“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience” (Dewey, 1933).

In education, reflective practice has long been recognized as one of the core foundations of the profession (Dewey, 1938; Schön, 1983; Jay & Johnson, 2002; Farrell, 2013, 2015).

This study examined reflective practice as part of the professional development program for experienced EFL teachers in the Israeli Ministry of Education (MOE) framework.

In the courses, reflective journals were kept by the participants as a tool for self-evaluation and for contemplation of the implementation of newly acquired skills in subsequent teaching. This article draws on the qualitative dataset of these reflective journals. In our mixed-methods study, we evaluated the teachers’ input with the aim of tapping into their learning processes as well as into their attitudes towards reflection. We enquired into what and whom teachers focus their reflections on, in addition to purposes of journal keeping (Moon, 1999). Moreover, we measured the level of reflective thinking along the lines of Kember et al. (2000, 2008).

The Background

Professional development of EFL teachers in Israel is carried out in a top-down manner (Farrell, 2013): 30-hour courses on various topics are offered under the supervision of the MOE. The taking of two courses per year is mandatory for all teachers in the public sector.

The content of the course this study is based on focused on alternative assessment strategies, and incorporated material developed by the British Council. Participants in professional development (PD) courses have varied teaching experience of 1 to 20+years. The course under discussion offered teachers an opportunity to enrich their professional expertise by using novel alternative assessment strategies in language education. The topic of the course did not play a significant role in our research, as we were interested in generally assessing the significance of reflection.

The Action

Our action of incorporating reflection into in-service training courses arose in order to make the learning process more efficient. Our goals were the following: to create a process that would help participants internalize the course material; and to prompt thinking about ways of implementing their newfound methods and skills. Furthermore, to provide the instructor with an insightful tool for monitoring learners’ progress and to develop a method of evaluation as to whether the material covered in the course was in fact, transferred into classroom practice.

Reflective journals were kept by all 23 participants as a tool for self-evaluation and contemplation. The teachers were required to engage in end-of session reflective writing on the absorption of new knowledge and its significance for own teaching context.

We then analyzed the teachers’ input of a total of 82 responses.

The Study

The rationale of this study was to evaluate the significance of the reflective process. Our approach was two-pronged: explore the foci and the depth of the participant’s reflections; and teachers’ attitudes towards the tool of reflection itself.

Our research questions were:

1. What did the participants’ reflections focus on?

2. Who was participants’ reflections focused on, i.e. did they express themselves more as learners or as teachers?

3. Which purposes of journal keeping were met? (Moon, 1999)

4. How deep were the participants’ reflections? (Kember et al. 2000, 2008)

Methodology

The dataset we used to consisted of: teachers’ reflective journals, lecturer reflections, and an end-of-course questionnaire. The data collection involved two phases: end-of-session reflections and an end-of-course questionnaire. The first phase lasted for 8 sessions, spread out over approximately 3 months. At the end of each session, 20 minutes was allocated for reflective writing prompted by questions such as:

· What new information have you learnt today?

· What insights did you gain today?

· What changes can you make to your teaching as a result of what you have learnt from the session?

· How do you think you can implement these changes?

The second phase involved an overview of participants’ experience with reflection as a tool.

We carried out critical discourse analysis on Faucaltian lines, targeting how teachers in the setting of PD understand their teaching practice in the light of new material. The mixed-methods study employed discourse analysis on Faucaltian lines, targeting how teachers in the setting of PD understand their teaching practice in the light of this recent training. In particular, we employed Gee’s (1999) model of Discourse.

The responses were examined for emerging themes predetermined according to our research questions. We analyzed our data in a qualitative-interpretive and a quantitative manner. For a detailed break-up of our criteria see the graph below.

Findings

Responses indicate that reflection contributes considerably to the internalization of course content and the application thereof in classroom practices. Teachers value the significance of the tool both as learners (review, summary, higher levels of involvement), and as teachers (adopting the tool into their own classroom practices). In following paragraphs, we discuss selected findings. Figure 1 illustrates our comprehensive results.

Our findings indicate that while teachers took both learner-centered and teacher-centered perspectives when focusing on enriching their professional expertise, their reflections were predominantly on their own learning behaviors and performance evaluation rather than on classroom implementation. 38 out of the 82 responses included as “me as a teacher”–minded comments, such as“It made me think about different tasks I can do with my classes”; 27 were focused on “me as a learner,” for example, “Today I realized that summarizing isn’t as easy as I thought, it includes different points and I really improved my summarizing skills.” Some did not include any clear-cut references to any of these categories.

47 of the responses were of “own learning behavior”-type, such as, “I also learned some new ways I can use to introduce a text or work on a text even if it's boring” or “I enjoyed the pyramid reflection because it made me think about additional information even when it seemed very difficult”; though only 29 included explicit reference to future applications, like “I take some of them [ice-breakers] to my classes, for the beginning of the year activities” or “I got some ideas how to use this wonderful and so up to date tool in my classes.”

According to the data, only a small number of responses explicitly reflects the purposes of journal keeping. Similarly, only 29 of 82 mention explicit application of course content to classroom practice.

A definitive pattern of journal-keeping purposes did not emerge from the teachers’ writing as the low number of results on this criterion demonstrates. The three most dominant purposes indicated were: (1) critical review of strengths, weaknesses, learning and teaching styles and strategies; (2) learning of self and others; and (3) exploring connections between knowledge learned and their own ideas about that knowledge.

The lack of clear-cut references to our target items could generate from the fact that reflection was novel exercise for the participants to attempt and they were not used to prospective and predictive reflection in the setting of PD.

Another puzzling finding concerns lower levels of reflection: 39% of the responses were of the non-reflection and understanding type. The latter two findings prompt further action in how to maximize the effectiveness of the reflective tool in PD. Teacher educators could bare this in mind when designing PD courses.

Figure 1. The foci and depth of reflections
APP=application; CLL=classroom learning; CLT=classroom teaching; CON=explore connections between knowledge learned and own ideas about that knowledge; CR=critical reflection; CRB=critical review of behaviors; learning and teaching styles; LGS=set and track learning goals; LSO=learning of self and others; MEL=me as a learner; MET=me as a teacher; MetaCG=metacognition development; NR=non-reflection; OLB=own learning behavior/process; PER=own performance in the session; PRL=product of learning; RE=reflection; SUM=summary of content; SWGI= critical review of strengths, weaknesses, good with, have to improve; UN=understanding.

Our results have shownthat the predictive reflection exercises are yielding enhanced energy among the participants. Furthermore, reflection serves the instructor as an in-course monitoring device. Teachers value the significance of the tool both as learners claiming that reflection “makes me rethink about my learning and then enables me to process better what I've learned,” and as teachers adopting the tool into their own classroom practices. They report a highly positive influence of the reflective practice on future application of course materials: on a scale of 1–5, 33% gave the score 3, 38% gave the score 4, and 27% gave the score of 5.

The Impact of Reflection on Professional Development Programs

From the data, we found that reflection contributes significantly to PD and aids prospective practice. It benefits teachers as learners and educators, and subsequently offers a tool that can be used with students. For the instructor, reflection serves as a source for feedback, evaluation and input for future development.

How can we further explore the effectiveness of reflection as an essential component of PD?

One possible avenue is teacher identity: our early findings reveal notions of ideal, ought-to and feared selves. Written reflection facilitates investment in professional development since it grants an opportunity for teachers to examine their professional raisons d'être and “provide insight into who they are as teachers” (Cirocki & Farrell, 2017). In future research, we intend to investigate the exposition of language teacher identities and possible selves in the framework of Possible Language Teacher Self theory (Kubanyiova, 2009).

References

Ciroki, A., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2017). Reflective practice for professional development of TESOL practitioners. The European Journal of Applied Linguists and TEFL, 6(2), 5–24.

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Dewey, J. (1938). Education and experience. New York, NY: Macmillan.

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Farrell, T.S.C. (2015). Promoting teacher reflection in second language education: A framework for TESOL professionals. New York, NY: Routledge.

Gee, P. (1999). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. New York, NY: Routledge.

Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, pp.73-85.

Kember, D., Leung, D.Y.P., Jones, A., Loke, A.Y., McKay, J., Sinclair, K., Tse H., Webb C., Kam F., Wong Y., Wong M. & Yeung E. (2000). Development of a questionnaire to measure the level of reflective thinking. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 25(4), 381–395.

Kember, D., McKay, J., Sinclair, K., & Wong, F.K.Y. (2008). A four-category scheme for coding and assessing the level of reflection in written work. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(4), 369–379.

Kubanyiova, M. (2009). Possible Selves in Language Teacher Development. In Dörnyei Z. and E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (pp. 314-332)Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Moon, J.A. (1999). Learning journals: A handbook for reflective practice and professional development. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic books.