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How to Determine the Quality of Students' Reflections?.

This article discusses some of the ambiguities related to the concept of reflection in education, and presents an alternative approach for determining the focus and quality of students’ reflection. Accordingly, the focus of reflection can vary from a concrete technical aspect of an experience to the broader societal context of that experience, and the quality of reflection can be described through successive stages of argumentation: describing, justifying, evaluating and discussion. The developed coding schema for determining the focus and quality of reflection was pilot tested on reflection fragments written by a small sample of tertiary dance students.

Difficulties teachers report about students’ reflection: lessons learned from dance education

Despite its relevance to and inclusion in pedagogical practices, reflection is a challenging activity for students in tertiary dance education according to teachers. The aim of the current study was to further explore the challenges encountered in the pedagogical practice of reflection. Data on the difficulties of reflection were collected from 14 dance teachers using semi-structured interviews. The results revealed four categories of difficulty: general difficulties, difficulties describing an experience, difficulties evaluating an experience and difficulties relating to multiple perspectives. The reflection difficulties described in this study correspond to the reflection difficulties reported in other domains of higher education, and illuminate how reflection activities could be facilitated more effectively.

All Roads Lead to Rome: Developmental Trajectories of Student Teachers' Professional and Personal Identity Development

This article introduces new perspectives to the domain of teacher identity research that help to conceptualize integration of the “personal” and “professional” subsystems of self during processes of learning to teach by students or beginning teachers. Using pedagogical dilemmas, we focus on the dynamics of the professional identity of 26 final-year student teachers in the course of a major pedagogical placement of the studies. We specify how students handle ambivalent situations, and whether they use the professional position, the personal position, or form a coalition between positions to solve the dilemmas. Following, we present seven developmental trajectories of student teachers’ professional identity; differences are noted between pedagogically experienced and inexperienced students.

Pedagogy before technology: what should an ICT intervention facilitate in practical dance classes?

The aim of the study was to identify the features of the pedagogical context in choreography and dance technique classes which could be viewed as the basis for developing a suitable web-based ICT application to support teaching and learning in practical dance classes. The sample consisted of teachers from four dance academies in the Netherlands. Data about the pedagogy was gathered using a questionnaire and an interview. The results showed that there are similar patterns in applying reflection in terms of content, methods and frequency, and that students encounter difficulties with reflection activities in both choreography and technique classes. Therefore, an appropriate ICT tool for practical dance classes should focus on facilitating the pedagogy of students’ reflection.

Students’ perspectives on e‐learning and the use of a virtual learning environment in dance education

The aim of the study was to find out how dance students experienced learning in an international distance education program delivered in an e‐learning format using a virtual learning environment platform. In order to organize the students’ experiences with the various learning assignments, we focused on three broad categories of learning tasks: individual writing assignments, collaborative assignments, and individual practical assignments. Data were collected from 42 students using a questionnaire and group interviews. Regarding the e‐learning format, we found that the most crucial factor for carrying out all learning assignments was the teacher’s guidance and feedback on students’ work. Regarding the learning platform, we found that in comparison to other learning tasks, carrying out practical assignments was the most limited with the available tools.

Supporting the Construction of Teacher’s Practical Knowledge Through Different Interactive Formats of Oral Reflection and Written Reflection

ABSTRACT The relevance of initial teacher education is a widely recognised concern. Researchers are striving to find innovative pedagogies that would better prepare student teachers for actual day-to-day teaching. In this study, a guided reflection procedure is presented that aimed to support student teachers in constructing practical knowledge and linking this with research-generated knowledge. In all, 21 student teachers at an Estonian university participated in the guided reflection procedure. Their lessons were video recorded, two meaningful events (one empowering and one challenging) selected, and oral (alone or with a peer or supervisor) and written reflections carried out. Differences between students’ practical knowledge as presented in (1) oral and written reflections and (2) in three oral reflection conditions were investigated. Results indicated that the procedure supports the construction of different types of practical knowledge. Moreover, the practical knowledge gained could be more easily transferred to other situations when the oral reflection was carried out with a peer or supervisor.

Professional Role Expectations and Related Feelings When Solving Pedagogical Dilemmas: A Comparison of Pre- and In-Service Teachers.

This study investigated teachers’ professional identity development. Using Dialogical Self Theory and a socio-cultural semiotic mediational perspective, we focused on pre- and in-service teachers’ communication of professional role expectations and related feelings when solving pedagogical dilemmas to reveal aspects of their professional identity construction. Data were collected from 102 pre- and 90 in-service teachers by asking them to solve seven pedagogical dilemmas. We report: (1) how pre- and in-service teachers solved pedagogical dilemmas in terms of communicating professional role expectations and related feelings; (2) how pre- and in-service teachers differed in the feelings they reported and the solutions they gave when solving pedagogical dilemmas; and (3) how the communication of professional role expectations and feelings was related to pre- and in-service teachers’ work experience. Finally, we discuss the implications of our study for initial and continuing teacher education programmes.

Supporting pre-service dance teachers’ reflection with different reflection procedures

Abstract This article discusses the results of a study that investigated the use of different procedures to support the reflection processes of university-level dance students. As a procedure of unguided reflection, the students were asked to write a free-form essay and, as a form of guided reflection, a semi-structured interview and written reflection were carried out. The aim of the study was to investigate which teacher activity and argumentation levels university students employ when using different reflection procedures. Qualitative content analysis was performed on the reflections; the distributions of the characteristics of reflections were assessed using a χ2 test. Overall, the results show that guided reflection is more effective, even though it requires more effort and time. Guided reflection elicited the dialog and transformative level, while unguided reflection elicited the descriptive level. When comparing the levels of teacher activity in terms of the levels of argumentation, it was discovered that students tended to use lower levels of argumentation for external levels of teacher activity and higher levels of argumentation for the more internal levels of teacher activity.

Acknowledging Practice: The Applications of Streaming Audio and Video for Tertiary Music and Dance Education

This paper argues that contrary to some other ICT application, streaming audio and video has become successful in tertiary music and dance education owing that it allows to acknowledge and build forward from the core of arts education – physical practicing. Three main applications will be referred to: the usage of exemplary video cases, real time videoconferencing, and reflecting on one’s own practice captured on audio or video. I will argue that besides it being useful for adding flexibility for prospective musicians and dancers, streaming audio and video can also provide qualitatively new possibilities for enhancing tertiary music and dance education.

An Instrument for Measuring Students’ Perceived Digital Competence According to the DIGCOMP Framework

The ability to use digital technologies to live, work and learn in today’s knowledge-based society is considered to be an essential competence. In schools, digital technologies such as smart devices offer new possibilities to improve student learning, but research is still needed to explain how to effectively apply them. In this paper we developed an instrument to investigate the digital competences of students based on constructs from the DIGCOMP framework and in the contexts of learning science and mathematics in school and outside of school. Pilot testing results of 173 students from the 6th and 9th grades (M = 12.7 and 15.7 years of age, respectively) were analyzed to remove unnecessary items from the instrument. The pilot study also showed preliminary smart device usage patterns that require confirmation by a large-scale study. Digitally competent use of smart devices may help facilitate widespread use of computer-based resources in science education.