Learning through observation, reflection within discussions

7.2. Learning through observation, reflection within discussions.

Chapter six described how the trainees discover and assess their teaching through the discussion session, which is usually held soon after the teaching practice. As it was applied, the trainees not only engaged in the observation stage, during which all the trainees observe their colleagues when each teaches, but rather they were required to provide themselves and peers with positive and negative feedback about their own and their lessons (self- and peer-assessment). The data suggested that some of the trainees in the early stage faced difficulties to engage in self- and peer-assessment in the post-teaching discussions. Later, to some extent, they seemed to be better at receiving and giving feedback and dealing with the requirements of being in the RPC, although perhaps some had moved further than others in this respect (see section 6.2.1.3 in Chapter Six).

Both of these kinds of assessment that take place in the reflective dialogues appear to be a fundamental factor in improving the trainees’ teaching (the interview with trainees). For example, in her interview I asked Olla about the main advantage of her participation in this RPC that is meant to have an effect on her view about teaching, and she said:

First is the discussions. Through our discussions, the questions about what we do and why and how to make it better to facilitate the students’

learning emerge. . . I was surprised when I discovered that there are reasons and roles for every activity . . . and one method may be better or worse, depending on the situation.

As I described in the design of this study, we as a group, myself, the trainees and sometimes the teachers, went to the classroom in which one of the trainees was teaching to observe that lesson and take notes. Then we discussed the positive and negative points of the lesson that had been taught by the trainees (see Chapter Four). As a supervisor, I tried to stimulate the trainees’ reflection by asking further questions about what, why and how rather than giving direct answers (see section one in Chapter Six). Here, Olla seems to gain her new insight about teaching, which is ‘I discovered that there are reasons and roles for every activity . . . and one method may be better or worse, depending on the situation, from the discussions that took place after teaching’. Supporting this claim is what Ruida admitted when we discussed the main advantages of the reflective course:

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-Researcher: Ok, I understand, but you have previous experience in your first practicum. Why did you find this course to be more effective?

-Ruida: I learned from mistakes, not because you tell me it is wrong or right, but because, umm, I do not know, through discussing them. Without these discussions I think I will never know such things as the students’ response (interview with Ruida).

Moreover, the new insight of teaching that the trainees gain from discussing their mistakes seems to come not only from discussing their own mistakes but also from their observation and the discussions that follow their peers’ teaching. Moteah mentions that in her interview:

Even when I came back to my home, I felt that my head would split, but all the development that I had reached, is the result of my observations of my colleagues and the discussions that followed.

This extract from the transcript appears to help to support using RP in teaching education.

Moteah admits that there has been an improvement in her teaching, which she attributes to her observations of her colleagues and the discussions that followed. Chassels and Melville (2009) claim that the opportunity to observe the lessons of colleagues provided the trainees with enhanced skills in critiquing lessons as well as exploring effective and ineffective teaching strategies. This opportunity to observe lessons and reflect on the effectiveness of teaching strategies is what Schon (1987) called refection-on-action.

Through the trainees’ observations of their peers’ teaching, they can build some teaching repertoires that enable them to be more open to different teaching and learning styles (Carrier, 2011; Chassels & Melville, 2009). Moreover, Sims and Walsh (2008) indicate another critical aspect of the trainees’ learning through observation and reflection, which is that the knowledge that their lessons improve from observation and feedback is more likely to allow them to accept and learn from constructive criticism.

However, not every thought concerning what we observe can be considered as a reflection-on-action. According to Schon (1991), reflective thinking should be related to particular beliefs about facts, which may include emotions or experiences. Thus, the reflective thinking that does not have relevance to judgments or emotions and unconscious processes is non-reflective thinking. Therefore, reflective thinking is an active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge that supports it and the further

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conclusions to which it is likely to lead (Dewey, 1933, p. 6). That means that the trainees should first open their minds to recognising additional strategies for teaching various concepts and skills rather than their traditional ones (York-Barr et al., 2006).

Nevertheless, working to build new insight/consciousness through reflection is not an easy task. The trainees enter the practicum course with preconceptions about teaching and the role of teachers that can be assumed to be affected by cultural dimensions (see Chapter Two and Six, section 6.2.1). Thus, in order to create new insight, Shulman (2000, 133) suggested that the first step will be to make ‘the internal external’, and then to work on being able to ‘put what has been external back inside’. In this context, what happened in our course seems to have followed Shulman’s learning steps. Through the teaching and post-teaching discussions, the trainees appear to have had a chance to reveal and examine their conceptions about the teaching issues that are usually considered to be misconceptions (see section 6.2.1.1 in Chapter Six). Thus, it becomes apparent that the reflective discussion about their teaching ‘triggers the need to reconcile inconsistencies and conceptual misconceptions during mutual discussion and leads to a restructuring of existing knowledge’, which results in their new insights about teaching and the students’ learning (Paus et al., 2012, 1127).

Furthermore, even though the reflective dialogue in our group focused on the trainees’

learning more about their content and how to teach it, they also are learning about their students’ thinking. In this context, Ruida mentioned ‘the students’ response’ (see the later stage in Chapter Six). These findings fit well with Hiebert and Stigler’s (2000) study as well as Sibbald’s study (2009), when they explore that the reflective dialogue with trainees provides them with some educational knowledge about their students’ learning parallel with their content teaching. Thus, engaging trainees in meaningful discussions about teaching is more importantly about the professional growth that PSTs experience through collaboration and discussion of instruction (Chassels & Melville, 2009; Groth, 2011; Post &

Varoz, 2008; Tolle, 2010).

However, although the trainees developed seem supportive of discussion as a way they learn and from which they have got some benefits, their previous experience of learning through direct suggestions seems to have limited the efficiency of learning through reflective discussion. For example, their resistance to the self- and peer-assessments, their insistence on requesting direct guidance and their doubts about my attempts to promote their reflection as a weakness in my knowledge (see Chapter Eight).

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Yet, with regard to the idea that reflection is how an individual learns about his or her actions during a particular experience individually (Manouchehri, 2002), research findings have also shown that individual conceptual understanding can even be enhanced by collaboration with others (Paus et al., 2012). In the next section, I try to explain how the trainees have gained new insights about teaching through their interaction in the reflective dialogue.