How do I improve what I am doing as a teacher, teacher educator and action-researcher through reflection? A learning walk from Lleida to Winchester and back again

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the process of engaging with the question ‘How do I improve what I am doing as a teacher, teacher educator and action-researcher through reflection?’ The methodology used will explore the role of reflection and writing to promote changes and improve my learning process as a teacher and action-researcher. The main data source is written assignments from students in initial teacher education. The analysis of the students’ written assignments helped me see ‘living contradictions’ in-between my theoretical framework, my teaching and my researching practice. The article shows that I have more rhizomatic thought in my teaching than in my researching. I want ‘what I do’ in teacher education to be ‘consistent/coherent’, between the striated space of theoretical framework and the smooth space of my practice. I explore my methodological ‘uniqueness’ in my becoming teacher-researcher.

Keywords:

• rhizomatic thought
• living contradictions
• consistent/coherent
• becoming teacher-researcher

Notes

1. See http://www.lapanera.cat/index.html.

2. These schools are characterized by a strong social and cultural heterogeneity. For instance, primary school Princep de Viana has 39% of students coming from countries other than Spain, 48% are born in Spain of immigrant parents, and 13.2% are born in Spain and from Spanish parents.

3. See http://www.lapanera.cat/index.htm. http://www.guixe.com.