Context guided instruction to develop reflection competence of education professionals

Abstract

Reflection is considered a dominant concept and fundamental competence in teacher education programs (Allas, Leijen, & Toom, 2017; Beauchamp, 2015; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2010; Cornish & Jenkins, 2012; Lane et al., 2014; Liu, 2015). Reflection is an educative form that encourages thinking and self-analysis, promotes an inquiry-based process, and enables problemsolving (Dewey, 1933). Developing reflection over teacher education programs has been extensively discussed in the literature (e.g., Allas et al., 2017; Beauchamp, 2015; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2010; Dewey, 1933; Leijen et al., 2014; Loughran, 1996; Russell, 2013; Whitaker & Reimer, 2017). However, there is no consensus reached regarding an adequate approach to teaching and learning reflection (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2010). That is predominantly because the development of reflection competence is a complex process and is influenced by many factors (Thompson & Pascal, 2012). This article focuses on the influence of students’ tacit cultural assumptions and understandings in reflection learning, which, according to H ebert (2015), remains on the margins. Students develop tacit cultural assumptions and understandings of certain issues early in life due to cultural and contextual influences (Toom, 2012; Toom et al., 2015). As a result of their tacit knowing, students fail to critically evaluate the validity of previous knowledge (Mezirow, 1981). Hence, if not considered carefully by teacher education programs, tacit knowing serves as a barrier for students’ learning reflection (H ebert, 2015; Toom, 2012). Although many scholars (H ebert, 2015; Toom, 2012; Toom et al., 2015; Williams & Grudnoff, 2011) agree that tacit knowing is context-driven, the context of teaching and learning reflection is a widely neglected aspect from this set of literature (Beauchamp, 2015). The term context in this study refers to the sociocultural (Atkinson, 2012; Beauchamp, 2015; Boud & Walker, 1998; Thompson & Pascal, 2012; Williams & Grudnoff, 2011) and institutional context (Boud & Walker, 1998; Makinster et al., 2006) where reflection competence is developed.