Reflection in pedagogical contexts - interdisciplinary systemization and integration

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The network „Reflection in Education – Interdisciplinary systematization and integration“ aims at systemizing reflection – a key term in teacher education – from different disciplinary perspectives, developing a common understanding and integrating reflection into theories of teachers’ professional development. Despite the importance of reflective processes for teacher development, it remains unclear what characterizes good and bad reflections and what is generally understood by the term reflection by teacher educators. This conceptual heterogeneity in teacher education may lead to a) varying goals for students, b) insufficient assessment of reflective abilities and c) difficulties for the design of learning opportunities that foster reflective abilities.Over a period of 2.5 years, network members (supported by distinguished experts from the respective fields) systemize subject/discipline-specific theories of learning and teaching (e.g., theory of conceptual change, theory of cognitive dissonance) and develop a shared understanding of the term reflection. From this, we derive and validate criteria that allow to identify the learning effectiveness of reflections. Finally, we integrate reflection into existing theories of teachers’ professional development – especially from competence-oriented educational research.Based on our developed understanding, we expect teacher education to derive clear goals, to assess reflection levels and to identify developmental areas as well possible learning opportunities in order to foster reflective abilities of teachers.