Reflective Collaborative Practices: What Is the Teachers’ Thinking? A Ghana Case

Abstract

With advances in using the teachers' classroom as the foreground for teacher improvement, reflective and collaborative activities provide teachers with a positive attitude towards questioning their teaching in a variety of professional development contexts. This study therefore explores how teachers within one school develop their thinking about their practices, if given an opportunity to engage in a planned series of critical dialogues relating to their own classroom teachings. Using a case study approach, four mathematics teachers purposely and through theoretical sampling techniques were selected in a school in Ghana for the study. The field research included interviews and reflective dialogue. Key issues identified include the opportunities to systematically and rigorously diagnose their practices leading to the development of different reflective scales when reflecting. The process was found to be a tool for supporting teachers to critically think which is underpinned by social, political and cultural issues as a process to analyze competing claims and viewpoints. Recommendations for policy and potential areas for further research were also made.

Teacher in the Mirror: The reflective practices of Basic School Teachers in the Central Region of Ghana

“…Additionally, whilst the local studies [15,6,[20][21]are few and creates the impression that the phenomenon remains unexplored in Ghana, the focus of those studies in terms of content, analytical approaches and research setting, are quite different from the tenets and conception of this current study. In the local literature space, [20][21]15,6] have contributed, mostly, positional papers on the subject covering varied focus. Besides, these studies employed mostly the qualitative approach to explore the phenomenon in Ghana.…”

The Reflective Practicum in the Process of Becoming a Teacher: The Tutor’s Discursive Support

“…In short, it is an opportunity to work on values and aims, to develop new strategies for action, test out these actions in practice and experience, and reflect upon the consequences [38]. A practicum of this kind would necessarily require students to view collaborative reflection activities as a positive means of questioning their teaching practice and enabling them to attain a certain level of reflection and knowledge, which will help them identify different possibilities for action [7,39,40]. In short, we are talking about a type of learning situated in cultural practices that are similar to and significant for subsequent professional practice.…”