Reflective concerns of preservice teachers during teaching practice

Teachers’ reflection and thinking have been foci for teacher educators and researchers since the time when Dewey (1904) asked for more consideration to teachers’ personal experience. Studies on teachers’ attention to classroom experiences and concerns (e.g. Janssens, 1989) play a vital part in the understanding of teacher development. However, our understanding about teachers’ reflections is still not enough to give definitive answers in the consideration of teachers’ experiences. Analyses of ‘the meanings constructed by preservice teachers about their experiences are lacking” (Erdman, 1983) and the scarcity of information about teachers’ concerns and experience has rendered out discussion vague and, sometimes, controversial (Richards and Gipe, 1987). The present study tries to examine student teachers; reflection through the analysis of journal writing on their concerns during teacher practice, and to see whether these concerns change as the teachers progress through their teaching practice. It is important to understand how student teachers perceive, think and learn in their fieldwork. Teachers educators can be more informed about student teachers’ preoccupation. The study tries to shed some light on the still under-researched question of how student teachers make sense of their classroom context.