Getting reflection off the page: The challenges of developing support structures for pre-service teacher reflection

•Presence of knowledgable others focused the conversations on teaching and learning.•Reflection, as conceived of by Dewey, did not occur.•Additional inquiry is needed into the facilitation of the process of reflection.

Recent international calls in teacher education include increased quantity and quality of field experiences for pre-service teachers (International Alliance of Leading Education Institutes, 2008 and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2010). Despite increased attention to the quality of field experiences, there remains “much disagreement about the conditions for teacher learning that must exist for this learning in and from practice to be educative and enduring” (Zeichner, 2010, p. 91). In this formative experiment study (Reinking & Bradley, 2008), we use Dewey's (1933) ideas about judgment, analysis/synthesis, and balance to explore reflection as a communal process which results in “warranted assertabilities” (Dewey, 1986, p. 15) about teaching and learning. Findings show the presence of knowledgable others helped to focus the conversations on teaching and learning but that reflection, as conceived of by Dewey, did not occur. Therefore, additional inquiry is needed into the facilitation of the process of reflection.