Presence without being present: Reflection and action in a community of practice

Abstract: Reflection and Communities of Practice are common constructs in teacher education. Co-teaching is often seen as beneficial, yet teacher education students rarely have experiences being co-taught. Thus, reflection, communities of practice, and co-teaching, deserve careful consideration in designing teacher education learning experiences. Based on experiences co-teaching, we argue that unexamined assumptions of university education and university structures can influence how future teachers learn through and about these constructs. We apply sociocultural perspectives to reflexively analyze our co-teaching in order to unpack meanings of: reflection in and on action and communities of practice. Through our analysis we raise questions about how structures of educational systems affect learning. Our goal is to consider issues related to the goals of teacher education and the structures that enable meeting those goals