological reflection ability is shown on the fact that the pre-service teachers have alreadyhad some understanding on the education and teaching when beginning to study in teachereducation major, which has a significant impact on their growth and development and most ofthem need to be inspected through reflection. In view of the teacher image in the future,pre-service teacher should do ontological reflection with the help of the instructor andpartners. As for the external factors, the teacher educators' understanding on reflection andtheir consideration on the reflection ability training system throughout the four years is theexternal guarantee for the cultivation of pre-service teachers' ontological reflection ability.