Using participatory reflection and action to enhance the development of the professional teacher identity of pre-service mathematics teachers

Abstract

The apprenticeship model of Teaching Practice (TP) perhaps does not support the development of student teachers in terms of their professional identity as teachers as well as it could do. It lacks specific opportunities to reflect in depth on the experience and the mentoring that occurs. One has to agree with authors such as Korthagen, Loughan and Russell (2006) and Leijen, Allas, Toom, Husu, Marcos, Meijer, Knezic, Pedaste and Krull (2014) that certain principles are fundamental to an effective teaching practice, such as quality mentoring and reflection. This paper reports on an intervention that implemented Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) as the research and data collection strategy with the final year student teachers at a residential university in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2015. The students were undergoing their teaching practice at schools approved by the University. The research involved two phases: during the first phase, a workshop was held in which students were requested to reflect on their roles as subject and didactics experts. These roles are described in detail in the work of Beijaard, Verloop and Vermunt (2000). In the second phase, a teaching and learning workshop was arranged in which the students were specifically required to think about the values and shortcomings of the various teaching strategies that form part of didactics expertise such as problem solving, direct instruction, play, cooperative learning, enquiry-based teaching, and role play. The study reveals how the reflection and action phases of PRA could be used during the teaching and learning workshop to capture and address prominent shortcomings that the student teachers experienced within their own PTI during teaching practice. They were asked to suggest interventions through which the shortcomings could be addressed. These interventions were then implemented, and they were required to reflect and report on their experiences following the implementation of their interventions.