Reflection Which Reifies Problematic Teaching Practices
Location
Room 1005
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
This critical discourse analysis (CDA) considers the language of the daily written reflective practices of a novice fourth grade Teach For America teacher in an urban public school across one academic year. Greg, through his certification coursework, engaged in written reflections almost daily across an entire academic year yet, according to his university-based coach, he exhibited many of the same problematic instructional and relational practices in April that he demonstrated In August. Findings address both the content and power structures revealed in the discourses of reflection and the ways that Greg’s problematic practices and stances toward learners were reified without meaningful mediation from his coursework or field-based coach. We consider alternative practices or opportunities for accountability for self-directed growth based on authentic reflection which might have been more professionalizing and fostering of personal, dispositional, and instructional growth.
Keywords
Urban education, Reflection, Critical theory
Recommended Citation
Fisher, Teresa R., "Reflection Which Reifies Problematic Teaching Practices" (2014). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 33.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2014/2014/33
Proposal
Reflection Which Reifies Problematic Teaching Practices
Room 1005
This critical discourse analysis (CDA) considers the language of the daily written reflective practices of a novice fourth grade Teach For America teacher in an urban public school across one academic year. Greg, through his certification coursework, engaged in written reflections almost daily across an entire academic year yet, according to his university-based coach, he exhibited many of the same problematic instructional and relational practices in April that he demonstrated In August. Findings address both the content and power structures revealed in the discourses of reflection and the ways that Greg’s problematic practices and stances toward learners were reified without meaningful mediation from his coursework or field-based coach. We consider alternative practices or opportunities for accountability for self-directed growth based on authentic reflection which might have been more professionalizing and fostering of personal, dispositional, and instructional growth.
