Abstract
Educating the pedagogy students as teachers is one of the main aims of the Department of Education and Social Work Sciences, University of Patras, Greece. Teachers in Reflective Practice is a compulsory module; groups of 20 students are obliged to shadow teachers at the schools for reflective practice, active engagement in the educational activities and teachers’ shadowing, reflective meetings with the tutors and students’ final assignments. The aim of the intervention was to advance and modernize the module with new pedagogical methods and associated tools widely available to the tutors and the students. Following the literature review and the current trends in university students’ education, collaborative and flipped classroom learning supported by both an online course and an onsite course was decided to be implemented in addition to their involvement in the school. The research design and methods followed mixed-methods research design for validation and generalization. As such, the findings derived from an online questionnaire, the eClass logs, a focus group discussion, and tutors’ observation notes are presented and discussed. It appears that reflective engagement and accelerated learning were evident; the online course and discussions were utilized for active engagement; lastly, digital literacy and more time in the classroom are needed for better results. As a result, the implications and best practices are extracted for similar reflective practice courses.
Highlights
Educating the pedagogy students as teachers is one of the main aims of the Department of Education and Social Work Sciences, University of Patras, Greece
The results suggest the following: the overall course and the way the students experienced it was very satisfactory and useful; the new model based on blended learning reflective practice organization cooperation with the coordinating tutors was successful; the content was clear and well organized; the collaborative active observation and shadowing was a helpful reflective practice experience; own reflective practice and flipped educational material were productive both in online and onsite meeting discussion; lastly, the final assignment was helpful with their own educational process as professional teachers
Teachers in Reflective Practice is a compulsory course provided to the last year students divided into: 1) an eLearning course; 2) groups of 20 students for one week of reflective observation and practice in the classroom; 3) assistance teaching and active engagement in the educational activities; 4) reflective meetings for each group with the course teachers; and 5) each student’s final assignment on reflective practice
Summary
Pitsou process that occurs during university teacher training but a meaningful educational process that will enable the students to actively participate in professional learning practice and teachers’ communities, whilst developing collective and individual skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, peer learning, and educational reflection. That is, they are given the opportunity, through practical training, to perceive in practice what they have learned, and their own value, opinions, and limitations (Ball & Forzani, 2009). The initial research questions were formulated as follows: 1) In what ways eLearning and new technologies can aid students’ onsite reflective practice?
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