Beginning early childhood teachers: challenging personal constructs as 'teacher' through a critically reflective lens

Relatively high rates of teacher attrition have been consistently identified as a major issue for the teaching profession over several decades. As a result, there has been a growing interest in the wellbeing of teachers across the entire education sector. One of the tools employed by teachers is that of reflection, in order to evaluate their own practice and the practices of others, with a view to developing their professional identity (Fleer, 2000; Goodfellow, 1995; MacNaughton & Williams, 1998; Noble, Macfarlane & Cartmel, 2006; Sumsion, 2003). This paper describes a process of critical reflection on-action and in-action with a cohort of early childhood education (ECE) students that has been developed to support the student to become a critically reflective practitioner who can 'think otherwise' about practice and who is receptive to new epistemology. A thematic analysis has been used to explore how students understood their involvement in this critical reflection process as a means of promoting improvement in practice, professionalism and life-long professional development as they move into the field. The aim, to better understand the ways in which involvement engaged students in processes that allowed them to construct new epistemological understandings informed by theory, research and practice, drove this project. The author therefore posits that a collaborative process of critical reflection provides the space for 'new possibilities to be explored and realized' (Moss & Petrie, 2002, p.145), allowing those engaged in this space to construct, rather than reproduce, knowledge (Noble, 2006)