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The purpose of the case study is to contribute knowledge about how supervisors guide student teachers (ST) in reflective conversations before and after their teaching at practicum, and how supervisors seem to influence STs to experience their practicums in constructive ways. The methodology consisted of me observing two STs teaching on three occasions, recording the reflecting conversation they had with their supervisor after the lesson, and conducting an in-depth interview with the STs after their practicum period. The focus when collecting the empirical material was to shed light on how the supervisors seemed to influence STs’ reflections on their teaching during practicum, and how these reflections affect what experiences STs gain from their teaching practice and stimulate their further growth as professional teachers. When analyzing the material, I focused on how controlling the supervisor’s guidance was in the reflecting conversations, whether they asked questions, explained, or instructed, and how the PETE students responded to their guidance. To do that, I used Biesta’s (2022) concept “act of pointing”, which describes what and how educators direct students to focus on. Then in the next step, I focused on how the STs experienced their practicum based on these reflective conversations and the in-depth interview. For this, I used Dewey’s (2015) understanding of what separates the meaning of experiencing and having an experience, and how different experiences can be described as educative, non-educative, or mis-educative. The results indicate that the supervisors’ guidance varied regarding how controlling they were, and I identified four different acts of pointing in the reflective conversations: - The restrained and constructive ‘act of pointing’, - The rule-focused ‘act of pointing’, - The direct and technical ‘act of pointing’ - The restricted and condemning ‘act of pointing’ Based on these various acts of pointing, I describe the STs' gained experiences as two different kinds of journeys during their practicum. ST A gained educative experiences - he experienced an adventurous journey because he got the opportunity to experience unexpected situations during practicum and thoroughly reflect on them. ST B gained non-edu-cative, or maybe even mis-educative experiences - he was restricted and often told what to do, making his reflections technical and superficial. Enabling STs to find their own path as teacher can stimulate their professional growth as teachers and make them gain educative experiences, that stimulate their growth in a constructive direction. However, supervisors’ control over STs cannot be too free, they need to control them somehow – it is a matter of loosening the control, but never losing it.

Biesta, G. (2022). World-centered education: a view for the present. Routledge.

Dewey, J. (2015). Experience And Education (Reprint ed.). Free Press.

Physical education teacher education (PETE) students’ reflections on their practicums are influenced by how their supervisors guide them. Supervisors often evaluate and discuss PETE students’ teaching by guiding their focus on essential aspects to consider. This exploratory case study focuses on how supervisors’ guiding styles in reflective conversations affect how PETE students make meaning of their teaching. Reflective practitioners, in this case PETE students, make sense of practical situations from their own perspectives as part of their teaching practice. Supervisors’ guidance is essential here, because it can change PETE students’ understanding by (re)directing their attention to meaningful aspects when framing their teaching and help them to examine it from new perspectives. However, the findings indicate that supervisors’ various guidance affect how PETE students experience their learning journeys during practicum. In this study, the participating PETE students’ experiences of practicum differed: either they experienced a controlled journey that restricted their teaching due to predefined rules and condemning attitude toward pupils, or they experienced an adventurous journey that enabled them to find their own paths as a teachers.

This article presents a theoretical approach and an analytical toolbox for researchers on reflections in PE and PETE. Its purpose is to provide an approach to analyzing how reflections are composed. Previous research mainly asks how teachers and student teachers (STs) reflect and use different theoretical concepts to describe the way in which they reflect. The use of the analytical toolbox, as described in this paper, examines how the reflections of teachers and STs have different parts that are influenced by the direction – within a given context – of their gaze and focus on teaching. Their experiences and reflections are affected by the contexts, which influence the forward-moving spiral of the development of their professional judgment. Using a recontextualized version of Wackerhausen’s (2009) theory as an analytical toolbox in research, as proposed in this article, can contribute to more nuanced descriptions of teachers’ and STs’ reflections on teaching in PE.

Reflections in teacher education (TE) is a disputed issue surrounded by “mixed messages and confusing agendas” (Fendler, 2003 p.20). According to Russell (2013), reflections have done more harm than good, especially when TE have forced their STs to reflect on theoretical matters and not on teaching practices. The “place to develop skills of reflective practice is in the practicum classroom as a novice teacher, not in the halls of the university as a student” (Russell, 2013 p.88). For that reason, my study focused on STs’ reflections on how they incorporated specified content into their teaching at practicum. The STs read about Assessment for Learning (AfL) at the university before entering their school placements. Research focusing on the link between universities and practicum is required since few studies on TE have “investigated how preparation [at the university] influenced candidates’ practice, […]to do the actual tasks of teaching” (Cochran-Smith et al., 2015 p.117).

I focused on whether STs' reflections were educative or non-educative (Dewey, 2015), and how contexts within school placements influenced STs' reflections on practicing AfL. An educative experience stimulates to further growth of STs' experiences of teaching situations (Dewey, 2015), which in this study is how STs' experiences of AfL gained at the university stimulate their further growth of experiences when incorporating AfL into their teaching practice. On the other hand, non-educative experiences stagnate STs' further growth (Dewey, 2015).  

Examining ST's reflections on their incorporations of AfL can give insights into how they experience their teaching, since “reflections are blind without experiences, and experiences are empty without reflections” (Wackerhausen, 2008 p. 19). These concepts are intertwined because present experiences influence how the STs frame teaching situations in their mindscapes, (Dewey, 2018) when reflecting on them so that they are enabled to teach more intelligently (Dewey, 2015). Intelligent teaching, interpreted in this article, is a matter of STs' judgment, and how they decided to incorporate AfL. AfL is based on research findings from Black and Wiliam’s (1998) meta-study, and Biesta (2020) is concerned with how teaching has come to be seen as an evidence-based practice. Biesta (2020) finds it problematic when teachers take research findings for granted when incorporating them into their teaching thinking that they can solve problems by applying them. Instead, teachers should incorporate findings by judging the situation and adapting them based on what they think is useful for their pupils in the situation.

Aim and research questions

The aim is to shed light on STs' reflection to get insight into how they experience the incorporation of AfL in their teaching and whether their experiences were educative or non-educative. This can be done by analyzing their reflections, and by looking at how they compose them with either educative or non-educative elements. For that reason, the following research questions guided my investigation:

-        Does context influence STs’ educative or non-educative reflections on using AfL and if it does, how?

-       How can STs’ reflections be described in terms of a composition of parts, shaping either educative or non-educative reflections?  

Supervisors are key actors for physical education teacher education (PETE) students at practicum. Their guidance influence what PETE-students focus on when teaching and reflecting on their teaching. In addition to that, Russell (2013) states that reflective practice should be experienced in classrooms at schools, and not in the halls of the university. Therefore, my study focus on how supervisors’ guidance affects PETE-students experiences of teaching at schools by investigating their reflective conversations when planning and evaluating PETE-students teaching. Schön (1983) states that practitioners, e.g., teachers, conversate with teaching situations when they reflect. For that reason, supervisors are central figures, as they can (re)direct PETE-students’ attention by their guidance on meaningful aspects that PETE-students should consider in teaching situations. Supervisors’ guidance reduces the influences PETE-students should pay attention to. However, supervisors cannot foresee what PETE-students’ pay attention to, but supervisors can be committed to stimulate PETE-students development as professionals by (re)directing their focus. My results indicate that supervisors’ guidance can be more or less controlling, which affects how PETE-students experience their learning journeys at practicum. The PETE-students either, experienced controlled journeys where they had specified rules to follow, or they experienced more adventurous journeys where they had the opportunity to find their own path as teachers. Supervisors can stimulate PETE-students’ professional growth as autonomous and responsible teachers by being committed to encouraging them to consider their teaching thoroughly and allowing them to decide how to teach at practicum.

The importance of reflection for the development of teacher students into professional practitioners has become a generally accepted and central part of teacher education. What a reflection is, how a teacher reflects and how teacher students can learn to reflect has been perennial question in teacher education since Dewey and Schön wrote their central works. This is still mirrored in teacher education today because the ambition to develop teacher students´ reflection persists. However, the concept of reflection in teacher education research is surrounded by a problem, it prevails: “… mixed messages and confusing agendas (Fendler 2003 p. 20)”. Research has been carried out without clearly explaining the meaning(s) of the concept of reflection, in both teacher education (Ottesen 2007), and physical education teacher education (PETE) (Standal & Moe 2013). What needs to be supplemented in research on the concept of reflection, in the field of PETE, based on the prevailing knowledge base, is a more profound and nuanced understanding of what a reflection is and how different contexts affect PETE students' reflections. 

Therefore, I created a proposal for a theoretical framework, based on a synthesis of mainly Wackerhausens and Schön's theories about what a reflection is. The framework also gives a proposal to understand different dimensions and sorts of reflections. And finally, this proposal for a theoretical framework gives a conceptual toolbox, based on Bernstein's theory, to understand how different contexts and factors in these contexts affect how PETE students reflect. 

BAKGRUNN

The ability to reflect has attracted the interest of scholars. They have mainly used Dewey's, Van Manen's, and Schön's theoretical frameworks in research. Standal and Moe (2013) write that future research needs to clarify what is meant by the specific use of the concept, in the specific study. In addition to this, researchers have also mainly researched on the basis of the question of how teachers or students reflect. Therefore, is this theoretical framework constructed to answer the question: how does the context surrounding the teachers or students affect the composition of their reflections?

RESULTAT

To be able to answer the new question concerning contexts' influence on teachers' and students' composition of their reflections, Wackerhausen (2008; 2009) offers an interesting theory. He introduces the reflection anatomy, which I use as an analytical tool to dissect the reflection into smaller parts. One reflects... something: 

-          In a context of,

-          On ,

-          With and,

-          From.

KONKLUSJON

This new approach offers scholars new perspectives and contributes to the ongoing and constantly recurring research on reflections.

Problem-area

Physical education teacher education students (PETE-students) find that practicum is the most important course in PETE (Capel & Blair 2007). At practicum, PETE-students are enabled to develop their capability to reflect on experienced teaching-situations, which can develop their judgment (Russel 2005; Russel 2013; Biesta 2012; Winch et al. 2015). There are arguments for making: "practice the core of teachers' professional preparation (Loewenberg Ball and Forzani 2009 p. 497)", but for practicum to be important, the educational context must stimulate PETE-students capability to reflect. Supervisors at practicum can have an important role as they contribute to the reflective environment (Capel et al. 2019). Previous research indicates that supervisors rarely stimulate to good reflective environments that can develop PETE-students judgment in an educative direction (Rossi & lisahunter 2013; Hegender 2010). Furthermore, the concept of reflection in teacher education research is surrounded by: "mixed messages and confusing agendas (Fendler 2003 p. 20)". Later research argues for the necessity of clarifying a theoretical framework that explains what a reflection is and how the reflection should be examined and, thereby avoid making the concept of reflection a truism (Standal et al. 2013).

Purpose

The aim of this study is to identify how PETE-students reflect on teaching during practicums and contribute knowledge of how contextual factors in PETE influence their reflections.