Using problem-solving and effective teaching frameworks to create reflective practitioners

As the number of teacher training programs that focus on developing reflective practitioners increase, a need exists to define the components of reflective practice, and how various techniques impact preservice teachers' reflective thoughts. In this study, an investigation was conducted of the impact of using training and reflective frameworks on the reflective patterns of preservice teachers. The reflective frameworks (a series of questions that allow for systematic reflection on teaching) and training focused on aspects of effective instruction and problem-solving. The impact of the training and reflective frameworks was examined from the content of daily journal entries. First, a multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effectiveness of training and the use of reflective frameworks on levels of problem-solving. Second, content analysis was used to examine the components of effective teaching (behavior, planning, learning environment, and instruction) and how the training and reflective frameworks impacted the subjects' use of each of these categories. Finally, a content analysis was conducted on entries focusing on instruction to examine the themes that emerged. The results of the study indicated that training and reflective frameworks impacted the degree to which preservice teachers effectively solved problems encountered within instruction. Subsequent findings indicated that these frameworks had minimal impact on the content of effective teaching categories. Finally, observable and measurable instructional definitions were developed that could be used for future research.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio