Adopting a Janus perspective: moving forwards and backwards through our teacher professional experiences

ABSTRACT

The paper reports on collaborative journal writing and dialogue sustained by two education professionals with a view to engaging in meaningful reflective practice. The transition from journal writing to reporting in this paper was underpinned by knowledge of the place of reflective practice in teacher education and continuous professional development. Knowledge of the limited opportunities and time for meaningful continuous professional development, as experienced across the education sector, also informed a desire to share the writing experience with a view to encouraging other teachers to develop writing communities. As teacher educators, we relate how we came to write together and sustained a dialogue that provided us with newly framed insights into our professional lives and experiences. Our journalling told our stories and was very much in the spirit of evocative autoethnography. We describe how we naturally included sensory description related to the time and place of writing. We also used more evocative language, including the use of metaphors. Themes of critical reflection, reflexivity, embodied reflection and evocative autoethnography are therefore explored in the light of our writing experience. The journals and the associated dialogue highlight the values of such small and time constrained moments as informal professional development opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• reflective and reflexive practices
• autoethnography
• teacher education
• professional development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

V. Wright

V. Wright and S. Bates are Principal Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Post Compulsory Education at the University of Wolverhampton. Victoria teaches on and is Award Leader for the MA in Professional Practice and Lifelong Education. Sandi is joint Award Leader for the Certificate in Education and Professional Graduate Certificate in Post Compulsory Education. They both teach on the PGCE in Post Compulsory Education.