How To Use Reflection In Teacher Education

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3 Blogging and Self-Evaluation on the Use of Reflection in Teacher Education Karmen Kalk 1, Piret Luik, Merle Taimalu University of Tartu Abstract Developing reflection should be an essential part of teacher education and lifelong learning. There are many opportunities to encourage reflection using a blog as a reflective diary could be one of these. The aim of this study is to investigate how blogging can support reflection for student teachers and induction year teachers. The sample consisted of 169 respondents (101 student teachers and 68 induction year teachers) from Tartu University and Tallinn University. Before and after the study, participants completed questionnaires including a modified Reflection Questionnaire with two factors and a Reflection in Learning Scale with one factor. To calculate changes in reflection, the sum scores of the factors from the pre-questionnaires were subtracted from the factor sum scores of the post-questionnaires. During teaching practice and the induction year all participants had the opportunity to use a blog to share experiences, ask questions, obtain support. Quantitative analysis was used to analyse the blog posts of each participant. The results indicated that just using a blog to share experiences, without guiding and promoting reflection, was not effective for developing reflection. There was no evidence that posting more and longer blog entries is related to any greater change in evaluations of reflection. Keywords: reflection, teacher education, blogging Introduction An accomplished teacher is a member of a professional community, possesses a vision, is motivated, and is able to teach, reflect, and learn from experience. These aspects embody the personal and professional development of teachers (Shulman and Shulman, 2004). Many teacher educators agree that the development of reflection and meaning-making skills can be a challenging task (Good and Whang, 2002), but reflection is essential in order to link experience and learning (Zink and Dyson, 2009). Dewey (1933:9) defined reflection as 1 Address for correspondence: karmen.kalk@ut.ee

4 12 Karmen Kalk, Piret Luik, Merle Taimalu active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends. Further, critical reflection adds a deeper dimension and may change personal beliefs (Leung and Kember, 2003). Reflection is not an end in itself, but a tool for transforming raw experience into theory that is grounded in experience and facilitates the moral growth of the individual and society (Rodgers, 2002). Picard and Ria (2011) mention that reflection is relevant to teachers as professionals, otherwise the number of government agendas, external experts and trainers make teachers feel as if they are merely instruments who are only guided by others. Therefore, reflection should be an essential component of learning and practice in teacher education and lifelong learning. Reflective thinking can be practised, assessed, and perfected (Rodgers, 2002). It is important to offer opportunities to learn and practise reflection. Gray (2007) has pointed out several processes and tools for learning and using reflection. These are: storytelling, reflective and reflexive conversations, reflective metaphors, critical incident analysis, reflective diaries, repertory grids, and concept mapping. In addition, Shulman and Shulman (2004) include teaching portfolios and regular discussions about experiences. Fund, Court and Kramarski (2002) point out that it is possible to reflect in written or verbal form. The use of diaries is one opportunity to apply all of the activities mentioned above. Diary writing is a multifaceted activity encompassing many forms and purposes, including the opportunity to practise reflection (Boud, 2001). Diaries offer the opportunity to construct, create, read, write, and collaborate (Good and Whang, 2002). The use of diaries in formal study, as a strategy to encourage deeper learning and critical thinking, has increased in recent years (Prinsloo, Slade and Galpin, 2011). A blog is a form of diary comprising a series of updated posts which can contain text, music, images, and videos, and are in chronological order (Raynsford, 2003). It becomes possible to follow one s own learning process on the blog (Nedeva and Nedev, 2010; Sun, 2010). The blog can be individual or collective (Nedeva and Nedev, 2010). An individual blog is a personal diary where only one person is the author of posts; others can read and comment on these posts. Collective blogs may have several authors and all users have the opportunity to post, read, and comment on blog entries. Several studies have examined reflection via blogs in different ways. For example, groups with an active blog are compared where the blogs receive feedback or no feedback from tutors and peers (Xie, Ke and Sharma, 2008). Some researchers have investigated reflection through the blog with a tutor who did not teach reflection but did support the use of blogging and gave feedback (e.g., Sun, 2010; Top, Yukselturk and Inan, 2010). Furthermore, there are studies where the tutor actively teaches reflection and guides the students through the blog (Yang, 2009). The 2008 study by Xie, Ke and Sharma compared two groups of students with and without feedback provided by their

5 Blogging and Self-Evaluation on Using Reflection 13 tutor and peers on their blog: the level of reflective thinking increased in both groups if students continued to blog. In addition, the use of reflection increased more in the group which did not receive or send any feedback. Boud (1999) has also claimed that the presence of someone designated as a tutor can decrease reflection. Further, Sun (2010) also found that blogs foster reflection; and Good and Whang s (2002) results showed that organized thinking and depth of thought were encouraged by writing a diary. Top, Yukselturk and Inan s (2010) study showed that although the students evaluated interactivity on the blog (comments, questions, and peer feedback) as one of its most important characteristics, they used blogs more for information sharing than for interaction, collaboration, or peer feedback. The study in which reflection was taught showed that challenges set by the tutors promoted deeper thinking and critical reflection when using the blog (Yang, 2009). As seen above, there are various approaches and results on the promotion of reflection through using a blog. As there were no clear differences between studies where teaching reflection was used with the blogs (Yang, 2009) and those where teaching reflection was not used (Good and Whang, 2002; Sun, 2010; Top, Yukselturk and Inan, 2010; Xie, Ke and Sharma, 2008), we decided to investigate blog use without taught reflection first. This study is the first stage in implementing blogs in teacher education in Estonia, and at this stage we examined self-evaluations about reflection when using blogs without tutors specifically teaching and guiding reflection. So, the aim of the current research was to investigate how blogging without a tutor teaching and guiding reflection supports reflection for student and induction year teachers. Three hypotheses were posed. The first hypothesis of the research is based on Xie, Ke and Sharma s (2008) findings that for students who were constantly engaged in blogging, their level of reflective thinking in blog posts increased over time. The first hypothesis of this study is: the number and length of the blog posts by student teachers and induction year teachers is positively related to changes in their evaluations of reflection. As mentioned above, the development of reflection through a blog has been studied in many different ways (e.g., Sun, 2010; Xie, Ke and Sharma, 2008; Yang, 2009). Hence, the second hypothesis deals with how a tutor s active engagement with the blog is involved: the number and length of the blog posts by the tutor is positively related to changes in evaluations of reflection by student teachers and induction year teachers. The authors of this article consider that the development of reflection may relate to the characteristics of the blog how the blog is organized (the number of blog members, initial task given for the blog, technical instructions, and the presence of a supervisor). So, the third hypothesis is: the characteristics of a blog are related to the changes in evaluations of reflection by student teachers and induction year teachers.

6 14 Karmen Kalk, Piret Luik, Merle Taimalu Method Sample Participants were selected from two universities in Estonia from the University of Tartu and from the University of Tallinn during the 2010/11 academic year. These two universities are the only institutions in Estonia providing teacher education. A total of 169 student teachers and induction year teachers (10 male and 159 female) participated in this study (see Table 1). The participants were 101 (60%) student teachers, who were participating in teaching practice during this academic year, and 68 (40%) induction year teachers. The latter are teachers in their first year of teaching in schools and who had also some university seminars. The participants were selected such that the sample covered different subjects and school-levels. Of the subject teachers, 25 (34%) were science teachers, 42 (58%) teachers of humanities and 6 (8%) teachers of art and physical culture. The average age of the participants was (SD = 5.27). Table 1. Description of the sample Student teacher Induction year teachers Total n % n % n % Pre-school teachers Primary school teachers (years 1 4) Subject teachers (years 5 12) Special educationalists Instruments The data were collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 119 items measuring different aspects. Adaptations of existing questionnaires were used to measure self-evaluations on the reflection of the participants. Firstly, the Reflection Questionnaire (Kember et al, 2000) with two subscales for self-report was used to measure the extent to which students engage in reflective thinking (e.g., I sometimes question the way others do something and try to think of a better way) and their use of critical reflection (e.g., As a result of this course I have changed my normal way of doing things). Secondly, the Reflection in Learning Scale (Sobral, 2001; 2005) was used for self-reporting evaluations on the use of self-reflection in learning (e.g., Mindfully summarised what I was learning day in, day out, in my studies). Items from both questionnaires were translated into Estonian and then back to English and piloted. Because the Reflection Questionnaire used a 5-point scale and the

7 Blogging and Self-Evaluation on Using Reflection 15 Reflection in Learning Scale on a 7-point scale, then a 5-point scale was used in both cases. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to check validity and to find the structure of the scales. A model with two subscales was found using CFA (reflection with 5 items and critical reflection with 4 items) for the Reflection Questionnaire and one subscale with 10 items for the Reflection in Learning Scale, which coincided with the original scale structures. The scales also exhibited convergent and discriminant validity (Kalk et al., forthcoming). Internal reliability (Cronbach s alpha) for these three subscales was:.77 for the reflection subscale,.70 for the critical reflection subscale, and.84 for the reflection in learning subscale. The questionnaire ended with background data. Procedure Student teachers and induction year teachers filled in the pre-questionnaire before teaching practice started or at the beginning of the school-year, respectively. The starting level of reflection among the participants was measured using the pre-questionnaire. As is usual when managing the teaching practice and the induction year in Estonia, the student teachers and induction year teachers were divided amongst different schools. It is usual that the group size of student teachers in a school is one to five and there is only one induction year teacher at a school. The distance between the schools can be greater than two hundred kilometres and even if student teachers are in the same school, each one has a personal timetable giving few opportunities to meet the other student teachers. In this way, some student teachers, and all induction year teachers, are isolated from their course-mates. But sharing feelings and thoughts is important for supporting new teachers (Capa Aydin and Woolfolk Hoy, 2005). The blog provided an opportunity to connect with the other pre-service teachers and also receive advice from the supervisor in a more effective way. Thirteen (13) collective blogs were created by the researchers ( to give the participants an opportunity to share their experiences, ask questions, provide support, and so on. One tutor also participated in the blog writing. Her task was to support the participants and solve emerging problems. The tutors did not teach or direct reflection because the aim was to find out if reflection develops without special intervention. In all blogs, participants were asked to blog voluntarily. They could write about topics they wanted to share with the others or to ask questions. All blogs were closed, included several participants and only the participants of the study and the tutor could read and write on the particular blog. The blogs were different as follows: The number of participants in a blog varied from 9 to 24. Besides the tutor, a university supervisor of the teaching practice participated in 5 blogs.

8 16 Karmen Kalk, Piret Luik, Merle Taimalu Eight groups of bloggers were taught how to use a blog before blogging, 5 groups received only guidelines on paper. An initial task (to answer compulsory questions) was given for 3 blogs. Familiarity of the participants in the blogging groups also differed in 5 blogs they did not know each other, in 5 blogs the participants had met in some seminars, and 4 blogs were created by course-mates. After the teaching practice or induction year, participants filled in the postquestionnaires. Post-questionnaires were the same as the pre-questionnaires and with this instrument the final level of the reflection of the participants was measured. SPSS PASW Statistics 18 was used for the data analysis. To calculate the changes in evaluations on reflection, sum scores from the pre-questionnaire were subtracted from those of the post-questionnaire for reflection subscales: reflection, critical reflection, and reflection in learning. This indicated the change in self-reported evaluation of the use of reflection. The term change of reflection score is used below for readability. Quantitative analysis was used for the blog posts. Altogether, 1,136 posts (627 new posts and 509 comments) by student teachers and induction year teachers were analysed. The number of new posts and comments, the total number of comments received and the number of comments received from other students or induction year teachers were calculated for each participant. The total number of posts was calculated as the sum of the number of new posts and the number of comments. As the length of the blogging period differed (from 5 to 34 weeks) then the average number of new posts, comments, and the total number of posts per week was calculated. The average number of words was used as the indicator of the length of the posts. In addition to posts by student teachers and induction year teachers, 317 posts (145 new posts and 172 comments) by tutors and teaching practice supervisors were analysed. The same statistics were used to analyse posts by tutors and supervisors as for student and induction year teachers. For each blog the sum statistics of both tutor and university supervisor were assigned. In this paper the term instructor is used below as the overall name covering tutor and supervisor of the teaching practice. A Spearman correlation was used to find relationships between the number and length of blog posts, comments received, and changes in reflection scores. In the case of relationships between the posts of tutors and participants, reflection scores were only used for those participants who marked in the postquestionnaire that they had read the blog during the teaching practice or induction year (107 people). For comparison, both a Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U-test were used.

9 Blogging and Self-Evaluation on Using Reflection 17 Results For pre- and post-questionnaires the descriptive statistics on sum scores of evaluations of the reflection (5 items), critical reflection (4 items), and reflection in learning (10 items) subscales as well as change of reflection scores are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Descriptive statistics of sum scores of three reflection subscales in pre- and post-questionnaire Pre-questionnaire Post-questionnaire Changes of sum score Subscale Min Max Median Min Max Median Min Max Median Reflection Critical reflection Reflection in learning scale Descriptive statistics for the characteristics of participants blogging and Spearman correlation coefficients are given in Table 3. The results show no significant relationships between characteristics of participants blogging and change of reflection scores in all cases (p >.05). Significant relationships were found between writing activity in the blog and comments received: total number of comments received was positively related to the participant s number of new posts and the number of comments written (accordingly Spearman s rho =.76; Spearman s rho =.76; in both cases p <.01). In the same way, the number of comments received from students or induction year teachers was positively related to the participant s number of new posts and the number of comments written (accordingly Spearman s rho =.72; Spearman s rho =.76; in both cases p <.01).