Reflection of novice teachers on their teaching practice

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on novice teachers in Quebec colleges and vocational schools (CEGEPs) who often receive little support for their professional integration due to an almost complete lack of support programs. While novice teachers have professional experience in their fields of expertise, most have no training in pedagogy. Reflective practice is identified as a way to improve the novice’s teaching practice. In order to better understand the pedagogical concept of reflection on action, six novice teachers engaged with a reflective toolkit in a qualitative, interpretive and exploratory study. The purpose of the study was to identify the categories of reflection called upon when novices reflected on their actions through use of tools in the proposed toolkit. The results show that the novice teachers developed a better understanding of the reflective process, particularly in the descriptive, discriminate and affective categories of reflection, and that they preferred video-based tools over those based on writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Reflective practice
• reflection
• reflective thinking
• novice teacher

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the teachers and educational consultants at Édouard-Montpetit College who volunteered to participate in this research and thus contributed to validation of the proposed toolkit.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie Lefebvre

Julie Lefebvre, Ph. D., is a professor in the Deparment of Education and Specialized Training at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Specialist in initiation to the teaching profession, she is passionate in vocational secondary and college, technical sector, as well as higher education pedagogy. She has a long experience as responsible for practical training in vocational training and technical training at the college and university levels. Her researches focused on professional development, practical training and the development of reflective practice of teachers and students. She holds a doctorate in education from the Université de Sherbrooke.

Hélène Lefebvre

Hélène Lefebvre, Ph. D., professor emeritus, has a major experience in teaching experience in education and nursing. She is specialized in adult education, higher education training and experiential learning, among other areas. She has held educational positions in the development and implementation of a new training program. She obtained a doctorate in andragogy from the Université de Montréal and is a research professor at the Faculty of Nursing at the Université de Montréal, where she held the position of Vice-Dean for Research and International Development.

Bernard Lefebvre

Bernard Lefebvre, Ph. D., retired professor, was a professor in the Department of Educational Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal where he has been director of the department of educational sciences and director of the preschool and primary education program. He was part of the Research Group on Education and Musueums. He obtained a doctorate in educational sciences from the Université de Montréal.