Using critical incidents in teaching to promote reflective practice

Literature in teacher education stresses the importance of preparing thoughtful reflective practitioners. This study examined the use of critical incidents as a tool for reflection employed by teacher candidates during their clinical teaching semester. All participants were required to write weekly reflections using either a traditional journaling format (N=10) or an on-line weblogging format (N=10). Two independent readers analyzed the narratives and collaborated to reach censuses using open and axial coding to determine key phrases and words and to assign themes. The quantitative method used to analyze reflection entries was a Two-way ANOVA design. The results indicated a significant difference between the reflections of those who weblogged and the reflections of those who wrote in traditional journals. Participants who wrote in journals wrote complex investigative reflections of classroom events. Participants who wrote using weblogs wrote less complex descriptions of classroom events. In addition, participants who wrote using the weblogs generated questions about how to solve instructional issues more so than those who participated in the traditional journaling format. Analysis of the participants’ reflective writing indicated that participants from both groups moved in-and-out of five phases of reflection; however, the language used in all reflective writing provided insight into each phase and featured language that was representative of each particular phase.