Remembering Reflection in Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Experience

Abstract: In an Australian education policy environment where professional standards are determining the parameters of effective teaching and learning, it is important that we revisit ways to ensure reflection and collegial engagement are embedded in pre-service teachers ’ professional experience. This article reports on a university program initiative that used a non-clinical model of professional experience to centralise opportunities for pre-service teachers to engage in reflection and research of their practice in a collaborative and largely non-hierarchical learning and teaching environment. Ultimately the results of their experience indicated that pre-service teachers were able to theorise about their practice in ways that cognitively and affectively resonated with them and allowed them to gain insights into the complexities of the teaching and learning process and of themselves as teacher