Effective practice determines the quality of a performance and it is essential to improving a musician's overall level of playing. Studies show that experts in the field of music display superior metacognitive skills, or the ability to think about one's thinking. Metacognition is an important skill that needs to be developed in order for a student to become a self-regulated, or independent learner. Effective practice can be improved by learning and developing metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills. An important component of self-regulated learning is reflective thinking. Reflective thinking is a mental process that contributes to deeper learning experiences, improves problem solving skills, and enhances creativity. Reflective thinking can be stimulated with writing activities. Research and theories of reflective practices informed the creation of the Reflective Writing Prompts. The Reflective Writing Prompts stimulate reflective thinking as they teach and develop metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills to make practice more effective. Each exercise prompts the student to think and write a response to questions focused on a specific skill. These prompts are based on research in music psychology and reflective thinking, with special focus on metacognition, self-regulated learning, practice habits, and reflective journaling. The pertinent studies and theories in these areas will be examined and explained in relation to each other. With this foundational knowledge in place, the Reflective Writing Prompts will be presented. The prompts are designed to support first or second year music students in their development as independent learners who practice effectively.

In this presentation I will report on a work-in-progress study that I am presently undertaking with second year General Mathematics undergraduate B.Ed students at a private institution for teacher education in South Africa. I first implemented the idea of reflective writing informally with scholars and then later for assessment purposes with undergraduate students. These tasks provoked very different responses from the scholars and university students, both positive and negative and prompted informal research by myself to ascertain how reflective practices can be incorporated into the mathematics curriculum. My primary objective is to investigate how I, as a lecturer can encourage and motivate students to engage in and make reflective practices an integral part of both their learning and understanding of mathematics and their teaching practice. Thus the focus of my presentation will be on different types of reflective practices and how they can be incorporated into a higher education mathematics programme.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of electronic portfolio building in development of self-directed learning by fostering reflective thinking through electronic journals and by compelling individual to take responsibility and control of one&rsquo / s own learning in a practicum course among pre-service teachers from the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University. A qualitative case study research method was applied to analyze the data gathered from pre- and post-ICT surveys, pre- and post Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scales, interviews, and the electronic journals and artifacts demonstrated in pre-service teachers&rsquo / web-based electronic portfolios. The data were collected from eight 4th grade undergraduate pre-service teachers enrolled in School Experience course of the English Language Teaching program at METU during 2008-2009 Fall Term. Electronic portfolios, having the opportunity to provide multimedia displays, allow the pre-service teachers to monitor the outcomes of their learning goals and strategies regularly and by monitoring their studies and reflections they review their own work and have a chance to evaluate their learning and teaching process. Essentially, portfolios transfer the responsibility of learning and decision making to the student with its dynamic process / when students are required to reflect on the information they acquire and on how they acquire this information, they begin to accept their learning practice as a process under their control. This study recognizes the notion that information and communication technologies are crucial to teacher education for both learning and teaching / and takes the constructivist stance that using ICTs tools, mainly electronic portfolios in this case, enhances reflective thinking, authentic self-assessment, self-management, and ownership over learning process and facilitates technological competence which all in all foster self-direction in learning.

Benefits to using a reflective journal include developing critical awareness and new perspective, problem-solving skills, and independent learning skills. The training of advanced piano students could be enhanced by the addition of journals to assist with their piano practice, specifically when learning new repertoire. Using the model by Plack and colleagues (2005) for developing and assessing reflection in reflective journal entries, we examined the journal entries of 18 advanced piano students to explore the development of reflection over a period of four weeks. Results suggest that reflectively trained piano students develop more critical reflection compared to a control group. Reflectively trained students perceive the same benefits to journaling as their counterparts in other disciplines. The most frequently referenced reflective elements include listing practice strategies and expressing feelings about the learning process. The reflective training model used in this study can be implemented by piano teachers and piano students.

No description available.

Masters of Science - Msc (Physiotherapy) / The roles of doctors and nurses in clinical supervision and clinical education are well defined in literature. However, the role of the physiotherapist in clinical education has not been clearly defined. This could be because the understanding of a clinical supervisor varies from discipline to discipline.

ABSTRACT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF PRESERVICE BIOLOGY TEACHERS THROUGH REFLECTIVE THINKING Savran Gencer, AySe Ph.D., Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jale &Ccedil / akiroglu Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ceren Tekkaya January 2008, 230 pages The study aims to explore preservice biology teachers&rsquo / reflective thinking content and levels by examining the use of a reflective framework integrated into one semester Practice Teaching course. More specifically, this study focused on the development of reflective thinking skills of preservice teachers and their metaphorical images about learning and teaching process. Data were collected through both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The written documents and audiotaped debriefings taken during the activities of reflective autobiography and journal writing, metaphor using, peer coaching, microteaching, and problem discussion along with the summative interview were the main data sources of the qualitative data. The written and transcribed data collected through these sources were then utilized through the selected three case studies in order to reach a deep understanding on their reflective thinking skills and content. The quantitative data were collected through the instruments of Reflective Thinking to evaluate the development of the preservice biology tecahers&rsquo / reflectivity and Metaphorical Images to explore their beliefs about learning and teaching process. Results indicated that the reflective activities offered opportunities preservice biology teachers to reflect on their experiences and strive for a conscious awareness of their professional development through experience, collaboration, guidance, and modeling. All of the participants were able to reflect mostly at the technical level, followed by contextual and dialectical levels of reflective thinking among the content categories of teacher characteristics, instructional processes, classroom management, students, and teaching profession. Results of reflective thinking instrument indicated that all participants individually perceived a developmental reflective thinking skill. Keywords: Reflective Thinking, Reflective Journal, Peer Coaching, Professional Development, Preservice Biology Teacher

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:42:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 897261 bytes, checksum: 5d231c662d76986f0ecf9d3f683b3a58 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-09 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Situated in the field of Applied Linguistics, the present study addresses the representations, construction of meaning, and reflective practice of a public school teacher of English in northeastern Brazil. The teacher documents her academic and professional trajectory through a reflective journal (BAILEY, 1990; PEYTON, 1990; MACHADO, 1998, 2007; ZABALZA, 2004; LIBERALI, 1999; BURTON, 2005, and REICHMANN, 2007). The journal is a way to unveil the teacher´s successes, failures, sensations, and perceptions. In this case study, fourteen narratives in the reflective journal constitute the corpus; voice and ´pedagogical truths´ (MOITA LOPES, 2004) surface in these teacher narratives. In this study, I defend the idea that language is used to construe and maintain interpersonal relations, to represent and interpret the world of others and our own, to represent knowledge and to construct meaning (HALLIDAY e MATTHIESSEN, 2004). I also argue that a crucial moment in teacher development is critical reflection on past or current practice, so as to improve future practice (FREIRE, 1996). Based on these assumptions, the main objective of this piece of research is to investigate representations of teacher experience and construction of meaning through written narratives in the journal. The three specific objectives are the following: to describe and to interpret lexico-grammatical choices in selected fragments, from the perspective of the transitivity system (HALLIDAY, 1994); to investigate meaning construction in relation to the academicprofessional context construed in teacher narratives, through other significant linguistic choices; and to examine reflective practice in the journal, focusing on the form of action reconstruction (SMYTH, 1992). Linguistic analysis reveals that teacher discourse represents, reflects and reconstrues academic-professional experience mainly through material and relational Processes, signaling doing, being and becoming, and, furthermore, that there are signs of critical reflection. In sum, as a contribution to the field, this study highlights the importance of the teacher-as-researcher stance, whereby teachers investigate and reflect on language use as social practice in their own academic-professional contexts. / Situado no campo da Lingüística Aplicada, o presente estudo focaliza representações, construções de significados e processos reflexivos de uma professora de inglês da rede pública na região nordeste brasileira, atuando em um contexto acadêmico e profissional e documentando seu percurso por meio de um diário reflexivo (BAILEY apud MATTOS 1999; PEYTON, 1990; MACHADO, 1998, 2007; ZABALZA, 2004; LIBERALI, 1999; BURTON, 2005; REICHMANN, 2007). O diário é um meio de expor os sucessos, fracassos, sensações e percepções da professora ao longo da sua trajetória. É um estudo de caso em que catorze narrativas escritas no diário reflexivo compõem o corpus desta pesquisa. As narrativas docentes produzidas pela professora trazem à tona sua voz, suas verdades pedagógicas (MOITA LOPES, 2004). Neste estudo, defendemos a idéia que a língua é usada para construir e manter relações interpessoais, para interpretar e representar o mundo do outro e o de nós mesmos, para representar o conhecimento e construir significados (HALLIDAY e MATTHIESSEN, 2004). Defendemos também que o momento fundamental na formação permanente dos professores é o da reflexão crítica sobre a prática de hoje ou de ontem para que se possa melhorar a de amanhã (FREIRE, 1996). Alicerçado nessas idéias, o objetivo geral deste trabalho é investigar as representações de experiência docente e construção de significados por meio das narrativas escritas no diário. Os objetivos específicos envolvem descrever e interpretar as escolhas léxico- gramaticais em fragmentos selecionados nas narrativas, sob a ótica do sistema de transitividade (HALLIDAY, 1994); investigar a construção de significados em relação ao contexto acadêmico-profissional constituído nas narrativas docentes, através da interpretação de outras escolhas lingüísticas significativas; como também observar de que maneira a prática diarista da professora exerce impacto no seu processo de reflexão crítica, focalizando a forma de ação reconstrução (SMYTH, 1992). Os fragmentos analisados revelam que a professora representa, reflete e reconstitui sua experiência acadêmico-profissional utilizando-se, prioritariamente, de Processos materiais e relacionais, como também, o seu processo reflexivo apresenta indícios de reflexão crítica. Concluindo, como contribuição para a área, este estudo reafirma a importância de pesquisas em que o professor de língua estrangeira assuma uma postura de professor-pesquisador, ou seja, investigando e refletindo sobre o uso da linguagem como prática social no seu próprio contexto acadêmico-profissional.

In this presentation I will report on a work-in-progress study that I am presently undertaking with second year General Mathematics undergraduate B.Ed students at a private institution for teacher education in South Africa. I first implemented the idea of reflective writing informally with scholars and then later for assessment purposes with undergraduate students. These tasks provoked very different responses from the scholars and university students, both positive and negative and prompted informal research by myself to ascertain how reflective practices can be incorporated into the mathematics curriculum. My primary objective is to investigate how I, as a lecturer can encourage and motivate students to engage in and make reflective practices an integral part of both their learning and understanding of mathematics and their teaching practice. Thus the focus of my presentation will be on different types of reflective practices and how they can be incorporated into a higher education mathematics programme.

No description available.