(DOWNLOAD) "Promoting Critical and Reflective Thinking Among Teacher Education Students: Using Computer-Mediated Bulletin Board Discussion in a Professional Development School (Report)" by Teaching and Learning ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Promoting Critical and Reflective Thinking Among Teacher Education Students: Using Computer-Mediated Bulletin Board Discussion in a Professional Development School (Report)
- Author : Teaching and Learning
- Release Date : January 22, 2007
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 258 KB
Description
Thirty-one preservice teacher education students participated in a program that involved extensive field experience in two elementary professional development schools. All 31 students met for a weekly seminar and participated in a computer-mediated bulletin board discussion. Transcripts of the bulletin board discussion and of fifteen interviews were subjected to independent qualitative analysis by each of two researchers, followed by a process of extracting data that was coded similarly by both researchers. The researchers found that students were stimulated to think critically and reflectively both when reading the contributions of others and when composing their own contributions. One of the primary goals of the teacher education program at our university is to produce "inquirer-professionals," teachers who are able to think critically and reflectively about their own practice in order to continually improve that practice. A considerable body of theory and research indicates that this sort of thinking is facilitated by interaction--that people are stimulated to think by engaging in discussion with others. There is also a lot of support for teacher education students doing a good deal of their learning in the field--working in K-12 classroom settings more and being with their peers in college classes and seminars less. The dilemma this creates is related to the perennial problem of teacher isolation. To the extent that teacher education students are placed in K-12 classrooms, they have less opportunity to engage in discussion with their peers, with a concomitant loss of what that discussion could do for them in terms of stimulating critical and reflective thinking about their practice.