Teacher reflection as a research method: using phenomenology to reflect on classroom events

Abstract

ABSTRACT Arguing that teacher reflection on events as a research method is necessary for naming unrecognized values and moral responsibility that have informed current practice, I apply phenomenological reflection to an event with a child from my own classroom experience, recorded through autoethnographic writing, to show how the significance of this revealed itself in its latency, bringing into nearness the originary and eidetic insights of this lived pedagogical encounter. I do this utilizing two insight cultivators – ‘essential a posteriori’ (the ‘too late’), and responsive contact. This type of autobiographical reflection is important for teachers because what is remembered, while often present in the form of fragmentary and unconnected scenes, informs educators in terms of who they are now, that is, who they have become.