Reflexive Skills in Teacher Education: A Tweet a Week

Abstract

Social media has been broadly used in the context of higher education for educational purposes due to students’ familiarity with this type of communication. As one of the most interesting cases, Twitter has often been used in teacher education for many purposes. One of the most unexplored themes is using Twitter for reflexive aims, in which discussions featuring ambiguous and contradictory results about whether the characteristics of such a short format can promote reflexive writing. This study is aimed at contributing to this research gap and explores the possibilities of using Twitter for reflective aims in teacher education, considering the reflective level of students’ tweets and students’ perceptions after engaging on Twitter. For the evaluation of this reflection, a content analysis of tweets texts and emojis has been carried out by coding their content and developing an instrument to assess their reflective level. Additionally, perceptions of students have been collected through an online survey. This study is embedded in a design-based research process that is already in its fourth cycle. Findings show that most tweets are descriptive or analytical, and that tweets are mainly text-based. Furthermore, the data show that low-level reflective tweets may include emojis, which are mainly positive and located at the end of a tweet. The conclusions suggest that Twitter could be more useful when reflections are made during learning rather than on learning.

Water, Waste Material, and Energy as Key Dimensions of Sustainable Management of Early Childhood Eco-Schools: An Environmental Literacy Model Based on Teachers Action-Competencies (ELTAC)

“…In the light of the quantitative data and qualitative evidence evaluated, we can verify the impact that the training program has generated on the participants as well as the changes caused in the decision-making models more oriented toward distributive leadership schemes, where decisions about the environmental management of the centre arise from the bottom up, and it is the teachers themselves who assume responsibilities in different areas that affect the sustainable transformation of the centre [11]. The study shows obstacles and limitations to implement changes in this dimension linked to a low capacity for direct influence on the management of resources, infrastructures, and other factors of the daily life of the centre that are outside the transforming capacity of the actions of the teaching staff.…”

“…Assuming that a kindergarten teacher can provide relevant knowledge about their teaching practice is a daring and controversial hypothesis, especially given that the production of knowledge has been widely held sacred and regarded as a something prohibitive and inaccessible for the ordinary citizen [9]. Scientific movements in the field of psychology and educational sciences have been rigorously and tenaciously claiming the value of another type of professional knowledge and for types of practical theories that are less universal, more localised and functional, linked to the trends of research in the classroom [10], to the role of the teacher as a reflective professional [11,12], and to teaching as an evidence-based professional activity [13]. The logic that surrounds this type of knowledge is based on collaborative epistemological models that require the active participation of all agents of the educational community, and the framework on which it is based is that of participatory action research [14].…”

Twitter como recurso metodológico en Educación Superior: una experiencia educativa con estudiantes de Trabajo Social

“…Entendemos por metodologías innovadoras, aquellas que se alejan de la visión tradicional de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje, y proponen nuevas formas de abordar la docencia, valiéndose de todo tipo de recursos para mejorar los procesos educativos. En este sentido, el nuevo perfil del docente de Educación Superior debe dotar a sus estudiantes de ciertas aptitudes que trasciendan el mero conocimiento científico-académico, así como promover el papel activo de las personas ante su propio aprendizaje (García & Carmona, 2014;Garcias et al, 2020).…”

Reflexive Teacher: Main Difficulties of the Reflexive Activity of Teachers with Various Pedagogical Work Experience

“…Today, the authors focus on reflexive education in the system of advanced training, in higher education or specifically subject teachers (Gorokhov, Rusina, 2010;Rybkin, Grebennikova, 2019), and more recently specifically on the reflective teacher and the problems that the teacher may have in this case (Kozhevnikova, 2017;Garcias et al, 2020). It is very important that all authors emphasize the need to teach the reflexive activity of both working teachers and future teachers (Gorohov, Rusina, 2010;Pogodaeva et al, 2019).…”

“…From the point of view of studying reflexive activity of teachers, modern studies in the field of systems approach are of particular interest (Nagovitsyn et al, 2019;Robsky, 2015). A systematic approach to the problem of the development of professional activity deserves attention, emphasizing the formation of reflexivity (Garcias et al, 2020;Ronda, Saldeva, 2019). They highlight the main forms of professional reflection, depending on the functions that it performs in time (Korneenko, 2019;Kozhevnikova, 2017).…”