ABSTRACT
My view of modelling was that through my teaching and my thinking about teaching I could demonstrate that I purposefully reflected on my own practice and that this would show, by example, something of the processes involved for me. Aside from my ‘normal classroom behaviour’, the student-teachers had the opportunity to ‘see’ my thinking through my journal. Also, after their first school teaching experience, I started to verbalize my thoughts about my pedagogy and my pedagogical reasoning in class in an attempt to give them greater (and more immediate) access to my thinking. This became an explicit act of modelling which was continued for the rest of the course. In essence, I was giving the student-teachers opportunities to hear the thoughts and ideas that influenced my actions as they occurred. When I had been reflecting about a session, I would introduce those thoughts to the class in the next session. Therefore, any of the suggestions, problems, hypotheses, reasoning or resultant testing I had been considering was open to public scrutiny; although I did not use those terms with my student-teachers. My reflection could be initiated by preparing for a session, during, or after a session. It was not uncommon for me to write in my journal during a session about what I thought was happening and why, how it matched my expectations and plans, and how it might influence my subsequent classes. More overtly, I commonly thought aloud about what I was doing, the decisions I was making and why. This was particularly so if I thought the session was not meeting the learning needs of the class. I felt that these actions would model my reflection on practice. This chapter is therefore designed to examine my student-teachers’ perceptions of my modelling of reflection as well as their views of its purpose and value to them.
