This second factor deals with how the structure of the scaffolds impacted participants’ journal writing. The findings related to this factor will be presented in two subsections: question prompts scaffold and writing process display scaffold.
Question Prompts Scaffold
Preservice teacher participants acknowledged that the structure of the question prompts scaffold was conducive to their journal writing. As evidenced in the interviews, preservice teacher participants lacked authentic classroom teaching experiences. Before their participation in the first Saturday technology program, their previous field
expert/seasoned teachers teach. Christine commented on the benefits of the structure of the scaffold. Without the question prompts, she found that she would probably just think about any positive and some negative incidents that occurred during her practical
teaching. Moreover, she would not reflect on the incidents in detail and in depth. Because of her lack of practical teaching experience, she desired a well-designed structure to guide her reflection writing. Having realized that the question prompts scaffold was an excellent tool to facilitate her reflective thinking, Christine emphasized the long-term positive effect the structure of the scaffold would offer to preservice teachers who are on their way to learn to teach: “when they actually go into the classroom to teach
themselves, they can relate to what they have already experienced, they kind of know…” Matthew specifically emphasized how the structure of the scaffold enhanced his
reflection in a comprehensive way as opposed to his previous reflections on classroom observations. While writing his reflection, on one hand, Matthew would like to know where he is going and thus desire an overall picture of his writing to make sure that he gets all the aspects of the questions; on the other hand, he would like the question prompts to motivate his thinking. Matthew perceived that, compared with his previous reflection on his classroom observations when his professors usually only gave him limited and general instructions on what and how he needed to write his reflections, the question prompts scaffold had an integral and constructive format/structure that made his in-depth reflective thinking possible and enjoyable.
I like the fact that it did not focus on the observation itself. Some of the observations were just, ok what happened, or what do you feel about what happened, overall. This was particularly about something. I mean, we were
teaching. One, methodology really came into play; secondly, it was something like you were addressing a potential problem, or surprise factors, which I think they’re a really important part of that, so you addressed what happened, why it happened, what were your feelings, that way, you can really think what happened and why it happened, so you know how to better tackle it for your next time. I think it is really good in this format.
In addition, the transition embedded in the scaffold enriched the preservice
teacher participants’ reflection writing experience. Jennifer’s experience with the scaffold was unique. Her years of writing practice made her accustomed to starting her writing with an introduction on what happened, followed by elaboration and rationalization of the occurrence, and a conclusion. After her initial fleeting confusion as how to start and end her reflection writing using the scaffold, she eventually came to enjoy the structure of the scaffold:
I think it’s easier, because sometimes you had to read over your notes and figure out, OK, what do I put and how do I put, the sequence and everything. While I was all done, I was reading, well, this transitioned so well, not just for me to answer my questions.
Writing Process Display Scaffold
Preservice teacher participants showed their appreciation of having the writing process broken down into three major steps: (a) describing the incident, (b) rationalizing their decision making in the incident, and (c) reconstructing their beliefs in teaching and learning. They found it helpful to organize their reflective thinking within such a
what you need to input. I liked how it is broken down, after you finish this part and then you go to the next.” Michael and Clark had similar views. Michael attributed his
organized reflection writing in the study to the specific writing guidelines in the scaffold. Scarlet echoed the similar, but explained in an elaborative fashion:
I liked how it breaks down into three parts and gave you specifically what you need to write about. For each part, instead of saying tell us about your field experience, something happened and how you resolved it, it breaks down to exactly what you want to know. So it gives me an idea of what to write about…I think that helped with thought process, to help you get along, because sometimes, you just write and don’t have anything to go by and what you are going to write next.
In addition, preservice teacher participants perceived that the parallel
juxtaposition of writing process flow chart with their text field was conducive to their reflective writing. Both Scarlette and Hillary perceived that the juxtaposition effectively prevented her from flipping back and forth between Web pages. That way, they could concentrate on their writing by following the prescribed writing steps. Julia shared the similar view. She further explained that, by providing the flow chart and the writing text box in comfortable length, the scaffold made her reflection writing both focused and enjoyable:
It’s good because you don’t need to flip back and forth, but you are answering this specific question on this box. It breaks down. Sometimes, if people see things that are long and detailed, you get overwhelmed. With this, I found the shorter the box, the flow chart in the side helps you structure the specific section that you can
focus just on this section, rather than thinking what I am going to write for the next section.