Making reflection public: using interactive online discussion board to enhance student learning

Abstract

The account of teacher education pedagogy presented here suggests that reflective practice in the form of reflective online letter writing has the potential to move conversations towards an epistemological shift that values multiple perspectives and builds confidence and competence for engaging in reflection and professional dialogue. This paper focuses on the requirement for reflection within a teacher education course in a regional Australian university that blends online and face‐to‐face teaching and learning. What is of particular interest is how the possibilities and enabling limits of asynchronous, online discussion can scaffold student engagement with course content and with one another in ways that enhance their willingness and ability to read, write and interact reflectively. The paper reflects on how the move to online reflection and to composing reflections as a letter to a critical friend made this, more often private, assessment driven, process interactive and open to a wider audience. Making reflection public seems to have had a positive impact on the quality and style of reflection and interactions; and on student commitment to imagining possible futures as agents of change within classrooms and schools.