Exploring Professors' Thinking Through Post-Class Reflection : A Case Study

ISBN-13: 9783639158496 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 112 str.

Li Cao

Opis

The topic of teacher reflection has gainedsubstantial attention in the education literature.Yet, teachers' reflective processes have not beenwell understood. This study explored characteristicsof professors' post-class reflection. Eightprofessors--representing two levels of teachingexperience, teaching a lecture or seminarundergraduate class in humanities orengineering--participated in this case study.Interviews, classroom observations, and instructionalplans and materials comprised the data sources.Findings show that professors' post-class reflectionbecame a routine: it happened at different points oftime, mostly right after the class, and as acontinuous process. Their reflection involved amixture of having intuitive feelings about the classas well as thinking logically about how the classunfolded. Based on the results, a conceptualframework is proposed that describes professors'post-class reflection as interrelated with rationaland non-rational information processing. The studycontributes to a better understanding of the complexprocess of teacher thinking and informs the design offaculty development interventions that aim atpromoting reflective practice.

O autorze

Li Cao, PhD, is an Associate Professor in University of West
Georgia, USA. He received awards from the American Educational
Research Association, the Eastern Educational Research
Association, and the American Institute of Higher Education. He
has published articles on metacognition and self-regulated
learning in numerous professional journals.