Cultivating reflective teachers: Challenging power and promoting pedagogy of self-assessment in Australian,Bhutanese,and Canadian teacher education programs

Abstract

Keywords

Assessment self-assessment teacher education reflection

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.”

–– Confucius (551 BC- 473 BC)

In this article, we look at three teacher education programs across three countries—Australia, Bhutan, and Canada—to examine how reflection is cultivated in pre-service teachers (also referred to teacher candidates) through a pedagogy of self-assessment. A cornerstone of effective teaching is the capacity of an educator to reflect on their practice, and to use their reflections for professional growth and development. Accordingly, cultivating the capacity for reflective practice has become a primary aim for many teacher education programs globally. Loughran (2002) notes that the field of teacher education adopted reflective practice as a fundamental principle and driving mandate following Schön’s 1983, 1987, and 1992 works. At its core, the reflective practice movement was driven by the notion that teaching experience alone does not necessarily result in better practice, teacher learning, or effective teaching. To develop practice from experience, educators must engage in the act of reflection to make explicit their teaching beliefs, intentions, and outcomes, and to encourage educational and pedagogical changes. However, as the definitions and pedagogies that fall under the umbrella of reflective practice continue to multiply, the term has been criticized for having variable and indeterminate meanings across the field (Clarà, 2015; Grimmett and Erickson, 1988; Richardson, 1992). Nonetheless, a commitment towards critical interrogation of one’s actions as an educator, including the impact and outcomes of pedagogy on students and their learning, remains an enduring and important foundation for both teachers and teacher education.

Originally, the notion of reflective practice was predicated on Dewey’s conceptions of reflection as an active and intentional process with “careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and further conclusions to which it leads” (Dewey, 1933: p. 118). Reflection is not the mere recalling of events and the clarifying of assertions, but rather the questioning and troubling of events and assertions in relation to other experiences, leading to new meanings and forms of practice. Building on Dewey’s work, Schön (1983, 1987, 1992) connected reflective practice to teachers’ developing professional identities, arguing that cycles of reflection, including reflection in action and reflection on action, make explicit tacit knowledge, which forms the basis of teachers’ daily practices. Since Schön’s articulation of the value and power of reflection on developing teaching professionals, reflective practice has developed across multiple pedagogical lines. However, Loughran (2002) recognizes that almost all effective reflective practice begins with the identification of a problem of practice, and then involves critically reflecting on the conditions and contexts that give rise to the problem and the possibility of pedagogical responses the problem might invoke. He further argues that effective reflective practice must encourage framing and re-framing problems of practice, including the settings and contexts of teacher practice and the professional identities that shape teachers’ work.

Within teacher education programs, teacher candidates (pre-service teachers) are often encouraged to reflect on their practice; yet too often, reflection is unstructured and disconnected from the areas of practice that candidates prioritize or have interest in developing (Loughran, 2002). As a result, reflective practice runs the risk of becoming an overused and undervalued approach within teacher education programs. While much research has been conducted on strategies and approaches that aim to enhance reflective practice—to ensure it retains its meaningfulness for supporting teacher candidate learning—there remain calls to clarify the pedagogies and theoretical underpinnings of effective reflection within teacher education programs (Clarà, 2015).

In this article, we are particularly interested in the assessment-driven pedagogies that support the development of reflective practitioners within teacher education programs. By pedagogies, we are specifically interested in structures of self-assessment that might guide teacher candidates towards deeper levels of reflection and that encourage deconstruction of power relations and practices that enable professional growth. Our guiding research question, then, was How does self-assessment facilitate a powerful pedagogy towards reflective professional learning? Underpinning this overarching question was the following specific research questions:

a. What are the learning priorities and purposes of reflection as teacher candidates learn to become teachers?

b. What assessment-driven pedagogies support the development of reflective practitioners within teacher education programs?

We were also interested in how effective reflection takes shape across teacher education programs globally. Hence, we examine these research questions across three pre-service programs in Australia, Bhutan, and Canada. By looking across three distinct teacher education cultures, we are able to comment not only on the comparative priorities of teacher candidates in these countries, but also on the value and role of self-assessment as an effective strategy to cultivate teacher candidates’ reflective capacity. Specifically, we focused our attention on three teacher education programs in Australia, Bhutan, and Canada because each has a longstanding commitment to using reflection in teacher education, yet this tradition has evolved and unfolds differently in each country. At a program level, each of the focal programs examined through this research has taken up the challenge of cultivating reflective practitioners, and thus presented a useful foundation for a study on the intersection of self-assessment and reflection in teacher education. Before exploring the connection between self-assessment and reflection, it is important to explore how these formative assessment practices can address challenge power in education.

Framing the study: Challenging power through formative assessment

In education, power is often referred to those “who makes decisions about whom” (Heron, 1988: p. 77). These issues of power are often connected to traditional assessment practices whereby learning is teacher-centered, and assessment is predominately used for summative purposes (Nieminen, 2020). Traditional assessment has been argued to underpin the power imbalance between teachers and learners because of the judgment and consequences associated with grades (Boud and Falchikov, 2005). However, researchers have explored the issues of power relations and power imbalance in higher education (e.g., Nieminen, 2020; Robinson, 2012; Taras, 2008; Spiller, 2012) and warned that alternative assessment methods, such as self-assessment, do not necessarily empower students or disrupt power. Tan (2009) stated that self-assessment can be teacher-driven, program-driven, or future-driven, each of which localizes and allocates power very differently (Dann, 2014). Rather than focusing on power as the typical nomenclature, researchers, educators, and practitioners are urged to explore power from a symbolic lens—the power of self-assessment as a pedagogy for cultivating reflective teachers in teacher education programs. In this article, our goal is to use formative assessment as a lens for interrogating experiences of reflection through self-assessment to highlight the power pedagogy that surfaces when pre-service teachers become active agents in the learning process.

Empirical and theoretical research strongly supports the role of formative assessment in student learning, motivation, and achievement (e.g., Black and Wiliam, 1998; Clark, 2012). Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of assessment practices used to detect the extent to which “evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction” (Black and Wiliam, 2006: p. 9). Two approaches to formative assessment often discussed in the literature refer to assessment for learning and assessment as learning. Assessment for learning refers to making a conscious attempt to integrate assessment in the learning process to accelerate and improve student learning through diagnostic assessments that reveal where students are at in their thinking (Black and Wiliam, 1998; Sadler, 1998; Stobart, 2008). Similarly, assessment as learning emphasizes assessment as a process of developing and supporting learner metacognition (Earl, 2012). When learners engage in assessment as learning, they actively think about their learning and identify gaps between current performance and what they want to achieve (Brookhart, 2001). In order for effective learning to prevail, the opportunity to monitor and self-assess—key elements of assessment for and as learning—are foundational.

Self-assessment and reflection

Self-assessment involves the questioning of self to develop knowledge and, additionally, is about appreciating and making judgments about what to do next (Boud, 1995). In practice, self-assessment may range from simple self-grading without further reflection to providing students with opportunities to undertake comprehensive reflection on their current or past performance to improve the future (Brown and Harris, 2014; Harris and Brown, 2013; Yan, 2020). According to Yan and Carless (2021), the self-assessment process include determining and applying assessment criteria for the self-assessment, reflecting on the quality of the performance against the criteria, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and arriving at a judgment that is subject to continuous adjustments based on different criteria, feedback, or reflection. A core purpose of self-assessment is to generate feedback, through reflection, for the purpose of enhancing professional learning (Andrade, 2019).

Self-assessment and reflection are closely related because they both evoke the personal process of deepening one’s understanding to discover and learn for the purpose of improving an aspect of life (e.g., education, health, relationships). Reflection focuses on the learner’s recognition of the emotions and cognitive connections gained through experience (Boud et al., 1985). Central to combining theoretical and practical competencies, reflection also highlights implicit assumptions (Mezirow, 1997; Veine et al., 2020). While pedagogies for reflection have multiplied, and in many cases have resulted in a lack of pedagogical structure (Clarà, 2015; Loughran, 2002), we project that self-assessment could form an effective structure for developing pre-service teachers’ reflective practices. Drawing on literature from assessment for and assessment as learning (Broadfoot et al., 2002; Klenowski, 2009; Stiggins, 2002), pedagogic structures to encourage reflection could involve (a) using criteria to identify and benchmark qualities in reflections; (b) situating reflection in relation to learning goals and a learning progression; (c) providing opportunity for feedback on reflections; and (d) recognizing that reflection is always referenced to the learning of others. We assert these connections here between self-assessment and reflection as the basis for our subsequent analysis of data on teacher candidates’ reflective learning.

Using criteria to assess experience requires teacher educators and teacher candidates to understand degrees of professional practice in relation to a focal area of study. For example, as teachers learn to become inclusive educators, articulating the development of inclusive practice (e.g., from initial to emerging to experienced) could be useful as benchmarks for reflection. A key to assessment for learning is referencing assessment to one’s own identified learning goal. A progression of professional learning can provide a pedagogic structure for reflective practice. Hence, having teacher candidates establish learning goals, and revising them in relation to their reflections, links experience with professional learning. In addition, the ongoing use of feedback throughout the learning process can guide and provoke student development. During reflective practice, feedback can provide teacher candidates with meaningful learning opportunities through assessment dialogues (i.e., continuous exchanges and provocations based on teacher candidates’ reflections). Finally, as recognized by (Willis, 2010), assessment for learning is a participatory pedagogy, involving the negotiation of identities by autonomous learners. One’s learning is always referenced to others. Recognizing the participatory nature of self-assessment further suggests that reflections should be shared, as a contribution towards others’ learning and towards the learning culture. In this way, teacher candidates’ identities develop through the joint and collective processes of reflection and assessment.

International contexts of teacher education

We situate our exploration of the relationship between reflection and assessment within an international study of teacher education and recognize that patterns of teacher education vary across international contexts. Specifically, variations exist in terms of who is responsible for delivering teacher education programs, the structure and regulation of those programs, and entry and exit requirements of graduates (Wang et al., 2003). These variations reflect cultural priorities in education more generally. Importantly, these broader contexts also inform the type of self-assessment that guides teacher candidates in their reflections on their developing professional identity. In order to answer the question of what informs the learning priorities of teacher candidates as they become reflective practitioners, the general context of education and how teacher education has responded to these contexts are explored in three nations.

Australia

Australia is the world’s largest island, comprising 5% of the world’s land area of 7,692,024 km² with a population of approximately 25 million people (Geoscience Australia, 2018). As a federation of six states with two self-governing territories, each state has constitutional responsibility for delivering educational services. Over 3.8 million school children attend school for 13 years from ages 5–18. Over 70% of schools are government schools, with the remaining independent schools associated with religious organizations (ACARA, 2017). Since 2008, there has been increasing national regulation of education with national assessment, a national curriculum, and national professional standards for teachers (Savage, 2016). A national report, Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers (2014), has influenced greater regulation of teacher preparation courses, with new quality assurance measures for the entry and exit requirements of teacher graduates.

Teacher training occurs mostly through 4-year Bachelor degree programs, or 2-year Master of Teaching programs offered as over 400 courses from 40 higher education providers. From 2018, teacher graduates from these courses are required to provide reflective portfolios of evidence from their teaching practice that show “positive impact on student learning” (AITSL, 2016: p. 45). This focus on teacher accountability for performance is a trend across many OECD countries (Lingard and Sellar, 2013). While graduate portfolios have long been part of pre-service teacher programs in Australia, their focus has been mostly on developing the graduate’s teacher identity through self-reflection (Mayer et al., 2017). With recent changes, pre-service teacher reflection is now being linked to accountability purposes. Reflective portfolios require pre-service teachers to present themselves as teachers who are ready to be held accountable to national teacher quality standards. There is a new urgency and purpose for teaching reflective practice to pre-service teachers.

Bhutan

Bhutan is a small eastern Himalayan Kingdom, recently emerging as the world’s newest democracy in 2008. Located between India and China, Bhutan is approximately 38,394 km², with a population of 733,004 in 2013 (NSB, 2014). The terrain is mountainous and rugged with altitudes ranging from 100m in the south to over 7000 m in the north. Monastic education in Bhutan, with formal monasteries and nunneries, was established as far back as the 8th Century with the advent of Buddhism in the country. These schools continue to this day, reflecting an important part of Bhutan’s culture. Modern education began in earnest in the 1950s, although small royal schools were established as far back as 1907 during the reign of the first king. Currently, there are 515 schools and 90 extended classrooms across the country, with 168,092 students and 9415 teachers as of 2017 (MOE, 2017).

Higher education is a recent addition to Bhutan’s educational system. In 2003, The Royal University of Bhutan was established. Since then, colleges and tertiary education institutes previously functioning under the ministries of the Royal Government of Bhutan and Delhi University in India have been brought under the Royal University of Bhutan (Scholfield, 2016). Private tertiary education is another newer development in Bhutan’s education system. In 2009, Bhutan’s first private college opened, and following its opening, two more private colleges were founded (MOE, 2017).

Bhutan has two colleges of education, both offering a 4-year Bachelor of Education (primary and secondary) for pre-service candidates who have completed class 12 or a 1-year Post-graduate Certificate in Education for those who have completed a first degree. As part of these programs, teacher candidates must undergo a practicum period (typically 6-month long) in various schools across the country.

Teacher candidates have highlighted the teaching practicum as highly beneficial (VanBalkom and Sherman, 2010) because candidates are able to experience teaching—and learn from these experiences—in an authentic setting. However, for professional growth, experience alone is insufficient. Experience coupled with reflection is a more powerful impetus for teacher development in Bhutan as reflection is a fundamental core of its teaching and learning processes (Wangdi, 2016). Teacher educators prepare teacher candidates to be reflective practitioners by assigning students to write reflective journals and analysis reports after their micro-teaching, as well as by providing room for reflection and feedback after presentations or class discussions.

In recent times, Bhutan’s education sector has been faced with the challenge of improving the quality of teachers and the quality of education. This task is made more complex by the number of factors currently impacting teacher preparation efforts. These factors include new and emerging curriculum, an increasing variety of teaching approaches, the working conditions of teacher educators, the quality of incoming teacher candidates, and resources for supporting teacher candidates during their practicums (VanBalkom and Sherman, 2010). Additionally, there are numerous challenges that exist within Bhutanese schools more generally, including a lack of basic facilities such as toilets, a lack of teaching and learning resources, and overcrowded classrooms (VanBalkom and Sherman, 2010). Given these diverse and demanding conditions, it is of particular interest to understand how teacher education programs in Bhutan are preparing teacher candidates—both professionally and emotionally—to carry out their responsibilities consistently.

Canada

Canada is one of the world’s largest countries with a geographic size of 9,985,000 km² and an overall population of 36,710,000 people. Education in Canada falls under provincial jurisdiction, with each of the 13 provinces and territories setting their own curriculum and priorities for education. Across provinces/territories, however, is a consistent emphasis on standards-based education and the use of assessment to support student learning, including principles associated with assessment for learning (Klinger et al., 2008; DeLuca et al., 2015; Volante and Ben Jaafar, 2008). The standards-based emphasis within the K-12 sector of education holds implications for the preparation of teachers throughout Canada. The majority of teacher education programs in Canada are 2 years in duration and post-degree programs, with some concurrent programs admitting students directly from secondary school (Crocker and Dibbon, 2008). Programs are certified by Ministries of Education and provincial/territorial teachers’ associations. Across programs is a mix of coursework and practicum experiences, with teacher candidates required to reflect on their experiences in support of their learning. As articulated by the Association of Canadian Deans of Education (2016) in their Accord on Initial Teacher Education, “an effective initial teacher education program envisions the teacher as a professional who observes, discerns, critiques, assesses, and acts accordingly” (p. 3). Provoking learning through assessment and reflection, then, remains at the cornerstone of initial teacher preparation in Canada. However, consistent with previous literature, the nature and quality of reflection is highly variable both within and across pre-service programs (Clarà, 2015; Crocker and Dibbon, 2008), with a need to further articulate a framework for reflection and assessment within Canadian pre-service programs.

Our study

Our investigation into the relationship between reflection and self-assessment involved data collection in three countries: Australia, Bhutan, and Canada. These three countries were selected because they reflect geographic different regions yet consistent commitments to promoting reflective teaching professionals. In addition, the three authors had professional exchanges that enabled a comparison of contexts focused on self-assessment as a basis for reflective practice and development.

In each context, following research ethics clearance by each university, we obtained the views and reflections of teacher candidates within one pre-service program in each context. Driving our data collection was a set of consistent research questions, yet our specific data collection methods differed slightly due to context. Methods were selected that addressed the research question but that aligned program contexts and opportunities in each site. Accordingly, instead of aiming for a standard approach to data collection, our approach was for locally valid orientation where data stemmed from context in ways meaningful and relevant to programs, teacher educators, researchers, and teacher candidates. That said, for each country context, data were collected from specific teacher education programs, which were conveniently selected yet which reflected common teacher education programs for their jurisdiction in terms of program components and coursework/practicum sequences.

In Australia, reflection data were gathered from one class cohort of 23 pre-service teachers in a specialized program through journals, surveys, and focus groups which consistently focused on the pedagogies and assessment strategies that supported teacher candidates’ learning. Pre-service teachers were part of one teacher education program. Analysis of data from the Australian context followed a standard inductive approach where codes were identified in the data and then clustered into larger themes. Data were analyzed by two raters; in instances of disagreement, raters discussed codes until consensus was achieved to ensure a high degree inter-rater agreement.

In Bhutan, teacher candidates within the teacher education program were invited to participate in focus groups, which occurred at convenient times and centrally. Data were obtained through focus group interviews with four fourth-year teacher candidates in a teacher education program. Teaching practice reflections and analysis reports of micro-teachings were also obtained from all four levels of the teacher education program. Following the analysis approach used in Australia, all data were inductively analyzed manually to explore what pedagogical structures facilitated teacher candidates’ reflections.

Lastly, data from a Canadian teacher education program were obtained through four focus groups with 27 teacher candidates, who were invited from the larger cohort of teacher candidates. Like in Bhutan, the focus groups asked teacher candidates about the practice of reflection, with an emphasis on the pedagogical qualities that enabled effective teacher candidate learning from reflection. All data across contexts asked teacher candidates to think about their experiences of self-assessment and reflection within and across pre-service program components and to consider the value of these pedagogies in light of their developing skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Again, data were inductively analyzed to render themes that characterized meaningful reflective practice for teacher candidates. Data from each context were initially analyzed individually with cross-context trends later identified and articulated in our discussion section of the article. All participants were provided with letters of information about the study and signed a consent form prior to participating.

Our findings from across contexts

In responding to our overall research question, how does self-assessment facilitate a stance towards professional learning and reflection, our empirical data from teacher candidates in three teacher education programs (one in each of the focal countries) were analyzed in relation to two guiding questions:

a. What are the learning priorities and purposes of reflection as teacher candidates learn to become teachers?

b. What assessment-driven pedagogies support the development of reflective practitioners within teacher education programs?

In responding to these questions, we learn both what is prioritized by teacher candidates in their learning and also how self-assessment serves as a pedagogical lever for reflective practice in their learning. For each study context themes are presented that respond to the research questions. The first theme in each country context relates most squarely to the first research question, whereas the remaining themes elaborate on the assessment-driven pedagogies operating within that context to support reflective practice.

Australia

Partnerships between universities and employers are recognized as an ideal way to teach pre-service teachers because connections between theoretical and practical learning are promoted and developed. This article reports on regular reflection opportunities that were designed into a special partnership program to enable the pre-service teachers to make personal connections across their learning settings, to guide their future learning goals, and to inform partners about how to further support the pre-service teachers. Selected pre-service teachers from early childhood, primary and secondary programs accessed substantial additional mentoring from teachers in local schools, and from an employer appointed Head of Mentoring, while they completed the final 18 months of their teaching degree. Qualitative analysis of the pre-service teacher reflections provide insight about (a) the priorities and purposes of the pre-service teacher reflections as a form of self-assessment; and (b) the pedagogic structures that were most effective in enabling reflection to guide their development.

Priorities and purposes of self-reflection as self-assessment

Evident in journal entries during the pre-service teachers’ final practical experience in schools included a mix of professional learning as well as personal feelings. When the reflection was about successfully meeting a personal developmental goal such as implementing a positive behavior plan, or designing curriculum to differentiate for students, feelings like “exhausting and transformational” were frequently reported. Feelings of “stress,” “conflict,” and “challenge” were often associated with managing challenging student behavior and having values that conflicted with the host teacher’s. Reflections about challenging student behavior often contained intentions for further learning or clear strategies they would try, such as “learn to be flexible,” “having conversations with students and parents,” and “using verbal and nonverbal strategies.” Reflections about managing ideological or political relationships included feeling disconnected in a large school, as well as concerns when host teachers had marginalized some disengaged students and were not sanctioning the pre-service teacher’s ideas to try to address these needs, or when feedback from a host teacher was focused only on criticism. There were not always learning goals that were associated with these reflections. Often, the reflective goals were future-focused strategies rather than immediate solutions, for example, “to pick my battles,” “to establish a support network,” and to “try and feel like a colleague,” potentially because the issues were seen as beyond their immediate control.

Effective pedagogies

The reflective pedagogic structure of the “4 Rs”—record, relate, reason, and reconstruct (Bain et al., 1999)—had been taught to the pre-service teachers as part of their university course and served to guide reflection as a self-assessment process. In their reflections during professional practice, the reflections were not organized as discrete responses to the 4 Rs as separate criteria. Instead reflective entries were a mix of feelings and issues, reasoning, and implications for the future. The act of reflection enabled pre-service teachers the opportunity to record personal triumphs and concerns, and to reason through dilemmas—which often involved assessing themselves and their actions in relation to reasoning and their broader learning. They problem-solved and came up with strategies that could become goals for professional development, again invoking powerful assessment for learning strategy. Even when they were not able to resolve an issue, the reflections recorded important professional insights such as “I have learned that I am ready for my own classroom and my values are stronger now they have been challenged,” and “I have learned that I will never get along with everyone and that is fine.”

When asked what would support their reflective practice, pedagogic supports like peer conversation and peer-assessment, or “having someone available who is not from the school to debrief with and to ask advice” were frequently mentioned. The special program had established a professional culture of mentoring, where school-based mentors were not involved in assessment or evaluation of the pre-service teachers. This collegial approach to professional learning, enabling the exploration of personal feelings and values, professional relationships, as well as classroom effectiveness, was a missed factor in reflective practice during professional experience in schools. Some pre-service teachers identified the “the importance of reflection every day—making your thinking visible and having a record of this” to guide their ongoing learning. These reflections informed learning by the education lecturers, as a result of which an online reflective diary was co-designed with the pre-service teachers to support their ongoing reflection as they transitioned to full-time teaching in remote and rural locations.

Bhutan

Teacher education lecturers of the two teacher colleges believed the programs were founded on sound teaching philosophies and provided a good mix of academic content and pedagogical and professional content (VanBalkom and Sherman, 2010). Analyses of teaching practicum reflections, reports of micro-teaching, and the focus group interview, also highlighted the wide range of methods and strategies used by the lecturers. The pre-service teachers appreciated what they learned in courses such as “skills for effective teaching,” “learning principles,” and “academic writing skills” where reflection in writing was taught. The focus group participants commented positively on the courses, which used reflection as part of their assessment. Although reflection was not explicitly used as an assessment process more broadly in the college, it was consistently emphasized by lecturers, who talked about the importance of reflection in one’s teaching and learning. Students kept a reflective journal or wrote reflection papers about their practices. The themes that emerged from analyses of teaching practicum reflections and reports of micro-teaching, as well as analysis of the focus group interview, are (a) purpose of reflection; (b) the desire for feedback from the mentors and tutors; and (c) learning priorities as the course progressed.

Purpose of reflection

Deliberating on the purpose of reflection, all the participants from the focus group interview talked about the positive behavioral changes within themselves as the result of reflection. One participant reflected, “When I was chief counselor back in Orang High School, I used to get angry…but after joining this college I came to realize that I need to improve the way I deal with myself and others. This realization came after watching my seniors deal with their juniors and listening to my tutors always advising us to reflect on our own action and learn from them.” Keeping a teaching practice journal and writing reflections helped the pre-service teachers to evaluate and make sense of the skills and knowledge gained at the teacher college. As one participant posited, “reflecting daily during my six months field experience helped me know what are my weaknesses and strengths.” This was echoed by another student, who said, “writing reflection[s] helped myself grow in such a way that I teach better in the next lesson…so whenever we go through the points that we have noted down we are made to realize about what we have done, what are things we should be doing later and these things help us to let us be prepared.” Reflection was seen as a valuable process as it brought about changes in the teacher candidates’ personal and professional development.

Feedback from others

Most of the participants asserted that true insight into their own professional and personal development came from the feedback they received from their mentors, tutors, and peers. These participants explained that learning from reflection practices by oneself was not easy. One participant stated that “reflecting is easy but it is difficult to analyze. We can reflect that this part I made mistake, why I made mistake? How I made mistake? These are the points I find challenging to reflect.” Another participant stated, “I used to write so much but no meaning.” Many echoed these thoughts, implying that pre-service teachers may not have the necessary expertise to analyze or set goals from their reflective practices without support. Although some of the teacher candidates asserted that their peers were very reluctant in giving feedback, it was still valued, as one participant voiced, “most of the peers never give feedback though I am open to them.” Another participant said, “my mentor gave authentic feedback after each lesson I taught and it helped me see my strength and weakness.”

Learning priorities

Learning priorities evident in teacher candidates’ reflections changed over the course of their time in the program. First-year students’ priorities focused on learning how to obtain employment after the completion of their degree. However, by fourth-year, teacher candidates’ priorities shifted to focus on developing their skills and gain experiences in teaching, and on putting theory into practice. One of the focus group participants noted: “I focus mostly on growing myself, grooming myself, and learning about myself and others,” stating his priority is “mostly knowing about the values and attitude, respect for others that I learn from my seniors and tutors.” Generally, teacher candidates at all stages appreciated the benefit of reflection. As summarized by one participant, “if we need to have a beautiful, wonderful life, we need to reflect, assess ourselves, we need to accept what others say, we need to open up and we need to plan to put the plan in practice then only we improve.”

Canada

Through three focus groups with teacher candidates at the end of their pre-service program at one Canadian university, we began to understand how reflection could operate to support teacher learning when structured and scaffolded using assessment practices. Importantly, however, when asked about reflection-based activities during their pre-service year, the teacher candidates did not explicitly articulate linkages with assessment; rather, they described activities that could be interpreted as involving assessment processes. Three core themes emerged from the Canadian teacher candidates’ discussions: (a) purposes of reflection, (b) feedback on reflections, and (c) continuity of learning.

Purpose of reflection

In discussing the purposes of reflection, several teacher candidates recognized that “reflective practice is part of the Standards of Teaching” (teacher candidate) yet articulated various purposes for reflection during the pre-service year. As one teacher candidate commented, “I can see how teachers need to reflect everyday on their teaching but that is different than the kind of reflection we do in teachers’ college.” Elaborating on this idea, another candidate noted, “this year [during teacher education program] we were asked so many times to reflect for assignments but these often occur after the event we are reflecting on and so are not always helpful because the event has come and gone.” Many teacher candidates made a distinction between reflection as a formal learning activity in pre-service programming and reflection as daily professional practice. The distinction was further articulated when one teacher candidate stated, “when you are a teacher and you have a class you might identify something you want to monitor and reflect on throughout the semester and this can be more formal reflection…and lead to changes in your teaching.” Similarly, when describing reflection for pre-service coursework, teacher candidates noted that it was beneficial when it had a clear focus and purpose and when it led to changes in their practice. One teacher candidate stated, “we are asked to do lots of reflection. Some of it is helpful but a lot of it feels like busy work. The helpful kind of reflection usually is part of a larger project where we need to think about our own teaching and link it to future practice and class topics.” Hence, these teacher candidates found value in reflection when it was a more integrated component of coursework and course learning, rather than one-off tasks that only made weak connections to educational theories or practices. Connecting reflection activities to larger learning goals (i.e., course goals and assignments) appeared to have greater value for these teacher candidates.

Feedback on reflections

When pushed to discuss effective reflection opportunities during their pre-service year, teacher candidates noted that reflection was beneficial when it involved feedback from the instructor. “Many times, we are just asked to reflect and we keep it to ourselves or share it in a discussion. This kind of reflection can be ok but I prefer when the teacher [instructor] actually responds to my reflection” (teacher candidate). Another candidate echoed this idea by stating, “when we [instructor and teacher candidate] work together and talk about my teaching experiences, that is most helpful, that makes it feel more personal and relevant.” Feedback—a key formative assessment process—was articulated by several teacher candidates as elevating reflection from “busy work” to a “real learning opportunity” (teacher candidate). Teacher candidates noted that feedback could be in the form of a conversation with the instructor or a written response to their reflection. They also articulated that feedback was most informative when it provided practical teaching strategies or resources that would help teacher candidates in future similar situations to those described in their reflections. One teacher candidate recognized that effective feedback for him was feedback that “helps me understand my teaching better and how to be a better teacher.”

Continuity of learning

A final theme from teacher candidates in Canada was that effective reflection needed to be part of a continuity of learning. For teacher candidates in this study, there was general consensus that reflections need to be integrated into their own learning goals and projects. One teacher candidate summarized this notion by stating, “reflecting is good but I need to see value in what I’m asked to reflect on. If it is not something I care about or have been working on, I usually find it difficult to reflect on.” This theme, again, suggests that reflection needs to be integrated into teacher candidates’ professional learning plans; they need to have the agency to select the topic and form of their reflection for it to be of most benefit. Pushing further, this theme suggests that one of the key components that makes reflection valuable is not necessarily the act or task of reflection but its capacity to make more visible the learning goals and projects of teacher candidates. To make explicit the driving goals for teacher learning is a key assessment strategy that helps focus learning and, in doing so, helps accelerate their growth and development.

Discussion

Our investigation across three diverse contexts—Australia, Bhutan, and Canada—into the role of and relationship between reflection and self-assessment in preparing future teachers has led to convergent findings as well as points to key differences across countries. In particular, our study has identified (a) consistent learning priorities of pre-service teachers as they engage with reflection; (b) pedagogical features that leverage self-assessment strategies to enhance reflective practice; and (c) the possibilities for reflection to facilitate a professional stance towards learning. Across these finding, what has emerged is the important role assessment processes place in promoting reflective learning and professional practice; specifically, self-assessment and feedback processes were viewed as key processes to reflection.

Learning priorities

In Canada, the topics of reflections were often selected by their teacher educators with some examples of self-selected topics, and were typically associated with formal learning events “that had come and gone,” or formal assessment tasks. Learning that was prioritized most often in reflections was about practical strategies or resources for teaching, or that involved conversations with their instructor, and were about something that they found personally valuable. In the Australian reflections, the students chose what they were reflecting about in the context of their professional experience in schools. The pre-service teachers responded to open reflective question prompts asking about what has been important, helpful, or challenging by recording a range of emotions and practical strategies they were trying out with their own students. Challenging student behavior, adjusting curriculum planning to cater for diverse students, and the difficulties of getting along with a supervising teacher were the most frequent learning topics. The priority was to reason through issues, and to make plans for action, even if they were generalized plans about what type of teacher they wished to become. In Bhutan, the learning focus of reflections depended on what stage the pre-service teacher was at in their course, developing more towards introspection and personal and professional growth in their fourth year of study. While these learning foci seem to point to differences across contexts, these differences are most likely a consequence of how the reflective learning opportunities were structured.

Pedagogical features that leverage self-assessment processes

Although the length and governance of the pre-service teachers’ programs were quite different across the three contexts of Australia, Bhutan, and Canada, there were similarities in the pedagogic reflective structures. In each of their courses, pre-service teachers were taught how to write reflectively and how to engage in reflective discussion with peers and teacher educators. In Canada and Bhutan, the reflective process was also designed into the formal course assessment. In Australia, the reflective process was part of the day-to-day learning, however the artifacts could be selected and re-used by students in more formal reflective portfolios that were required for employment purposes. Specific pedagogic structures organized by teacher educators included reflective journal entries, formal peer discussions, reflections on micro-teaching episodes, and feedback from lecturers, supervising teachers, mentors, and peers.

Across all three contexts, it was clear that there were pedagogic structures that supported the teacher candidates to engage in a reflective internal conversation with self, enabling issues and emotions to be identified, questioned, and addressed. Also common in the three contexts was a desire for an opportunity to benchmark some of those internally focused deliberations. Self-assessment involves an individual referencing their internal deliberations to an external set of agreed-upon social norms. The individual can then rate or evaluate themselves to make a judgment about “how well” they are doing (Boud, 1995). Self-assessment occurred when the teacher candidates were drawing on their reflections to engage in formal assessment activities to evaluate their performance against expected standards. Most often, the self-assessment that was occurring in the reflections were related to the more everyday, implicit professional standards of being a certain type of teacher. Canadian teacher candidates sought a clearer focus for their formal reflections so that reflection did not become “busy work” for learning, requesting that reflections be integrated with strong connections to longer term projects and goals.

In some literature, self-assessment is regarded as only “moderately” accurate, with a tendency of people towards overconfidence and undue optimism (Dunning et al., 2004). Overconfidence was not an overt feature of the reflective self-assessment in any of the contexts. Rather, the reflective entries often indicated uncertainty and a desire for support to gain clarity of direction. Teacher candidates in all three contexts recognized that their experiences of thinking through uncertainty was part of their ongoing learning-to-teach process. They indicated that a trusted other person—who could help them in their evaluative reasoning—was important to their development. In Bhutan, the students desired access to someone with greater expertise to help them analyze their reflective accounts and “find meaning.” Prior to pre-service teachers commencing their practicums in schools, the teacher educator usually fulfilled the role of a reflective partner, which was true across all three contexts. During the 6-month practicum experience in Bhutan, reflective support was provided by a local mentoring teacher as well as teacher educators making occasional connections with their students.

The Canadian pre-service teachers particularly valued feedback from their instructors during their coursework, as talking through the reflections through made it “personal” and a “real learning opportunity.” In practical teaching experience contexts in schools, this role of expert advisor was often the classroom based mentor teacher. In the Australian pre-service teacher reflections, the risks of sharing some reflections—with a teacher mentor who may have a different ideology, where the pre-service teacher feels vulnerable about being judged, or when that mentor is also an evaluator—were highlighted. Teachers work in a profession where they are always vulnerable to criticism (Kelchtermans, 2016). Peers, or “someone not from the school” were also suggested to be reflective partners. Reflecting with a more experienced person in the context can enable “dialogic reflexivity,” that is, reliving, rehearsing and recognizing alternative actions, and it is highly valued by early career teachers (Author, 2017). If self-assessment requires making a judgment about what has happened in order to decide what to do next, reflecting with others can help provide a social context of practice that will assist newcomers to a profession.

Possibilities for reflection to cultivate a professional learning stance

Similar across all contexts was that reflection was beneficial when it was linked to professional growth and being a certain type of teacher. Beginning teachers develop professional identities through internal and external interactions that enabled them to understand how to align themselves with the complexities of professional practice (Day and Gu, 2010). In these three contexts, pre-service teachers showed greater commitment to reflection when they had choice in the topic and could see how they were being supported to develop as professionals (Loughran, 2002). The reflections were an important space to work out some of these priorities, but in all three contexts, pre-service teachers saw greater possibilities if the reflections were linked to self-assessment.

Four AfL pedagogic structures were proposed at the beginning of this article as a way to create a stronger connection between reflection and self-assessment. Of these four, there was not substantial evidence to support the first proposition of (a) using criteria to identify and benchmark qualities in reflections. The reflections had inherent value as opportunities to record and question the candidates’ experiences and learning, but the quality of the reflections were not considered as important by any of the teacher candidates. Of greater value was the capacity of reflection to identify and sort through the issues of importance to create new learning goals. Benchmarking featured as a more implicit component of reflective practice, where teacher candidates compared their experiences to their ideal teacher selves, or to the expectations of others.

There was more evidence to support (b) situating reflection in relation to learning goals and a learning progression. Particularly in the Canadian context, pre-service teachers valued seeing a connection between small acts of reflection and a large learning goal. In Bhutan, there was a sense of reflections developing over the course of study. A progression of professional learning, possibly through increasingly sophisticated reflective questions and prompts that develop over a course, may provide a pedagogic structure for reflective practice. Specific goals were not always clear in reflections on experience, and only became clearer with time (Boud et al., 1985). That is why the strongest indication for development across all three contexts was (c) providing opportunity for feedback on reflections, and (d) recognizing that reflection is always referenced to the learning of others. Pre-service teachers wished for the option of discussing reflections with a trusted other person. There is potential for teacher educators to then support teacher candidates in establishing their learning goals from reflections, in revisiting and revising them in relation to later reflections, and in linking their experiences with professional learning. The idea of a reflective portfolio of practice, which is a requirement in Australia, might seem to provide an overarching pedagogic structure to support reflection. As the strongest value in the reflective practice was personal choice of topic and personal growth, several versions of portfolios may be needed as evaluative purposes can increase vulnerability and critically shift the purpose of reflection. There is also potential for feedback conversations based on reflections to be an opportunity to inform teacher educators about course design and to inform institutional improvements.

Conclusion

Overall, our study highlighted key aspects of self-assessment practice that can, when explicitly implemented within teacher education programs, contribute to enhanced reflection. Self-assessment then provides pedagogic features for the often-unstructured task of reflecting on one’s experience (Clarà, 2015; Grimmett and Erickson, 1988; Richardson, 1992). In particular, linking reflection to larger professional goals, reflecting with others, and gaining feedback on reflections were viewed positively by teacher candidates across contexts. Regardless of teacher education environment, framing reflection through an orientation of self-assessment appears to have merit. As we continue to explore the connection between self-assessment and reflection across diverse contexts of learning, we must attend to the discursive differences that shape our contextualized understandings of self-assessment and reflection. As such, future work—work that digs deeper into the multiple ways self-assessment and reflection are interpreted and practiced simultaneously by teacher educators and teacher candidates around the world—is suggested. While we recognize that the data collected in each context of this study were different, posing some limitations to the comparability of findings between context, we assert that future research should continue to engage in comparative research on the value of assessment to broad professional learning capacities—such as reflective practice—using a variety of methods. In reflecting on our own comparative research process, we acknowledge that the diversity of our methods limits the direct comparison of results yet still illuminates consistent trends and findings regardless of context that shape teacher candidate learning.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Christopher DeLuca

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