Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking

Abstract

Thinking, particularly reflective thinking or inquiry, is essential to both teachers’ and students’ learning. In the past 10 to 15 years numerous commissions, boards, and foundations as well as states and local school districts have identified reflection/inquiry as a standard toward which all teachers and students must strive. However, although the cry for accomplishment in systematic, reflective thinking is clear, it is more difficult to distinguish what systematic, reflective thinking is. There are four problems associated with this lack of definition that make achievement of such a standard difficult. First, it is unclear how systematic reflection is different from other types of thought. Second, it is difficult to assess a skill that is vaguely defined. Third, without a clear picture of what reflection looks like, it has lost its ability to be seen and therefore has begun to lose its value. And finally, without a clear definition, it is difficult to research the effects of reflective teacher education and professional development on teachers’ practice and students’ learning. It is the purpose of this article to restore some clarity to the concept of reflection and what it means to think, by going back to the roots of reflection in the work of John Dewey. I look at four distinct criteria that characterize Dewey's view and offer the criteria as a starting place for talking about reflection, so that it might be taught, learned, assessed, discussed, and researched, and thereby evolve in definition and practice, rather than disappear.

Student Cohorts in Teacher Education: Support Groups or Intellectual Communities?

“…The interviews in this study, however, suggest that more might be done, and that doing it might require rethinking teacher educators' usual ways of developing students' professionalism. Common pedagogical strategies in teacher education, such as group assignments or liberal use of class discussion, may not be as effective at promoting individuality as we would like to believe (Rodgers, 2002;Spalding & Wilson, 2002).…”

A conceptual model of students' reflective practice for the development of employability competences, supported by an online learning platform

“…Students value the use of portfolios as part of the process of PDP for increasing self-awareness by reflection (Çimer, 2011;Monks et al, 2006) or articulating and displaying to future employers their capabilities in different skills (Farrell, 2020;Jackson, 2015). As Rodgers (2002) points out, sharing reflections is beneficial to the learning experience as it helps a student to see the importance of an experience and to see it in a new light since fellow students might provide different perspectives. Knowledge sharing defined as "the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experiences in order to promote reflection" (Chin Wei, 2012) can take many forms in education, ranging from more formally oriented activities such as staff-supported (online) discussions or academic peer learning programmes, to more informal activities, such as student-run study groups or social media groups and coffee meetings (Gamlath and Wilson, 2017).…”

‘We teach, we record, we edit, and we reflect’: Engaging pre-service language teachers in video-based reflective practice

“…In language teaching and teacher education, research on RP has proliferated over the past decades, shedding light on the important attributes of RP. First, as a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, RP is evidence-based with its roots in scientific inquiry (Rogers, 2002; Walsh & Mann, 2015). Thus, teachers need to collect evidence (or data) about their teaching practice and engage in a cognitive process of analyzing evidence, making evaluations, considering possibilities, making hypotheses, and identifying directions for their future teaching (Farrell, 2012).…”

“…The importance of reflective practice (RP) has been widely acknowledged in both general education and language education (Farrell, 2015; Lee, 2010). RP refers to ‘a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections with other experiences and ideas’ (Rogers, 2002, p. 845). Described as a ‘compass’, RP allows teachers to ‘stop for a moment or two and consider how we can create more learning opportunities for students’ (Farrell, 2012, p. 15).…”