Fostering design-oriented collective reflection among preservice teachers through principle-based knowledge building activities

Abstract

Teacher's reflective capacity is an important means for teachers' growth in professionalism. This design-based research investigated the effects of knowledge building (KB) principles on pre-service teachers' reflective capacity in two intervention cycles. Particularly, the two principles of “community knowledge, collective responsibility” and “symmetric knowledge advancement” were highlighted. Participants include 25 pre-service teachers who practiced their micro-teaching during two intervention cycles. Data include: (1) records of online activities; (2) content of online feedback in the form of lesson design ideas; and (3) two open-ended surveys. Findings based on the first intervention cycle revealed that guided by the first KB principle, the participants were able to progressively work more cohesively as an online collaborative community, and extend their reflective concerns about teaching to learning. However, there was no significant improvement in terms of the quality of feed-backed lesson design ideas. To address this issue, the second principle was added in the second design cycle. Moreover, using survey as a reflection tool, an attempt to extend the investigation from pre-service teachers' reflection on teaching concerns to reflection on technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) was taken into consideration in the second intervention iteration. As a result, the quality of the feed-backed lesson design ideas was significantly improved, indicating a sign of pre-service teachers' enhanced design fluency. In addition, the participants' design knowledge was also improved as evidenced in their deepening their reflection from basic, to more integrated, TPACK knowledge. Implications regarding principle-based, design-oriented knowledge building activities to foster reflective thinking for teacher preparation are discussed.