Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
In recent years, a campaign about the teachers’ reflection and education has been vigorously rising worldwide. Reflection is identified as a method that helps teachers have a better understanding about what they know and do through a consideration of what they learn in practice, and the process places an emphasis on learning from doing (Loughran, 2002). Reflection has been commonly considered a sign of excellent teaching and the key element for the teachers' professional growth and development. To explore the theory and practice of reflective teacher education and to train teachers into reflective teachers are the core of teachers’ professionalization. Compared with the foreign country, it can be found that the degree of teachers’ professionalization in China is still at a low level currently. Traditionally, the teachers reflect individually. Such as writing the reflection journals to capture their thoughts, watching the video record of the class to find the problem. The ultimate goal of reflection is to solve the problem. But in the process of review, many teachers are not able to find the questions well, and it is impossible to make an accurate evaluation. So there is a great difficulty of reconstruction in terms of experience, 1) Because of the lack of theoretical knowledge, the content can not be analyzed in depth; it is difficult to find the cause behind the problem. 2) Because the lack of guidance and communication with instructors, the teachers inevitably suffer the limitations of their thinking. In order to enhance the level of reflection, it needs the power of others. With the development of the information technology and the revolution of education, there is a new vision for teachers’ professional development. They have more chance to get the resources and communicate with others. So there are some new approaches for reflection. They can reflect through sending a E–mail to others, writing a web log, discussing the related teaching problems with other teachers on the forum, qq. In these processes, the problems of reflecting individually are resolved in some extent. These sustained dialogue-driven collaborations using Internet tools support and contribute to the scaffolding of teachers’ knowledge (Hawkes, 2000).
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1.2 Research Significance
Through the analysis of the previous studies about the reflection, it can be found that collaborative reflection is an effective way for teachers’ professional development. At the information age, there is a higher education requirements and it needs to conduct a new round of education reform. This paper explores the current situation of teachers’ online collaborative reflection. Specifically, the significance of this paper include: (1) theoretically, this research enriches the teachers' reflection and professional development, and also it is hoped that there are some evidences to support that collaborative reflection is an effective way for facilitating the teachers’ development. (2) Practically, based on the previous studies, this research provides more details about the online collaborative reflection, and digs out the similarities and the differences of collaborative reflection abroad and at home, and this study provides more guidance for teaching reflection.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Collaborative Reflection
Wang Haiyan (2010) defines that the collaborative reflection is in the process of reflection, the teachers need to communicate with others to discuss about one or more details. The process of collaborative reflection is defined as a collaborative critical thinking process involving cognitive and affective interactions between two or more individuals who explore their experiences in order to reach new intersubjective understandings and appreciations (Yukawa, 2006: 206). Collaborative reflection needs communication among reflection partners to exchange experiences, discuss perspectives and agree on common solutions (Prilla et al., 2012). In a general, the teachers make a critical thinking together in order to solve the problems in the more effective way. Collaboration is a good way in which teacher may consider their beliefs about the teaching, that is to say collaboration contribute to the teachers’ reflection. John Dewey introduced the concept of reflection into the field of education, and systematically explained it. He supposes the definition of reflection as this: “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and further conclusions to which it leads” (Dewey, 1933). He thinks that the teachers’ reflection starts from the difficulties and problems that they encountered in teaching. Such kind sense of unease and uncertainty prompt the teachers analyze their own experience in action or after action. In 1950s, with the development of cognitive psychology, people have a further understanding about reflection. More and more people are concerned about the complex relationship between teachers' thinking and action. Schon (1987) came up with the definition of reflective practice first. He does not emphasize practitioners’ prediction and control of practice, but their thinking way of identifying and solving problems in the activity. As Fendler (2003) pointed out, Dewey’s and Schon’s understanding about reflection are contradictory. While Dewey emphasizes the scientific rationality of reflective thought, Schon sees it as an artistic and intuitive process. Xiong Chuanwu (1999) thinks the reflection teaching is a process that the teachers continually explore to solve the problems about themselves, teaching aims as well as teaching tools, and combine “learning to teach” with “learning to learn” to improve teaching practice rationality and make themselves become scholar-teachers.
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2.2 Collaborative Reflection in Online Environment
Web-based technology is a potential tool for supported collaborative learning that is being used to support teacher enriching their teaching performance (Liaw, Chen & Huang, 2008). Computer-mediated communication (CMC) collaborative learning transforms traditional in-class collaborative teaching strategies into a computer-supported approach. The use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one way to bring people in different place together who would communicate with each other for the same issue or interest. CMC is defined by Romiszowski and Mason (1996) as a process of ‘‘communication between different parties separated in space and/or time, mediated by interconnected computers’’ (438). To support the process of collaborative reflection, CMC can help team members collaborate everyday to develop a shared understanding, which they can draw on over time for decision-making. During CMC, all data can easily be stored and re-used for feedback purposes. The online environment provides an excellent forum for data storage and information sharing. All the data can be scanned at anytime, and the reply and the new understanding can be added at the suitable time. Those data can be the evidence of the teachers’ reflection and the process of the professional development. Production blocking occurs when only one person can speak at one time. It causes difficulty in simultaneous idea generation and often leads to the loss of productivity (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987). Research has found that computer-mediated collaboration can reduce production blocking in face-to-face collaboration ( Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991; Valacich, Dennis, & Nunamaker, 1992). Computer-mediated communication allows group members to present ideas simultaneously without the interference from peers, multiple ideas can be generated at the same time, while discussion forums have been found to produce more conversations with deeper thinking than face-to-face dialogues (Hawkes & Romiszowski, 2001). Computer-mediated collaboration often allows one to view the performance of other team members and therefore causes the effect of social comparison (Festingerís, 1954). This comparison motivates one to outperform others and can result in the improvement in task performance (Munkes & Diehl, 2003). Computer-mediated communication allows group members to present ideas simultaneously without the interference from peers. Multiple ideas can be generated at the same time. while discussion forums have been found to produce more conversations with deeper thinking than face-to-face dialogues (Hawkes & Romiszowski, 2001).
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework .......... 11
3.1 Social Culture Theory ........ 11
3.2 Transformative Learning Theory ........... 12
Chapter Four Research Methodology .... 14
4.1 Research Questions ............ 14
4.2 Research Method ..... 14
4.3 Research Setting and Participants .......... 14
4.3.1 Research Setting ...... 14
4.3.2 Participants and Data ........ 16
4.4 Instruments ..... 17
4.5 Data Collection & Procedure ....... 22
Chapter Five Results and Discussion ..... 24
5.1 Content of Collaborative Reflection ...... 24
5.2 Level of Collaborative Reflection .......... 35
5.3 Social Network Analysis (SNA) Results.......... 41
Chapter Five Results and Discussion
In this chapter, the analysis of the resulting data will be given. It includes four parts: the teachers’ collaborative reflection content, the teachers’ collaborative reflection levels, the teachers’ interaction patterns and the comparison will be made between two forums. In 50 topics, the teachers’ collaborative content and levels were divided into the statements according to the Framework of Topic Category of Reflection by Ho and Richards (1993) and Three Stage Developmental Model of Teacher Reflection (Crotty, 2001). In online discussion, one message or reply may include one or many ideas. The goal of the coding is to identify all of the ideas discussed.
5.1 Content of Collaborative Reflection
According to the Framework of Topic Category of Reflection, the researchers count the number and percentage of English teachers’ online collaborative reflection categories on two forums. The statistics result about the English teachers’ online collaborative reflection topic category abroad is listed in table 3.In the table, instructional approaches and methods occupies 518 posts, in these posts, the teachers make a description about the pedagogical methods, content and students development and management. The ratio is 30%, which is the highest, and it reveals that teachers care more about their daily teaching events. The following is evaluation of teaching, which takes 462 posts, and it displays that the teachers make an evaluation for events actively. Theories of teaching are the next, it is 243 posts, which takes up 14%, and it demonstrates that in the teaching practice, a part of teachers have the awareness of using theories. Instructional technology take 133 posts (8%), it indicates that a part of teachers are aware of the effect of technologies for teaching.
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Conclusions
The present study aims at exploring the situation of teachers’ online collaborative reflection. This research is conducted on the basis of three aspects: the teacher’s collaborative reflection content; the teachers’ collaborative reflection level; the teachers’ interaction features. And the comparison was made from three aspects between two forums. Firstly, on two forums, the student is the core of the teachers’ topic. And the teachers pay more attention to the teaching skills and strategies. They exchange the ideas and share their experience for the problems in the practice. And there are differences about the content on the two forums. On the forum at home, the teachers prefer to talk about the curriculum reform; hot issues; educational news and policies, and they attach the importance to the examination. On the forum abroad, the teachers pay more attention to the instructional technology. They refer to the usage of technical device in the classroom, the usage of corpora to assist the students’ learning and the online class. Secondly, the teachers’ online collaborative reflection level is mostly at the first reflective stage, B1 takes a big part, most part of the teachers just describe the artifact and evidence. On two forums, there are some differences about the reflective level. On forum at home, the second most frequent reflective level is at the intermediate stage, and M1 takes the biggest part at this stage, the teachers always give their new understandings about an issue. While on the forum abroad, the second most frequent part is at the expert stage, E3 is the biggest part at this stage, the expert assist and mentor teachers about the practice.
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References (omitted)
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