Developing Student Teachers’ Reflexivity Toward Their Course Planning: Implementation of a Training Program Focused on Writing and Reflective Skills

Abstract

Recent literature has shown the low levels of reflexivity student teachers exhibit when doing reflective writing and the lack of a training program in their initial training to help them. A training program that was developed to support future teachers’ reflective writing was implemented and the program’s results were evaluated. The program was based on a combination of theories from the fields of teacher training and writing instruction. The training program was offered to a class of 16 future primary school teachers in French-speaking Belgium (three males and 13 females, averaging 20 years old) who were in their final year of training. They rewrote a reflective text several times and the 64 texts produced were analyzed quantitatively. The results showed that the training program enabled participants to make major progress from one draft to another and thus improve their reflective writing skills. In addition, a qualitative single case study showed how one student’s writing evolved during the training program. Among the practical implications that emerged from this study were the recommendations to include time in the training curricula dedicated to the teaching of reflective writing and to train trainers to support the writing of reflective texts.

Training Teachers by the Distance Mode: Implications for Quality Teacher Performance in Pre-Tertiary Schools

“…In our view, it is only when multiple observations are made with a single standardized instrument that one can be sure of a balanced performance assessment. This approach has been found in previous research to be effective in providing objective teacher performance assessments (Chung, 2008; Colognesi et al, 2021; Donitsa-Schmidt & Ramot, 2020). In Chung’s (2008) research, for instance, the corroboration of “teacher self-report with observational data and evidence from lesson debriefs” (p. 8) provided some validity for the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) portfolio.…”

“…Quality teacher performance is crucial in national development because it leads to quality learning outcomes which are ''centre stage to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 and supported by a general global commitment to improving quality in education'' (The Commonwealth Education Hub, 2016, p. 1). Although several factors, including well-resourced learning 1 University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana 2 Diedong Dombo University for Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana environments, well-written self-contained study materials, effective monitoring, and delivery systems, have all been acknowledged as contributing to quality teacher performance (Larson & Owusu-Acheaw, 2016;Salifu, 2021), the influence of quality professional training on teacher performance is by far more impacting without which teachers cannot meet learners' needs (Aslam et al, 2021;Colognesi et al, 2021;Owusu-Mensah et al, 2015). It has therefore been argued that quality professional training of teachers is a critical issue in every educational discourse because it offers potential teachers both practical and theoretical experiences needed to deliver quality performance in the classroom leading to desirable learning outcomes (Nessipbayeva, 2012;Ning et al, 2020).…”

Accompagner le développement d’une posture réflexive en formation initiale des enseignants : des besoins différents en fonction de l’année de formation ?

“…ex., catalogue de concepts, rétroactions par les pairs, analyse collective d'un texte réflexif sur les forces et les liens théorie-pratique, etc.). Plusieurs études empiriques ont ainsi montré que de tels étayages favorisent significativement le développement de la compétence réflexive des FE (Colognesi et al, 2021 ;Oudart et Leclercq, 2011). Précisons que les volets affectifs et réflexifs sont étroitement liés.…”

Letra: A Teacher Training Program Based on the Adoption of Different Roles

“…Indeed, in the Itinerary method, the teacher accompanies the students, supporting them with scaffolding, allowing them to discuss among themselves and to evaluate their peers. The teacher solicits the students' metacognition in order to reflect on their strategies (see Colognesi et al, 2020 and2021, for details on this instructional program and the teacher's activities). This is, therefore, not a transmissive type of teaching.…”