University mentors’ views on reflective practice in microteaching: building trust and genuine feedback

Reflective practice is claimed by many teacher education scholars to have benefited pre-service teachers (PSTs) in their professional learning to become teachers. One of the cited advantages is the affective nature of reflection which delves into the emotional feeling of one’s personal experiences. However, emotional feeling is often influenced by the prevailing culture and history which inevitably affect the ways in which PSTs view and enact reflection. Using a focus group discussion to elicit the views of six university mentors in Indonesia, this study seeks to investigate their experiences in guiding PSTs’ reflective practice which is integrated in microteaching practice. The findings reveal that some problematic implementation of reflective practice relates with PSTs’ prevailing cultural practice, namely the tension of harmony in a collectivist society. This brings forward the issue of superficial reflection, a level of trust and genuine feedback from peers. This study takes a position that reflective practice cannot be effectively implemented unless the imbedded values of collectivist culture are revisited and educated together with the values of reflective practice.