Exploring teachers’ teaching practices when engaging in systematic reflective practice: Teacher cognitions and identity

Abstract

Cognition literature is as valuable as identity literature, but when combined in context, they provide a very rich understanding of how people think and interact with others. Thus, this study takes a view of cognition that is holistic and situated as part of analysing reflective practice. Cognition does not exist in isolation; it exists with a history, an environment, interaction with others, and in a specific role, which mean teacher identity and teacher cognition are interrelated areas that can help us understand teachers’ environments, behaviours, practices, and ideas. This research takes place in Saudi Arabia, a context in transition, in which teaching environments embody change in terms of what individuals carry with them from their past, such as education, training, and teaching experience, and what they experience in the classroom, with policies driving towards more communicative and open ways of teaching and learning. The method for this study involved observing, tracking, and interviewing four Saudi teachers of English, as they engaged with a CPD programme employing dialogical reflective practice, both through face-to-face interactions, and social media networks. The study’s findings showed the complexity of reflective practice, and that the often simplified term "reflection" encompasses a wide range of activity and practices, with different implications for teacher engagement. The influence of power relations on perceptions of reflective practice is one of the key findings in the current study, as participants reported that when they felt pushed to reflect as an abstract, mandated practice, it elicited unnatural and inauthentic reflection for them. It seems that, in their mind, authentic, useful reflection exists when they are in control of it, and often when it arises in what is perceived as authentic interactions. In other words, the authenticity and benefits of reflection, both individual and dialogical, are perceived more when thoughts and interactions are characterised by autonomy and choice, whereas the nature of ‘reflection’ is seen and experienced differently when a power structure is seen to be driving the activity. Participants reported engaging with genuine, active, sharing, and comfortable reflection (individual and dialogical) when power relations and communication were perceived as equal and natural, whereas marked power relations and forced communication was met with resistance and a sense of artifice. Overall, participants reported that engaging with contextualised and dialogical reflective practice allowed them to develop deeper understanding and awareness of themselves and their practices, accompanied by a sense of enhanced confidence and effectiveness. The study's findings contribute to literature on teacher cognition and identity, and they inform Saudi educational policy makers, teacher education programmes, and English language teachers.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Sonia Moran Panero: orcid.org/0000-0001-9895-4379

Catalogue record

Export record