characterizing productive reflection among preservice elementary teachers: seeing what matters

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Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301

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Characterizing productive reflection among preserviceelementary teachers: Seeing what matters

Elizabeth A. Davis�

University of Michigan, 610 E. University Ave., 1323 SEB, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, USA

Abstract

Effective teachers consider interrelationships among aspects of teaching including learners, subject matter knowledge,

assessment, and instruction. The 70 journal entries of 25 preservice elementary teachers are analyzed to characterize the

teachers’ written reflection. One focus of the analysis is on how the preservice teachers integrate ideas about these aspects

of teaching. The preservice teachers sometimes integrate ideas about learners with ideas about instruction. Further

analyses illustrate the difference between integrating ideas and simply juxtaposing them. The paper illuminates how

reflecting on multiple aspects of teaching may help new teachers integrate their knowledge and begin to develop a more

complex view of teaching.

r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Preservice teachers; Reflection; Knowledge integration

1. Introduction and theoretical framework

Methods instructors, field supervisors, and co-operating teachers often expect preservice teachersto reflect in writing on teaching they observeor enact. Yet we know surprisingly little aboutthe substance of these written reflections. Onwhat do preservice teachers reflect? We do knowthat simply providing opportunities for teachersto reflect is insufficient because the reflectionpromoted may not be very productive. Productivereflection allows teachers to develop and demon-strate a more complex view of teaching. Teachereducators must determine the extent to whichtasks promote productive reflection. How can

e front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

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they tell? Given an emphasis on developing amore complex view of teaching, one indicator ofproductive reflection is the integration of ideasabout multiple aspects of teaching, such as lear-ners and learning, subject matter knowledge,assessment, and instruction. Another indicator ishow analytic the reflection is. The study reportedhere characterizes how preservice elementary tea-chers integrate their ideas about teaching in theirwritten reflections as well as how they analyze theirteaching.

‘‘Seeing what matters’’ in the title has a doublemeaning here. First, as teacher educators, wehope our preservice teachers will learn to seewhat matters in a classroom. Second, we too mustbe able to see what matters—we need to deter-mine to what extent the preservice teachers weteach are starting to develop a complex view of

.

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ARTICLE IN PRESSE.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301282

teaching. Toward both of these ends, this studyasks:

What aspects of teaching do preservice teachersconsider, emphasize, and integrate when theyreflect on their own teaching?What does their knowledge integration look likeand how analytic are they when they reflect?

1.1. Defining reflection and productive reflection

Though many scholars provide historical andconceptual reviews of how reflection has been usedin teacher education, the field lacks consensus ondefining or even describing reflection among tea-chers (see, e.g., Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 1985;Calderhead, 1989; Fendler, 2003; Hatton & Smith,1995; LaBoskey, 1994; Rodgers, 2002; and manyothers). Consider a few of these perspectives. Forexample, for Dewey (1933)—foundational in anyexploration of reflection—reflective thought was‘‘active, persistent, and careful consideration of anybelief or supposed form of knowledge in the light ofthe grounds that support it and the furtherconclusions to which it tends’’ (p. 9). Dewey saidreflection needs to inform future action and beinformed by evidence. For Dewey, reflection is botha meaning-making process and a disciplined way ofthinking (Rodgers, 2002).

van Manen’s (1977) hierarchy, used extensivelyby teacher educators, includes technical, practical,and critical reflection. Technical reflection assumesa set of agreed-upon goals and involves considera-tion of means for reaching those goals, whilepractical reflection involves considering and ques-tioning both goals and means (Hatton & Smith,1995). Critical reflection adds to these the con-sideration of moral or ethical issues. Some authorsemphasize the importance of each of these types ofreflection (e.g., Gore & Zeichner, 1991; Hatton &Smith, 1995; LaBoskey, 1994) while others valuemainly critical reflection. Teacher educators alsodraw extensively on the ideas of Schon (1982), whocharacterizes reflection as reflection-on-action andreflection-in-action. Reflection-on-action includesplanning and looking back on one’s practice.Reflection-in-action, on the other hand, guidesteachers’ in-the-moment decision-making, and de-pends on their interactions with learners. Hattonand Smith build on Dewey’s, van Manen’s, andSchon’s ideas. Their developmental (not hierarchi-cal) taxonomy includes technical rationality, reflec-

tion-on-action (descriptive, dialogical, and criticalreflection), and reflection-in-action. They distin-guish these forms of reflection from purely descrip-tive writing, which they say is not reflective,although to be sure effective teachers must be ableto describe teaching scenarios richly. Others, too,modify existing taxonomies or develop their own,adding to the complexity of defining this construct(e.g., Francis, 1995; Jay & Johnson, 2002; Lough-ran, 2002; Rearick & Feldman, 1999). Furthermore,some empirical work indicates that categories ofreflection are overlapping rather than separate levelsor domains (e.g., McMahon, 1997).

As a teacher educator, in this study I use reflection

to indicate what preservice teachers write inresponse to a task in which they are asked to reflecton their teaching. They are engaging in reflection-on-action rather than reflection-in-action, and their‘‘reflection’’ is rarely, if ever, as disciplined asDewey would have liked. Descriptive writing isincluded in this study of reflection because it isintended by the writers to be reflective; also, thewriting is rarely purely descriptive.

I distinguish, however, between productive andunproductive reflection (Davis, 2003). Unproductive

reflection is mainly descriptive, without muchanalysis, and involves listing ideas rather thanconnecting them logically. Without support orpractice, preservice teachers may engage mainly inunproductive reflection (see Davis, Petish, &Smithey, accepted pending revisions). For example,preservice teachers may not analyze their teachingvery well. They do not consistently provide evidencefor their claims, generate alternatives to theirdecisions, or question their assumptions (e.g., Abell,Bryan, & Anderson, 1998; Harrington & Hathaway,1994; LaBoskey, 1994; Zembal-Saul, Blumenfeld, &Krajcik, 2000), which were important considera-tions for Dewey (1933). Furthermore, their reflec-tion may lack focus and be judgmental rather thanevaluative (Abell et al., 1998).

In addition, preservice and new teachers tendinitially to place primary importance on themselvesas teachers, as opposed to on children as learners(Fuller, 1969; Fuller & Bown, 1975; LaBoskey,1994), though they do not do so exclusively, ofcourse, especially with scaffolding (e.g., Conway &Clark, 2003; Harrington & Quinn-Leering, 1996;Hoover, 1994). When they do consider learners,they may focus on student interest and motivation,rather than on students’ learning of content (Abellet al., 1998), or they may not integrate ideas about

ARTICLE IN PRESSE.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301 283

learners with ideas about learning content (Ander-son, Smith, & Peasley, 2000).

Productive reflection, on the other hand, is likelyto promote effective learning as emphasized byDewey and can be indicated by both integration andanalysis, as described below. My notion of produc-tive reflection is related to Loughran’s (2002) notionof effective reflective practice, which involves ques-tioning assumptions and having ‘‘many ways ofseeing’’ (p. 39).

Expert teachers, to be sure, demonstrate a morecomplex view of teaching than do preserviceteachers—they see, attend to, and analyze theconnections and relationships in a classroom(Cohen & Ball, 1999). Sherin (2004, in press)describes this view as ‘‘professional vision’’ andillustrates the importance of developing such a viewin making instruction more effective. While asSherin suggests inservice teachers will be able toapply this vision in real-time (i.e., while engaging inreflection-in-action) with practice, I argue it wouldbe unreasonable to expect preservice teachers to doso effectively. In fact, beginning teachers may betaxed by reflection-in-action, because they are newto so many of the tasks of teaching (Anderson et al.,2000). Yet to what extent can preservice teachersapply professional vision in their retrospectivereflection-on-action, and thus see some of whatmatters in teaching? To what extent can they makesome of the connections that more expert teachersdo? To what extent can they analyze their ownteaching? Productive reflection—the kind of reflec-tion that is likely to promote teacher learning—requires these connections and this analysis.

1.2. Knowledge integration and analysis: indicators

of productive reflection

Integrated knowledge is used in this study as oneindicator that productive reflection is taking or hastaken place. A knowledge integration perspective onlearning assumes that a learner holds a repertoire oflinked ideas (Linn, Eylon, & Davis, 2004; Linn &Hsi, 2000). Productive reflection can promoteknowledge integration processes like adding, distin-guishing, and linking ideas through helping learnersarticulate and consider their ideas (Davis, 2003; seealso Hoover, 1994).

But on what might teachers reflect? What ideasmight they integrate? At a gross level, they shouldreflect on learning environments they create orobserve. Learning environments can be character-

ized as learner-, knowledge-, or assessment-cen-tered, and are situated within communities(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999). Adding anexplicit emphasis on the practices of instruction,four aspects of teaching (separated for analyticpurposes) include learners and learning, subject

matter knowledge, assessment, and instruction

(Davis, Bain, & Harrington, 2001). In typicalteacher education practice, a busy teacher educatormay quite reasonably only notice what aspects ofteaching a preservice teacher chooses to emphasize,skipping over those mentioned briefly and notrecognizing ways in which a preservice teacherconceptually connects aspects of teaching to oneanother. Yet connecting these ideas is important; asnoted, expert teachers consider all four aspects andnaturally make connections among them (Cohen &Ball, 1999). How a preservice teacher’s ideas aboutthese aspects of teaching are integrated can show thecomplexity of her views of teaching. A dispositiontoward some integration of ideas shows that thepreservice teacher is not oversimplifying teaching,though clearly preservice teachers are not likely toconnect ideas as effectively as expert teachers do.

Another indicator of productive reflection is howanalytic, as opposed to descriptive, a preserviceteacher’s writing is. Providing reasons for decisions,giving evidence for claims, generating alternatives,questioning assumptions, identifying the results ofone’s teaching decisions, and evaluating (ratherthan simply judging) one’s teaching all indicateanalysis of one’s teaching and can serve asindicators of productive reflection for teachers, aswell. Each of these characteristics is highlighted inthe literature on teachers’ reflection, as describedabove.

How does productive reflection relate to theethical instruction that is a goal of reflection forvan Manen (1977) and others? Will productivereflection help teachers engage in more equitablepractices that promote social justice? First, we mustrecognize that preservice teachers can reflect criti-cally on any of the four aspects of teaching—learners and learning, subject matter knowledge,assessment, and instruction—considering the ethicalimplications of their decisions. (Such reflectionwould necessarily be analytic.) Second, I argue thatmaking connections to ideas about learners and

learning may be most important in preserviceteachers’ knowledge integration, especially fromthe standpoint of promoting social justice. Con-necting other ideas to ideas about learners and


learning may allow a teacher to consider learners asindividuals. They thus begin to account for stu-dents’ prior knowledge, cultural background, andother factors that affect their learning. Thispromotes more effective and more ethical and

equitable instruction. Therefore even though whenpreservice teachers make these connections they arelikely to do so from a technical or practicalperspective, rather than an explicitly critical one(simply because they are so new to teaching), Iargue that the connections themselves are a step onthe path toward seeing what matters in teaching andtoward engaging in more ethical instruction. (SeeGore & Zeichner, 1991, for a similar argument.)

1.3. Promoting productive reflection for preservice

teachers

Research often highlights the importance ofengaging in reflection-in-action, a trend noted byHatton and Smith (1995). But reflecting on actionmay help new teachers be more ready to reflect inthe moments of teaching. It also foreshadows howthey will learn from experience (Anderson et al.,2000). Reflection can be promoted in many ways,including action research, teacher inquiry, dialogue,and reflective writing (Ross, 1990) as well as usingon-line discussion spaces (Harrington & Hathaway,1994), cases (Barnett, 1998; Lundeberg, Levin, &Harrington, 1999; Shulman, 1992), or other meth-ods. This study focuses on written reflection-on-action, which may promote teacher learning(McMahon, 1997; Roe & Stallman, 1994) becauseof the way language mediates learning (Vygotsky,1978). Providing opportunities for learners (includ-ing teachers) to make their ideas visible promotestheir sense-making. Furthermore, committingthoughts to paper provides a permanent record,allowing both collaboration and revision (Davis,2003; Hoover, 1994).

Reflective journals are one of many approachesfor encouraging written reflection. Teacher educa-tors and researchers use reflective journals for twobroad, non-mutually exclusive purposes: to promotelearning (e.g., Francis, 1995; Holly, 1989; Roe &Stallman, 1994; Ross, 1990) and to provide awindow into teachers’ thinking (e.g., Bolin, 1988;Borko, Lalik, & Tomchin, 1987; Hoover, 1994;McMahon, 1997; Roe & Stallman, 1994). Bothpurposes are valid and important, though teachereducators must recognize caveats surrounding theiruse. For example, opportunities to reflect in writing

do not always promote teacher learning (see, e.g.,the contrasts in Hoover, 1994, and Roe & Stallman,1994). A confounding factor in analyzing writtenreflections is that teachers differ in their dispositiontoward reflection (Francis, 1995; Freese, 1999;LaBoskey, 1994; Spalding & Wilson, 2002).Furthermore, skeptics highlight ethical concernsabout even reading teachers’ written reflections(Fendler, 2003). Despite these concerns, reflectivejournals are commonly used in teacher educationprograms and (in part because of these concerns)warrant further investigation.

In the current study, preservice teachers wereengaged in written reflection as part of their regularcoursework, to promote their learning and toprovide a window into their thinking. The studycharacterizes what aspects of teaching—learners and

learning, subject matter knowledge, assessment, andinstruction—preservice teachers include, emphasize,and integrate when they reflect on their ownteaching, and to what extent they engage in analysisof their own teaching. Whereas many studies thatuse written reflection as a window into teachers’thinking broadly characterize teachers’ reflection(e.g., as expressing personal concerns versus teach-ing concerns), this study unpacks the specific fociwhen teachers are writing about their teachingconcerns.

2. Methods

This study took place during the third semester ofan undergraduate teacher preparation program inthe US. The preservice teachers in the elementaryscience methods course studied here went throughthe program as a cohort and were mostly female,mostly Caucasian, and mostly traditional studentsin their fourth and (typically) final year of college.They were typically approximately 21 years of age. Iwas the instructor for the course. At the start of thecourse, the preservice teachers consented to my lateranalysis of their work from the course. I did notbegin that analysis until they had completed thecourse. The preservice teachers were also reassuredthat they could withdraw their consent for partici-pation at any time, though none of them opted todo so.

The four-semester program emphasizes inquiry-oriented teaching consonant with recommendationsof teacher education reform calls (e.g., INTASC,1992; NCATE, 1987) and subject-matter standardsdocuments (e.g., AAAS, 1993; NCTM, 1991; NRC,


1996) in the US which, broadly speaking, emphasizeteaching for understanding. In particular, theprogram intends to help preservice teachers under-stand learners and teach substantive content, twofocuses of their education courses during theprevious two semesters. The general studies require-ments for the teacher preparation program includecoursework in the humanities, social sciences, naturalsciences, mathematics, and creative arts. The pre-service teachers in the program receive their degree inthe school of education, but they also have majorand minor subject area concentrations in languagearts, social studies, mathematics, science, or fine arts.The preservice teachers also, of course, take methodscourses in social studies, literacy, mathematics, andscience, in addition to other education coursework.The program also includes a 6-h practicum experi-ence during each of the three semesters leading up tothe student teaching semester. These field experiencesare tied to the concurrent education coursework andpreservice teachers are placed in their practicumclassrooms in pairs.

2.1. Data sources

The preservice teachers were expected to writeone journal entry each week. Journal entries werewritten on-line, in a web-based learning environ-ment called CASES used in the class. CASES isintended to support preservice and new elementaryteachers and includes educative curriculum materi-als for science (Davis & Krajcik, 2005), a discussionspace, links to science teaching resources, and, mostsaliently for the current study, a personal journalspace.1 The preservice teachers wrote journal entriesas a regular part of the course expectations and haddone so in some of their previous education courses.

Most of the journal entries the preservice teacherswrote for the class were unstructured, ungraded,

1CASES is available at http://cases.soe.umich.edu. Its journal

space allows users to write a new entry in the same way as they

would using a word-processor or a pen and paper. Alternatively,

the on-line journal allows them to select a prompt or multiple

prompts to which they can respond. These prompts for

anticipatory and retrospective reflection (Loughran, 1996) are

intended to promote productive reflection. Although one aspect

of this study originally set out to investigate the effects of these

prompts, only 10% of the personal teaching entries were written

in response to prompts. Therefore this research line was

eliminated from the study. After determining that no obvious

differences existed between the seven prompted entries and the 63

unprompted entries, I decided to treat prompted and unprompted

entries equivalently.

and simply had to be relevant to science teaching.At the start of the semester, I gave them a list ofideas for these reflections; the most salient of thesefor this study focused on ‘‘your own planning of orreflecting back on your own science teaching’’,according to a class handout.

Other entries were part of two graded ‘‘reflectiveteaching’’ assignments. (Though they share thesame name, these reflective teaching assignmentsare not particularly similar to the reflective teachingmethod described by Cruickshank, 1987.) Eachassignment involved a cycle of teaching a lessoninformally to others from the class—typically with apartner—and then teaching the revised lesson to thechildren in the pair’s practicum classroom. Thepreservice teachers reflected (individually) on theirenactments with children and then revised theirlesson plans again. They were asked to describetheir experience and then consider what went well,what went poorly, and what they would change inthe future. They were asked to provide evidence fortheir claims. An earlier course had emphasized theimportance of providing evidence for claims aboutteaching.

In total, the 25 preservice teachers wrote 272journal entries. Because this study intended tocharacterize how preservice teachers reflect onaction when they teach children, I focus on their‘‘personal teaching entries.’’ Any entry that dis-cussed some teaching experience—whether with awhole class or with a small group at a center—wasincluded as a personal teaching entry, since a rangeof types of teaching experiences could provideopportunities to reflect on and integrate ideasabout the four aspects of teaching. They wrote 70personal teaching entries in total. The mean numberof personal teaching entries per individual was 2.8.Occasionally, a preservice teacher wrote twoentries for a single reflective teaching assignment.In these cases, both are included in the data.Furthermore, a few preservice teachers turned inone or both reflective teaching assignments onpaper, rather than on-line. The entries turned inon paper are not available and are thereforeexcluded from the analysis. Finally, some of thepreservice teachers participated in an on-line dis-cussion rather than writing one or more unstruc-tured entries. Because of the inherent differencesbetween reflecting privately and discussing publicly,the on-line discussion entries are not conceptualreplacements for journal entries and are excluded,as well.

http://cases.soe.umich.edu


The personal teaching entries varied a great dealin length. The mean word count for a personalteaching entry was 670 words, with a minimumword count of 143 and a maximum of 2423. This is,of course, one indication of the different disposi-tions preservice teachers bring to the task ofengaging in written reflection. Examining wordcounts also provides evidence of a trend towardincreasingly elaborated personal teaching entriesover the course of the semester.

I wrote feedback on all of the preservice teachers’written reflections as part of my regular instructionfor the course. This feedback was more extensiveand consistent for the reflective teaching assign-ments than for the unstructured entries, wherefeedback was more dependent on what piqued myinterest. For neither type of entries was my feedbackfocused specifically on integration or analysis,though I did often ask about connections betweenideas, whether there were alternative instructionaldecisions that might be considered, or what was theevidence for particular claims.

2.2. Coding and analysis for research question 1

Research question 1 asks, what aspects ofteaching do preservice teachers consider, emphasize,and integrate when they reflect on their ownteaching? Building on the theoretical frameworkdiscussed, to characterize what aspects of teachingthe preservice teachers consider, I coded commentswithin each entry as focusing on learners and

learning, subject matter knowledge, assessment,and/or instruction. For example, a comment aboutchildren’s prior knowledge or level of engagementwould be coded as focusing on learners andlearning. A comment about science content orscientific inquiry would be coded as subject matterknowledge. A comment about one’s methods ofassessment would be coded as assessment. Finally, acomment about an instructional sequence or theclosure of a lesson would be coded as instruction.(Appendix A provides elaborations of these fouraspects of teaching.) Methodologically, this ap-proach is similar to that used by work framed by aconcerns-based model of teacher development (Full-er & Bown, 1975; see, e.g., Conway & Clark, 2003),in that I attend to what the preservice teachersconsider when they reflect. Yet the underlyingconceptual model is different in two importantways. First, this study is not framed as a develop-mental progression. Rather, I am interested in the

connections preservice teachers make between theissues that concern them. Second, rather than beingframed by the concerns of self, task or situations,and students, I use the How People Learn frame-work describing learning environments, instead,which incorporates subject matter knowledge (i.e.,content) and assessment, as well (Bransford et al.,1999).

I then summarized the codes in three types ofscores and profiles to allow me to address researchquestion 1, about what aspects of teaching pre-service teachers include, emphasize, and integrate

when they reflect on their own teaching. Eachrepresents a way teacher educators can characterizepreservice teaches’ reflection on the four aspects ofteaching, though only integration is really anindicator of productive reflection. This scoringapproach builds on one used in previous studies ofknowledge integration (Davis & Linn, 2000; Davis,2003).

First, I measured inclusion: how many of the fouraspects of teaching were included in the personalteaching entries and what they were. This shows therange of considerations or concerns.

Second, because preservice teachers may focusmost of their attention on only a subset of the fouraspects of teaching, and because when methodsinstructors or field supervisors read reflectivejournals to provide feedback, they most naturallyattend to the ideas that are emphasized within theentries, I determined which aspects of teaching theentry emphasized. To determine these scores, Icounted the instances of the aspects of teachingthat were included.

Third, since the level of integration of teachers’ideas provides an indicator of productive reflection,I determined how many aspects of teaching wereintegrated within the entry and what they were. Forexample, a teacher who writes that the worksheetshe used as an assessment did not really require thestudents to use the knowledge from the lesson andso the students completed it without thinking muchabout the content has connected ideas about all fouraspects of teaching. Actually making all theseconnections, though, is both rhetorically andintellectually challenging. Furthermore, becausethey are beginning teachers, any connections areimportant. As a result, an entry would be coded asintegrating all four aspects if the preservice teacherintegrated, say, learners and learning and assessment

in one section of an entry and subject matter

knowledge and instruction in another.

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Table 1

Scoring system for inclusion, emphasis, and integration scores

Score Range Notes

Inclusion

score

1 (1 aspect of

teaching

included) to 4

(4 aspects of

teaching

included)

� By definition, all personal

teaching entries include the

instruction aspect of

teaching because only

entries that discussed the

preservice teachers’ own

teaching were included as

data sources

Emphasis

score

1 (1 aspect of

teaching

emphasized)

to 4 (4 aspects

of teaching

emphasized)

� Entries with no clear

emphasis were coded as

emphasizing instruction

� No entries actually

emphasized all four aspects

of teaching (and it is

unclear whether this would

be possible rhetorically)

Integration

score

1 (no

integration)

to 4 (4 aspects

of teaching

integrated)

� An entry might be coded as

integrating all four aspects

of teaching if the preservice

teacher integrated, say,

learners and learning with

assessment in one

paragraph and subject

matter knowledge with

instruction in another

paragraph, even if the

preservice teacher never

actually connected all four

aspects of teaching in one

spot.

E.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301 287

The scoring system for all three types of scores issummarized in Table 1. These three scores could beconsidered to be levels. These ‘‘levels’’, however, arequite different from the domains or levels used inmany studies of reflection, such as technicalrationality, practical, or critical reflection, in keep-ing with my goals of characterizing the focus andconnectedness of preservice teachers’ ideas. Appen-dix B presents two example entries to illustrate thecoding schemes and scoring.

Another researcher who was very involved in thedevelopment and use of the theoretical frameworkand the associated coding key for aspects ofteaching coded 10% of the data, as well. Weachieved over 90% interrater reliability initially.We then resolved all conflicts collaboratively, andclarified the coding key accordingly.

2.3. Selection, coding, and analysis for research

question 2

Using multiple types of analyses expands thescope of the investigation and adds richness anddepth (Creswell, 1994; Firestone, 1987). The quan-titative results reported above, though they char-acterize the reflection of all the 25 participants, tellonly a part of the story. I wanted to explore moredeeply the reflection of a few individuals to gainadditional insight. In addressing research question 2(What does preservice teachers’ knowledge integra-tion look like and how analytic are the preserviceteachers when they reflect?), I used the quantitativeresults to select seven preservice teachers who weretypical of their peers in some ways but demon-strated a range of integration scores. I then perfor-med additional, more in-depth qualitative analy-ses of these seven individuals’ written reflections.Table 2 summarizes these individuals’ scores.

For the additional analysis I selected onlypreservice teachers who had written three personalteaching entries (the average for the class). Thisallowed me to focus on individuals who were typicalin terms of the amount of teaching they did in theirclassrooms (or at least in the amount of writing theydid about their own science teaching). Then, Icompared each preservice teacher’s mean integra-tion score to the class’ mean integration score (2.6).I selected two preservice teachers who had relativelylow integration scores (below 2.0), two withrelatively typical integration scores (between 2.0and 3.0), and two with relatively high integrationscores (above 3.0). To select among the fourpossible high integration score individuals, I chosethose who had word count scores within 10% of theclass’ mean word count score. Because her entrieswere especially interesting to me, I also selected aseventh individual who wrote longer entries andwhose integration score was somewhat high(though not as high as the other high integrationindividuals).

Of course, all knowledge is shaped by thebackground and experiences of the learner. Eachof these seven preservice teachers was similar to herpeers in obvious ways (age, race, gender, length oftime in the teacher education program) but theseseven may have differed in other important but lessobvious ways (e.g., family SES, cultural heritage,etc.). Each, however, seemed to fall within acontinuum of ‘‘typical’’ preservice teachers in theprogram. An analysis of their classwork identified

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Table 2

Teachers included in interpretive analyses (all had three personal teaching entries)

Identity Average word

count

Average inclusion

score

Average emphasis

score

Average integration score

Reyna (324) 496 3.00 1.00 1.33 (low integration)

Sophie (133) 501 3.00 1.33 1.33 (low integration)

Mia (235) 482 3.33 1.00 2.33 (mid integration)

Zoe (953) 510 3.33 2.00 3.00 (mid integration)

Julia (969) 735 3.67 1.33 3.67 (high integration)

Susan (154) 680 3.67 2.00 3.67 (high integration)

Lucy (248) 1147 3.67 1.67 3.33 (extra)

Class mean 670 3.36 1.54 2.63

E.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301288

no evidence to indicate that any of these preserviceteachers’ reflection was atypical when compared toher peers’.

I wrote summaries of and commentaries on eachentry’s content (see Appendix B). A summarycontained description of the main or interestingthemes of the entry, excerpts that seem especiallyimportant with regard to analysis of teaching, notesabout what ideas are emphasized and integrated,and discussion of the view of learners and learning.These summaries were developed completely‘‘blind’’. Then I grouped the entries by the preser-vice teachers’ identification number, and wrotecommentaries about each preservice teacher’s threeentries taken together. Finally, I identified thescores given to each preservice teacher, and connec-ted those to the commentaries.

To determine how analytic an entry was, I used aholistic approach, looking for features such asincluding reasons or rationales for decisions, pro-viding evidence for claims, generating alternatives,questioning assumptions, identifying the results ofone’s teaching decisions, and evaluating rather thanjudging teaching. Each of these characteristics wasidentified in the literature reviewed above as a typeof analysis, contributing to the productivity ofreflection.

The analyses for research question 2 focusprimarily on how the preservice teachers integratetheir ideas about the four aspects of teaching andsecondarily on how analytic the entries are. Idescribe the preservice teachers’ written reflectionabout learners and learning, an aspect of teachingthat I hypothesized would be important and thatindeed emerged from the quantitative analyses assuch. Finally, I describe any patterns that appearacross the three entries for a given preserviceteacher.

Here I present only two of the seven teachers dueto space limitations. Reyna and Susan are selectedbecause they illustrate some of the most salientdifferences in their integration of ideas and analysisof teaching. In addition to their written reflections, Idraw on surveys completed during the first week ofclass to provide some basic background informationabout Reyna and Susan.

3. Results

This study asks, What aspects of teaching dopreservice teachers consider, emphasize, and inte-grate when they reflect on their own teaching? Whatdoes their knowledge integration look like and howanalytic are they when they reflect? To summarizethe findings, the preservice teachers include ideasabout learners and learning more often than someliterature indicates was likely (e.g., Fuller, 1969;LaBoskey, 1994) and in keeping with other studiesin which preservice teachers are supported in suchconsideration, either programmatically or on asmaller scale (e.g., Harrington & Quinn-Leering,1996). Furthermore, although the preservice tea-chers do not emphasize assessment or subject matterknowledge, these aspects of teaching are integrated

with other ideas. About a quarter of the journalentries, however, demonstrated no integration at all.The analyses for research question 2 illustrate thedifference between integrating and merely juxtapos-ing ideas about learners and learning and instruc-tion. All of these findings are elaborated below.

3.1. Research question 1: aspects of teaching

included, emphasized, and integrated

To characterize the preservice teachers’ reflection,a first step is to describe how many aspects of

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Table 4

Profiles of preservice teachers’ reflection: inclusion scores

Profile description Percent (%)

#1: n/a for inclusion scores n/a

#2: includes L only (n/a) n/a

#3: includes K only (n/a) n/a

#4: includes A only (n/a) n/a

#5: includes I only 0.0

#6: includes L and K only (n/a) n/a

#7: includes L and A only (n/a) n/a

#8: includes L and I only 11.4

#9: includes K and A only (n/a) n/a

#10: includes K and I only 0.0

#11: includes A and I only 0.0

#12: includes L, K, and A only (n/a) n/a

#13: includes L, K, and I only 37.1

#14: includes L, A, and I only 4.3

#15: includes K, A, and I only 0.0

#16: includes L, K, A, and I (all 4 aspects) 47.1

Total 100

Summary rows

Includes at least L (profiles #2, 6–8, 12–14, 16) 100.0

Includes at least K (profiles #3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13,

15, 16)

84.2

Includes at least A (profiles #4, 7, 9, 11, 12,

14–16)

51.4

Includes at least I (profiles #5, 8, 10, 11, 13–16) 100.0

The percentage represented by each potential profile is given.

L ¼ learners and learning, K ¼ subject matter knowledge,

A ¼ assessment, I ¼ instruction. Personal teaching entries neces-

sarily include instruction; thus, several profiles are not applicable.

E.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301 289

teaching were included, emphasized, and integratedin the personal teaching entries. Recall that theinclusion and emphasis scores are not intended toprovide a direct measure of the productivity ofreflection, but rather to provide a broad-brushdescription of the reflection through means typicallyused by teacher education researchers and practi-tioners.

A typical preservice teacher included an averageof 3.4 (out of 4) aspects of teaching in any givenpersonal teaching entry. Recall that since the entrieswere selected for analysis on the basis of discussingthe preservice teacher’s own teaching, every entrywould include at least a code for instruction. Yet noentries discussed only instruction (i.e., no entries hadan inclusion score of 1). Of course, preserviceteachers did not emphasize all the aspects ofteaching they included in their personal teachingentries. The entries were about evenly split betweenemphasizing one or two aspects of teaching. Finally,the average integration score was 2.6. (See Table 3for scores.)

A second step in characterizing the preserviceteachers’ reflection is to describe what aspects ofteaching were included, emphasized, and integrated.Tables 4–6 summarize these in terms of 16 different‘‘profiles of reflection’’ that were possible for eachscore.

Table 4 shows that the preservice teachers include

the learners and learning (and instruction) aspects ofteaching in all of their personal teaching entries (i.e.,profiles 8, 13, 14, and 16 all have non-zero‘‘inclusion’’ values and no other profiles do). Manyentries included these two aspects of teaching plusthe subject matter knowledge aspect (84%) or theassessment aspect (51%). Almost half (47%) in-cluded all four aspects of teaching (profile 16).

Table 3

Number of each inclusion, emphasis, and integration score and

class means for each score

Score Inclusion

score count

(percent of

total)

Emphasis

score count

(percent of

total)

Integration score

count (percent of

total)

1 0 (0.0%) 34 (48.6%) 18 (25.7%)

2 8 (11.4%) 34 (48.6%) 13 (18.6%)

3 29 (41.4%) 2 (2.9%) 16 (22.9%)

4 33 (47.1%) 0 (0.0%) 23 (32.9%)

Class mean 3.36 1.54 2.63

Integration score of 1 indicates no integration.

Given the strong emphasis on learners in the teachereducation program in which these preservice tea-chers are enrolled, that the preservice teachersinclude learners and learning when they reflect isnot as surprising as it might be in other programs.Nonetheless, it highlights the need to know justwhat their reflection looks like. Are they exploringall of these ideas deeply, or only mentioning them?The emphasis and integration profiles presentednext and the qualitative analyses presented latershed light on the nature of this reflection.

The most prevalent emphasis profiles involveemphasizing learners and learning and instruction

together (profile 8–46%) and emphasizing instruc-

tion alone (profile 5–39%). (See Table 5.) Looked atanother way, the summary rows at the bottom ofTable 5 show that 90% of the entries emphasized atleast instruction (not unexpected, given how entrieswere selected as data sources) and 59% of theentries emphasized at least learners and learning.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Table 5

Profiles of preservice teachers’ reflection: emphasis scores


#1: n/a for emphasis scores n/a

#2: emphasizes L only 10.0

#3: emphasizes K only 0.0

#4: emphasizes A only 0.0

#5: emphasizes I only 38.6

#6: emphasizes L and K only 0.0

#7: emphasizes L and A only 0.0

#8: emphasizes L and I only 45.7

#9: emphasizes K and A only 0.0

#10: emphasizes K and I only 2.9

#11: emphasizes A and I only 0.0

#12: emphasizes L, K, and A only 0.0

#13: emphasizes L, K, and I only 1.4

#14: emphasizes L, A, and I only 1.4

#15: emphasizes K, A, and I only 0.0

#16: emphasizes L, K, A, and I (all 4 aspects) 0.0

Total 100

Summary rows

Emphasizes at least L (profiles #2, 6–8, 12–14, 16) 58.5

Emphasizes at least K (profiles #3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13,

15, 16)

4.3

Emphasizes at least A (profiles #4, 7, 9, 11, 12,

14–16)

1.4

Emphasizes at least I (profiles #5, 8, 10, 11,

13–16)

90.0



A ¼ assessment, I ¼ instruction.

Table 6

Profiles of preservice teachers’ reflection: integration scores


#1: no integration of any aspects 25.7

#2: n/a for integration scores n/a




#6: integrates L and K only 0.0

#7: integrates L and A only 2.9

#8: integrates L and I only 14.3

#9: integrates K and A only 0.0

#10: integrates K and I only 1.4

#11: integrates A and I only 0.0

#12: integrates L, K, and A only 0.0

#13: integrates L, K, and I only 17.1

#14: integrates L, A, and I only 5.7

#15: integrates K, A, and I only 0.0

#16: integrates L, K, A, and I (all 4 aspects) 32.9

Total 100

Summary rows

Integrates one or more aspects with L (profiles

#2, 6–8, 12–14, 16)

72.9

Integrates one or more aspects with K (profiles

#3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16)

51.4

Integrates one or more aspects with A (profiles

#4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14–16)

41.4

Integrates one or more aspects with I (profiles

#5, 8, 10, 11, 13–16)

71.4



A ¼ assessment, I ¼ instruction.

E.A. Davis / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 281–301290

Thus, although 100% of the entries included

mention of learners and learning, not all of thoseentries emphasized learners and learning. Further-more, very few of the entries emphasize subjectmatter knowledge or assessment. Though theselatter two aspects of teaching are often included inthe entries, they would be almost invisible to atypical teacher educator providing quick feedbackon a preservice teacher’s journal.

There is a clear split in how likely the preserviceteachers are to integrate their ideas. (See Table 6.)About a quarter of the entries (26%) did notdemonstrate any integration at all (integration scoreof 1, or profile 1). A third of the entries (33%),though, made connections at some point within theentry to all four aspects of teaching (profile 16).Approximately 70% of the entries integrate ideasabout learners and learning with ideas aboutinstruction, either alone (profile 8–14%) or withsubject matter knowledge (profile 13–17%), assess-ment (profile 14–6%), or both (profile 16–33%).

More than half (51%) of the entries integratesubject matter knowledge with another aspect ofteaching, and many (41%) integrate assessment withanother aspect, as shown in the summary rows ofTable 6. Even though these aspects of teaching arerarely emphasized in the preservice teachers’ entries,they appear pivotal in that other ideas are oftenintegrated around them.

3.2. Research question 2: integration and analysis in

individuals’ written reflections

These numerical analyses provide some insightinto the nature of the reflection, yet leave unan-swered some important questions. Here, Reyna,demonstrating relatively low integration and limitedanalysis, and Susan, demonstrating relatively highintegration and more extensive analysis, illustratedifferences in the reflection of the preserviceteachers.


3.3. Reyna

Reyna majored in teaching mathematics withinthe elementary teacher education program andminored in teaching science. According to a surveyshe completed at the start of the semester, Reynawanted to teach kindergarten or first or secondgrade (i.e., 5- to 8-year-olds) once she graduatedfrom the program, and she hoped to teach (at least)maths and science to her students. She expressedthat she felt ‘‘pretty confident’’ in teaching science(the fourth level in a 5-level scale for the question‘‘How confident do you feel about teachingscience?’’).

For her practicum, Reyna was placed in akindergarten classroom, teaching 5- and 6-year-olds. Reyna taught a lesson on weather to the wholeclass. She then ran a center (i.e., taught multiplesmall groups) on smell and another on taste.Although running a center is a different kind ofteaching experience from teaching a lesson to awhole class, both provide opportunity for reflectingon the four aspects of teaching, integrating ideasabout these aspects, and analyzing what happened.

Compared to her colleagues (see Table 2), Reynawrote short entries. Her entries included, empha-sized, and integrated fewer aspects of teaching.Reyna’s entries show remarkable consistency. Theyare almost entirely descriptive, rather than analytic.Reyna takes great care to report what the childrensaid and did as well as what she (the teacher) saidand did. Her entries show clear respect for childrenas learners. Reyna, however, rarely gives reasons forher few additional comments. The following excerptfrom Reyna’s first entry (about her full-class lessonon weather) illustrates her typical descriptive (non-analytic) and non-integrative style. (Excerpts fromjournal entries are included as written, except thatparticularly distracting spelling or punctuationerrors have been corrected.)

Most of them had random comments aboutweather and a few had random questions like‘‘Do you play in the snow?’’. One child raised hishand and just said winter when I asked forquestions[.] I asked if winter was a question or ifhe was telling me part of weather. He said part ofweather. Then a few more questions and thensomeone else raised their hand and said rain[.][A]gain I said is that a question or part ofweather[.] [T]hey said part of weather and I saidright.

Reyna provides a straightforward report of whattranspired in the classroom, without commentingon the children’s statements or her own or discuss-ing any connections she made between the two.

In her third entry, Reyna engages in someanalysis of her lesson, the center on taste. She says,

[The children] liked the center because they got toeat snacks and I liked the center because it putwhat they had been talking about on their level.They could really tell what parts of the tonguewere tasting each thing instead of just hearing theteacher talk about it. I also like teaching thelesson to smaller groups at a time because itallows more personal attention to each child’squestions and thoughts. I got to see what eachperson thought about taste.

This analysis of what Reyna ‘‘liked’’, with reasonsprovided, is present only in this third entry. Whilethe rest of this entry maintains the descriptive toneof entries 1 and 2, it adds an analytic overlayinvolving some evaluation of her lesson.

In general, Reyna gives very little evidence ofexplicitly using students’ ideas to guide her ownthinking, either in the moment of teaching orretrospectively. On the other hand, in her thirdentry (her second reflective teaching assignment, onher center on taste), Reyna engages in a bit ofintegration of ideas about learners and learning withideas about instruction. For example, she says,

I had them taste each thing, one by one, anddescribe the taste. They kept saying yummy oryucky so I encouraged them to use the tastewords we had talked about. Then they startedclassifying each thing as sweet, salty, etc.

Importantly, Reyna uses the word ‘‘so’’ toindicate causality between what the children didand what she did. After not making such aconnection in her earlier entries, she here does sotwice.

This study was not designed to identify changesover time. But the analysis of Reyna’s three entriesindicates that Reyna may be becoming slightly moreintegrative and more analytic in her thinking. Thesechanges, however, are minor. She rarely or never,for example, questions assumptions or generatesalternatives to her decisions—a characteristic ofsome of the other preservice teachers, as well.Though Reyna did quite well in the course anddemonstrated many characteristics of a goodbeginning teacher based on my assessment of her


work in the class as a whole, her reflection does notdemonstrate the level of integration or depth ofanalysis demonstrated by Susan, discussed next.

3.4. Susan

Susan was a language arts major and mathe-matics minor within the elementary teacher educa-tion program. Like Reyna, she hoped to teachyoung children—Susan’s preferred grades weregrades 1, 2, or 3 (i.e., 6- to 9-year-olds). Susan felt‘‘OK’’ (level 3 out of 5) in her confidence aboutteaching science, but did not include science in thesubjects she would prefer to teach.

Susan was placed in a first grade classroom,teaching mainly 6- and 7-year-olds. Susan’s threepersonal teaching entries all relate to her tworeflective teaching lessons. Her first and secondentries constitute the reflection portion of her firstlesson, on reading thermometers. Her second lesson(and third entry) was on animal adaptations—specifically, birds’ beaks and feet.

Susan’s entries were typical in length as well asinclusion and emphasis scores (see Table 2). Hermean integration score was quite a bit higher thanReyna’s and also higher than the class mean.Susan’s entries, like Reyna’s, are fairly consistentin reflection style. Like Reyna—and, indeed, like allseven of the teachers whose written reflections Istudied in depth—she seems to have genuine respectfor her students and to be concerned about what thestudents were learning.

Unlike Reyna, though, Susan considers herteaching and her students’ learning together. Shewrites of interactions where Reyna instead presentswhat the teacher does and what the students do asthough they run in parallel. The other five teachersalso fell into these two broad categories. Some, likeReyna, listened to students but seemed to do littlewith the information they gained. Others, likeSusan, changed their teaching accordingly ordescribed what they would do next time.

Susan’s second entry shows two examples ofintegration across three aspects of teaching: learnersand learning, assessment, and instruction. Forexample, Susan writes,

We were relying entirely on informal assess-ments, but we were so focused on the teachingthat it was hard to really watch the students andlisten to what they were saying. It would havebeen nice to have more time so we could talk with

each of the small groups and make sure they wereall understanding. It also would have helped tohave a related journal topic or questiony

Here Susan worries about how she can payattention to what children are thinking whileplanning and making her next instructional move.Compare these statements with Reyna’s earlierexample about questioning her students aboutweather. Rather than connecting ideas aboutlearners to her own instructional decisions, in thisentry and elsewhere Reyna instead merely juxta-poses the ideas, and neglects the notion of assess-ment. Susan, on the other hand, implicitlyacknowledges the importance of assessing children’sideas and using them to inform teaching decisions.

Each of Susan’s entries demonstrates meaningful,substantive integration of ideas. That integration isoften related to her analysis of her teaching.Consider how Susan integrates ideas about learnersand learning with ideas about instruction in herthird personal teaching entry (included in AppendixB), about their introductory activity for their lessonon birds’ beaks and feet. Susan writes that she andher partner began the lesson by having the studentseat a gummy worm off of their desks without usingtheir hands (presumably after cleaning the desks).Susan writes,

They were certainly excited by the activity, butmany of them had difficulty focusing and spentthe lesson more concerned with the leftovergummy worms than what we were teaching them.We know that our students are easily distracted,and that we haven’t really established theauthority to get them back on track, so I thinkmaybe we should have tried to motivate themdifferently. We also had one boy who couldn’tparticipate because he was fasting for Ramadan,which just reminded us to be very careful andconsiderate of these kinds of things.

Susan describes a potentially excellent introduc-tory activity—one that could motivate the learningof the content at the same time as motivating thechildren (Minstrell, 1989). At the same time shehighlights two important problems with her parti-cular approach. Her writing illustrates the analysisin which preservice teachers can sometimes engage:Susan discusses the pitfalls she and her partner raninto as a result of how the children reacted. Sheacknowledges the importance of generating analternative approach (though she does not provide


one). She also expresses awareness of needing toconsider her individual students’ cultural back-grounds before designing instructional activities—an example of questioning her assumptions and infact moving toward critical reflection. In otherwords, in this excerpt (as throughout Susan’sentries), she engages in simultaneous integrationand analysis.

Susan’s view of learners seems to shift, slightly,over the three entries. In her first entry, sheacknowledges that learners are different from oneanother, commenting that she and her partner hadtrouble telling what individual students were learn-ing from the lesson, because the students worked ingroups. Elsewhere in the same entry, though, sheseems to treat them collectively, deciding on thesuccess of the lesson based on the fact that ‘‘Most ofthe students raised their hands to answer ourquestions’’ and other similar statements. In hersecond entry, she pays more careful attention tofiguring out what individual students were learning.In the third entry, she differentiates her students interms of how they experienced the instruction.

Susan is not the ideal teacher, when judgedagainst an absolute scale (i.e., one that does notaccount for her level of experience). She sometimesfails to consider her students as individuals and shemay rely sometimes on transmission-oriented teach-ing and back off from inquiry-oriented activitiesbecause of concerns about management (see Ap-pendix B, Researcher’s Commentary about Susan’sentries). But her written reflections show that for themost part Susan is considering her learners carefullyand integrating her ideas about learners andinstruction to help her make reasoned instructionaldecisions. Throughout all of her personal teachingentries, Susan integrates her ideas and analyzes herteaching. These characteristics—analysis and inte-gration—did not necessarily go hand in handamong the preservice teachers, though they oftendid co-occur. I argue that Susan’s reflection isproductive—more productive than Reyna’s mainlydescriptive and unintegrated reflection. Susan de-monstrates a complex view of teaching for apreservice teacher.

3.5. Accounting for differences between Reyna and

Susan: alternative interpretations

Reyna and Susan differed starkly in how theyreflected in writing about their teaching. Thisdifference might be caused by a difference in their

professional vision (Sherin, 2004) or their views ofthe complexities of teaching (Cohen & Ball, 1999).Based on my recollections of the class, thesepreservice teachers’ in-class oral comments abouttheir teaching were similar to the written reflectionsI have described here, with Reyna describingsituations as fairly cut-and-dried while Susanstruggled more with understanding her studentsand her teaching. Yet both of these preserviceteachers did well in my class and received strongreports from their cooperating teachers and fieldinstructors. Both finished the program and werecertified to teach. Though Reyna’s written reflectionseemed less productive, there may have been otherfactors contributing to this lack of productivity, aswell.

What are some of these possible factors? First,perhaps Reyna simply was not disposed towardreflecting in writing or orally. Temperament matterswhen teachers reflect (Francis, 1995; Freese, 1999;LaBoskey, 1994; Spalding & Wilson, 2002) andReyna’s written reflection may not be indicative ofher actual thinking processes or, for that matter, heractual practice. Second, Reyna was placed in akindergarten class, and some of her teaching waswith small groups of children in centers, rather thanwith the whole class. Maybe her written reflectionwould look different if she had worked with a wholeclass and/or with older children, though Susan wasalso placed in a lower-elementary classroom (firstgrade) and both Reyna and Susan expressedinterest, at the start of the year anyway, ineventually teaching young children. Third, perhapsthe cooperating teachers in their practicum class-rooms differed in the extent to which they modeledthe importance of reflection. Another possibleexplanation could have been a difference in interestin science teaching, but recall that Reyna was ascience minor and expressed more interest in andconfidence in science teaching in her survey at thestart of the semester than did Susan.

This study cannot rule out contributing factors.Nonetheless, journal entries like these are a quitetypical way for teacher educators to try to promoteteacher learning and to get a sense of theirpreservice teachers’ thinking. Some argue that,because of power differences between teachereducators and preservice teachers or because ofthe incompleteness of the perspective that journalsprovide us, we should not use journals in teachereducation. I argue instead that we must becognizant of their limitations. We must always


remain respectful of our students. At the same time,we should supplement their written reflection withadditional ways of promoting their learning and ofgiving ourselves insight into their thinking. Finally,we must take advantage of effective ways ofinterpreting what preservice teachers write injournals, so we can be better able to support themin progressing in their thinking. I turn to furtherexplorations of some of these issues next.

4. Discussion and conclusions

The quantitative results yield important find-ings about what the preservice teachers considerand emphasize and how they integrate their ideas.The qualitative analyses of individuals’ writtenreflections illustrate that integration and howpreservice teachers engage in other produc-tive reflection activities, as well. Based on thesefindings, I present recommendations for teachereducation instruction and ideas about how thiswork informs our understanding of teacherlearning.

4.1. Recommendations for instruction

These findings have implications for designingteacher education programs and assignments withinthose programs to promote productive reflection.Just because a task is intended to promote reflectiondoes not mean it necessarily will (Davis, 2003;Hatton & Smith, 1995; Hoover, 1994). The detailsmatter—especially for those who know how toreflect but sometimes cannot or do not (LaBoskey,1994). These findings also have implications for howteacher educators can more effectively read pre-service teachers’ written reflections. Some recom-mendations follow.

4.2. Recommendation 1: encourage preservice

teachers to move beyond description

Description plays an important role in becominga professional, and it should not be eliminated fromwhat we hope preservice teachers learn to do well.Yet the literature is clear that engaging only indescriptive writing is not expected to promoteproductive reflection (e.g., Hatton & Smith, 1995;Loughran, 2002). Reyna’s approach led her todescribe separately what she and her students didrather than analyzing their interactions. Teachereducators need to design assignments to help

preservice teachers move beyond description andtoward more productive reflection involving analy-sis, especially of interactions among differentaspects of teaching. Though preservice teachersshould not be expected to reflect with the samecomplexity or depth of reasoning as experts do, theyshould be supported in starting on a trajectory thatwill move them toward more expert reflection and‘‘effective reflective practice’’ (Loughran, 2002,p. 37) as they gain experience. For example, in myown practice, I now provide more extensivescaffolding for preservice teachers reflecting ontheir own practice than I did when I taught Reynaand Susan. In my reflective teaching assignments,for example, I am more explicit about issues toaddress in the reflection and I have added arequirement to analyze some student work resultingfrom a lesson the preservice teachers teach. Re-commendation 2 provides further guidance onmoving beyond description.

4.3. Recommendation 2: help preservice teachers

consider learning processes, learners, and content

New teachers often neglect to attend to childrenas learners, focusing instead on themselves asteachers (Fuller, 1969; LaBoskey, 1994). Whennew teachers do attend to learners, their reflectioncan center on students’ interest and motivation,rather than on whether they are learning content(Abell et al., 1998). In contrast, the preserviceteachers in this study do consider learners andlearning. In fact the analyses indicate that they listencarefully to what the students’ ideas are and whatthey are learning, in addition to worrying abouthow engaged they are. They are seeing some of whatmatters.

These preservice teachers’ teacher educationprogram stresses understanding learners and teach-ing worthwhile subject matter. As such, it is perhapsnot surprising that the preservice teachers showrespect for children as people who need to learncontent. Similarly, Zembal-Saul, Blumenfeld, andKrajcik (2000) found that when preservice teacherswere supported in structured cycles of planning,teaching, and reflection, they became more sophis-ticated in how they focused on learners. These stu-dies imply that supporting preservice teachers at thecourse and program level in focusing on both lear-ners and subject matter may help them reflect deeplyabout children and their ideas. While developingtruly professional vision (Sherin, 2004) is probably


an unreasonable expectation for preservice teachers,these teachers can and sometimes do start to makesome important connections among the variousaspects of teaching when supported in doing sothroughout the program.

The preservice teachers here, though, do notdiscuss learning as constructive or even as a processof transmission. Rather, how learning happens ismostly invisible in what they wrote. They focusinstead on that learning is happening and on what isbeing learned. Teacher educators need to helppreservice teachers also consider how learning takesplace, through helping to make ideas from, forexample, preservice teachers’ educational psychol-ogy classes more visible in the preservice teachers’and their students’ words, actions, and artifacts.

4.4. Recommendation 3: look for integration of

ideas, not just emphases

Some preservice teachers studied here, likeReyna, simply juxtapose ideas about learners andlearning, on the one hand, and instruction, on theother. Others, like Susan, truly integrate them. Thislatter group uses what they learn about students’ideas to inform their instruction. Viewing teachingas an interactive process is crucial to becoming aneffective teacher (Cohen & Ball, 1999). This studyprovides a tool for using preservice teachers’ writtenreflections to identify to what extent they hold thisinteractive, integrated view. This goes beyond whatteacher educators naturally do when providingfeedback on written journal entries, which is tofocus on ideas that are emphasized. Holding thisperspective in mind while reading and responding topreservice teachers’ journal entries is challenging,though, and takes patience and practice. In my ownpractice, I have found that I am able to write morepointed feedback to preservice teachers when Ifocus my attention very explicitly on the connec-tions they are making (or not making) betweenlearners and learning and the other aspects ofteaching.

4.5. Conceptualizing teacher learning as knowledge

integration: one focus for future research

To summarize, if teacher educators are to betterunderstand preservice teacher learning, we need toknow not just what they emphasize when theyreflect, but also whether ideas are being integratedand if so, what those ideas are. Not surprisingly, the

preservice teachers here emphasized instruction. Yetdigging deeper into their written reflections allowsteacher educators to learn much more about theirthinking through attending to what the teachersactually do with a reflection task (Hatton & Smith,1995). Specifically, in this study we see that they alsoaddress the other aspects of teaching and someregularly integrate ideas about learners with ideasabout instruction.

Looking for integration may in fact provide anew way of conceptualizing teachers’ learning(Davis, 2004). Even though the preservice teachersin this study did not tend to emphasize subjectmatter knowledge or assessment, this study suggeststhat when they do so, it may serve to promote theirknowledge integration. For instance, the act ofreflecting on specific instances of assessment maymake more concrete the connections among lear-ners, learning, subject matter knowledge, andinstruction. If certain aspects of teaching are pivotalin helping new teachers connect ideas about learnersand instruction, it would behoove us to know moreabout the mechanism. More generally, furtherresearch on how teachers connect ideas wouldextend our understanding of teacher learning.

This study illustrates the utility of teachers’written reflection-on-action as a window into theirlearning. Such reflection-on-action can provideinsight into how new teachers will learn from theirown practice (Anderson et al., 2000). Adolescents,for example, who engage in knowledge integrationtend to continue to integrate their ideas about atopic for several years even without further instruc-tion in the topic (Linn & Hsi, 2000). This raisesfurther questions. Would a similar phenomenonoccur for beginning teachers? Will Reyna learn lessfrom her first years of teaching than Susan?

In conclusion, the research reported here indi-cates that asking preservice teachers to engage inwritten, retrospective reflection-on-action may bothpromote and provide a window into their thinking.To make good use of this written reflection, though,teacher educators must attend carefully to whataspects of teaching the preservice teachers consider,emphasize, and most importantly integrate, as wellas how they analyze their teaching. Preserviceteachers who engage in productive reflection arelikely to promote their own learning about effec-tive, equitable, and ethical instruction. To help them

see what matters, teacher educators, too, need tolearn to see what matters as we read what theywrite.


Acknowledgments

This research is funded by a PECASE/CAREERAward from the National Science Foundation,REC Grant #0092610. However, any opinions,findings, and conclusions or recommendationsexpressed in this material are those of the author.I appreciate the interest and cooperation of thepreservice teachers who made the research reportedhere possible. I thank Deborah Ball, Helen Har-rington, and Annemarie Palincsar, who commentedon earlier versions of this manuscript, and themembers of the CASES and TESG research groupsat the University of Michigan for their help inthinking about these issues, including Mimi Lee,Debra Petish, Julie Smithey, Carrie Beyer, andChristine Dietz. I also thank two anonymousreviewers for their helpful comments. I presentedan earlier version of this paper at AERA in 2003.

Appendix A. Coding for the four aspects of teaching

The text below lists considerations for the fouraspects of teaching: learners and learning, subjectmatter knowledge, assessment, and instruction.Coding, however, was done only at the level of thefour aspects. No attempt was made to characterizespecific sub-codes within those top-level codes.

A.1. Examples of considerations for the four aspects

of teaching

Learners and learning:alternative ideas or students’ ideas,prior knowledge and experiences,engagement and motivation,collaboration,learning outcomes,individual students,commonalities across students,cognitive and social developmental processes,social context of learning.Subject matter knowledge:nature of science,nature of scientific knowledge,scientific inquiry,science content,connections among concepts, facts, theories, etc.Assessment:methods,timing,goals,

multiple approaches; multiple uses,assessment approaches should require use ofconcepts, facts, theories, and methods of inquiryin science,alignment between assessment and instructionalgoals, learners’ ideas, and activitiesevaluating effectiveness of assessments.Instruction:introduction of lesson,closure of lesson,links to previous or later activities,management (of students, materials, and/oractivities),artifacts and/or worksheets,finding lesson ideas; drawing on existing re-sources,instructional representations,activities,instructional goals,driving questions,amount of time,confidence as a teacher,instructional sequence and alignment with goals.

Appendix B. Coded personal teaching journal entries

Two journal entries—one from Reyna and onefrom Susan—are included below. Each is followedby a summary of the entry and the commentary thatwas written about all three of the preserviceteacher’s entries.

Each entry’s ‘‘aspects of teaching’’ codes areincluded within square brackets (i.e., [ ]). ‘‘L’’indicates a focus on learners and learning. ‘‘K’’indicates a focus on subject matter knowledge. ‘‘A’’indicates a focus on assessment. ‘‘I’’ indicates afocus on instruction. Typically, a single code(deemed most relevant) is provided for a sentence.In some cases, a code is given for a part of asentence, with a different code given for a sub-sequent part of the sentence. Rarely, two codes areprovided in a single set of square brackets at the endof the sentence, if there is no clear demarcation ofwhere a particular code would be especiallyrelevant.

Each summary includes the following compo-nents: assignment type (either reflective teachingentry or an unstructured entry), length, emphasis,integration, and view of learners and learning. Theemphasis component simply notes one or more ofthe aspects of teaching that the entry emphasizes.The integration component provides brief pointers


to and explanations of examples of integration, ifthere are any, or brief explanation of why the entryis considered to not include any integration. Theview of learners and learning component discussesany themes in how the preservice teacher viewslearners and learning throughout the entry.

B.1. Preservice teacher 032 (Reyna)

B.1.1. October 29 second personal teaching entry

(regarding a center taught on smell)

What was the science content today? The sciencein my lessony today was the sense of smell. [K] Thekids had to smell cotton balls that had been dousedwith scent. [I] All the cotton balls were in little blackcontainers so looking at them wouldn’t helpdetermine what each one smelled like. The[y] hadtwo that smelled like vanilla, two garlic, one mintand one banana. [I] They were supposed to tellwhich ones smelled alike and try to identify eachscent. [K] The problem was that imitation bananasmells like alcohol and bubble gum mixed and thatsince the jars had been used before some of the lightscents like vanilla were masked. [K] Overall the kidsenjoyed the center [L] but it didn’t take the wholecenter time to complete so I had to improvise somenew things to do. [I] I got some coffee and rootbeerin different cups and let them smell the difference inthem. [I] Then I gave them all some sun ripenedrasperry lotion to put on and smell. [I] They likedsmelling things but the identification was hardbecause of the problems I mentioned and becausemany five year olds don’t know what garlic is. [L]They got mint, coffee, and pop easily but called thebanana medicine, bubble gum, and candy [L] (when______ and I smelled it it did resemble the smell ofpink antibiotics). They called the garlic garbage andthe vanilla was toasted marshmallows and candy.[L] I think it was a good center that could have beenbetter. [I]

B.1.2. Researcher’s summary of entry

Assignment type: Unstructured entry.Length: One paragraph.

Describes a center she led, in a class studyingsenses. The center is on smell. She’s emphasizinginstruction—basically the whole thing is a descrip-tion of the activities and what she did. There is somediscussion of learners—for example, ‘‘Overall thekids enjoyed the centery’’, ‘‘‘‘They liked smelling

things but the identification was hard because of theproblems I mentioned and because many five yearolds don’t know what garlic is. They got mint,coffee, and pop easily but called the bananamedicine, bubble gum, and candyy’’ Her finalassessment is, ‘‘I think it was a good center thatcould have been better.’’ She does very little to sayhow she would have done it better next time,though. This is a pretty simplistic account of whatshe did and what the kids did—very descriptive.

Emphasis: Instruction.Integration: No real integration. There is littlethat connects the ideas about K, L, and I.View of learners and learning: She seems to bepaying careful attention to what they say and do,and she reacts to them—but she doesn’t seem toanalyze them carefully or work to understand thenuances among learners. So overall, I’d say it’s apretty simple view of learners even though it’srespectful of them as having ideas to payattention to.

B.1.3. Researcher’s commentary (about this entry

plus two others)

This person’s three entries are extremely consis-tent. They are all mainly descriptive, they mainlyjuxtapose teaching and learning, and they all showrespect for learners and for listening to themwithout going into any depth about what she does,or what one could do, in response to them. In thethird entry [not included in this appendix], she doestwo things that are a bit different from her earlierentries: (1) she does do a bit of integration (ofinstruction and learning), and (2) she does a bit ofanalysis of what she liked and why. So there may bea teensy bit of change over time. But, for the mostpart, she’s very consistent.

B.2. Preservice teacher 154 (Susan)

B.2.1. November 22 third personal teaching entry

(regarding reflective teaching #2, on animal

adaptations)

This week, _______ and I taught our secondscience lesson in our first grade classroom. We wereasked to teach about the features of birds (specifi-cally their beaks and feet) and how they help theanimals survive. [I] On paper, I thought our lessonwas great, but after teaching it we found many areasthat needed improvement. [I]


[paragraph integrates I and L] For our first activitywe asked students to eat a gummy worm off of theirdesk without using their hands. [I] We hoped thiswould get the students excited for the lesson (and itdid) [L] and also thought it would be an interestingway to introduce the idea that birds beaks arespecialized for eating. [L] For the group that we wereworking with, however, I don’t know that this typeof introduction was the best idea. [L, I] They werecertainly excited by the activity [L], but many ofthem had difficulty focusing and spent the lessonmore concerned with the leftover gummy wormsthan what we were teaching them. [L] We know thatour students are easily distracted [L], and that wehaven’t really established the authority to get themback on track, so I think maybe we should have triedto motivate them differently. [I] We also had one boywho couldn’t participate because he was fasting forRamadan, which just reminded us to be very carefuland considerate of these kinds of things. [L]

[paragraph integrates I and L] We tried to makethis lesson more inquiry driven than our previousone. [I] We broke the students up into small groupsand gave each group a card with a picture of a bird.[I] We asked them to look carefully at the bird’sbeaks and feet and discuss how these might beimportant to the birds’ survival. [I] I thought thisactivity might be a bit above their level [I], but wassurprised to find that they actually handled it reallywell. [L] As we walked around the room, we sawthat most of the students were participating andmaking the type of the connections we had hopedfor. [L] However, when we got together for thewhole class discussion and asked each group toshare what they had found, our lesson kind of fellapart. [I] While I think this part was great for thestudents who were sharing [L], the rest of the classhad difficulty paying attention. [L] We had to askedthem to face forward and listen several times [I], andthey still weren’t as focused as we would have liked.[L] I don’t think this was an effective form ofinstruction for this particular class at this point intime. [I] They did not have the attention spans orthe communication skills required for the activity.[L] Perhaps it would have been better to give eachgroup all of the different cards and then ask them tocompare and contrast with their partners. [I] Theyseemed engaged and were coming up with greatideas, they just had trouble sharing them with thewhole class [L]. This way, all of the students couldhave been more actively involved through the entirelesson. [L] We then could have followed with a

whole class discussion where we summed up someof our main points and let students share anyimportant discoveries they made. [I]

[paragraph integrates L, K, A, and I] We alsoused a worksheet in our lesson as a type of practiceand assessment, that I think could have been better.[I, A] It asked the students to match the birds withthe types of food they might eat. [I] It didn’t reallyrequire that students use the knowledge from thelesson, however, [K] and many students completedit successfully without thinking much about thebeaks and the feet of the birds. [L] We also allowedthem to work in pairs [I], which ended up meaningthat many of the students just copied the work oftheir neighbors. [L] We should have made theassignment more individual [I], and come up with aworksheet that really showed what students knowabout the birds’ features. [A]

We had a list of vocabulary words that wereimportant for the students to have as far asdescribing the functions of the different types ofbeaks and feet. [I] However, we didn’t want to makethese a big part of the lesson. [I] When we actuallystarted teaching, we weren’t sure how in depth totalk about the definitions [I], and I think many ofthe students were confused by them. [L] Next time, Iwould either make these definitions a more centralpart of the lesson, or leave them out together. [I] Asit was, I felt they distracted from our overall goal ofhelping students see that animals are well-adaptedto different environments. [I] It also would havebeen nice to have more visuals to help students seehow the different features are highly specialized. [I] Ifound myself modeling the actions of the feet severaltimes using my fingers, [I] and I think it was hard forthe students to follow. [L]

There were a couple other small problems withour lesson. First, _____ and I hadn’t decided whichone of us would do what part of the lesson, so therewere a couple points where we interrupted eachother. It would have been helpful to go over exactlywhat each of us would be doing so the lesson wouldrun more smoothly. [I] Also, we were in a crampedspace [I] and it was difficult for students to see theposter we had prepared, so it made it even moredifficult for the students to focus on the lesson. [L][end of paragraph integrates I and L]

Because I felt the lesson went so poorly, I think itwas actually an excellent learning experience. Itgave me a chance to really reflect on what wentwrong and think about ways to improve myteaching in the future. [I]


B.2.2. Researcher’s summary of entry

Assignment type: Reflective teaching assignment.Length: A bit more than one page.

The entry describes a lesson she and her partnertaught on birds’ beaks and feet. The entry beginswith a description of how they started the activity—which I really like, although she doesn’t seem to likeit as well after seeing how it played out. They hadthe students eat a gummy worm off of their desks,without using their hands. She says, ‘‘They werecertainly excited by the activity, but many of themhad difficulty focusing and spent the lesson moreconcerned with the leftover gummy worms thanwhat we were teaching them. We know that ourstudents are easily distracted, and that we haven’treally established the authority to get them back ontrack, so I think maybe we should have tried tomotivate them differently. We also had one boy whocouldn’t participate because he was fasting forRamadan, which just reminded us to be very carefuland considerate of these kinds of things.’’ Here she’sintegrating I and L really nicely, I think. Later,describing another activity within the lesson, shesays ‘‘I thought this activity might be a bit abovetheir level, but was surprised to find that theyactually handled it really well. As we walked aroundthe room, we saw that most of the students wereparticipating and making the type of connections wehad hoped for.’’ So, she’s looking for evidence ofstudent learning. She says that having each groupshare their ideas made the lesson fall apart. ‘‘While Ithink this part was great for the students who weresharing, the rest of the class had difficulty payingattention.’’ She’s connecting learners and instruc-tion here. She is critical of the assessment they used,saying ‘‘it didn’t really require that students use theknowledge from the lesson, however, and manystudents completed it successfully without thinkingmuch about the beaks and the feet of birds.’’ In thetext surrounding this sentence, she’s integrating all 4aspects. There are, overall, several nice examples ofintegration I&L.

Emphasis: I & L.Integration: Mainly integrates I&L, but oneexample of integrating all 4. Example of I & Lintegration: ‘‘For the group that we were work-ing with, however, I don’t know that this type ofintroduction was the best idea.’’ The surroundingsentences in paragraph 2 also display integration

of I & L. Example of integration of L, K, A, & I:Paragraph 4, sentence 1 connects worksheet usedin instruction with a form of assessment.Sentence 3 connects that worksheet/assessmentto both the knowledge it required (K) and theways the students approached it (L). Theremaining sentences in paragraph 4 continuethe integration of these ideas.View of learners and learning: She’s really payingattention to her kids and what they’re actuallylearning. She notes where they included too muchcontent, and distracted the kids from actuallybeing able to learn what they really wanted tofocus on. She comes up with examples of changesto the lesson that would have helped promotemore genuine learning on the part of the kids. Atone point she says, ‘‘I don’t think this was aneffective form of instruction for this particularclass at this point in time.’’ She seems to recognizethat different groups of kids will have differentstrengths and needs. Overall, a pretty sophisti-cated view of learners (as they relate to teaching),though there’s not that much evidence of anemphasis on learning (as opposed to learners).

B.2.3. Researcher’s commentary (about this entry

plus two others)

All three of these entries demonstrate somemeaningful integration, especially the 2nd [notincluded in this appendix] and 3rd. She doesn’t justdescribe actions—she also gives reasons for herdecisions and commentary on her reactions to whattranspired during her teaching.

Her view of learners and learning seems tochange, slightly, across the three entries. In her firstentry [not included in this appendix], she acknowl-edges, in one place, that learners are different—butelsewhere in the same entry, she treats themcollectively. In her second entry [not included inthis appendix], she pays careful attention to whatindividuals are learning, and she recognizes theimportance of connecting scientific ideas to kids’ideas about the real world. Yet she proposes to helpthem make those connections through explicitlyteaching them. In her third entry, she makesthoughtful connections between what she sees inher learners and what she does in her teaching. Sheseems to recognize that different kids (and groups ofkids) have different strengths and needs. Yet here,there’s no evidence, really, about her ideas aboutlearning.


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