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An inquiry into the use of on-line communication for teacher reflection
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Type
Thesis
Author
Harkrider-Friedman, Nancy
Supervisor
Chen, Ai Yen
Abstract
This qualitative inquiry investigates two groups of Singapore pre-service teachers' recall of "critical teaching events" as reflection-on-action in the socially constructed space of Computer-Mediated Communication. The inquiry was not designed nor does it purport generalizations about communications within on-line reflective environments. Instead, it provide transferable insights as illuminative experience since "by studying the uniqueness of the particular, we come to understand the universal" (Simons, 1996, p. 231).
Following a pilot study, which served as grounding for an extended engagement, the inquiry was actualized as an extended case study of specific on-line reflective experience. The multi-method analysis approach to triangulation in the extended engagement was possible because of the depth and richness of data in the extended engagement and was a proactive response to the immature and often conflicting theoretical domain of Computer-Medicated Communication. Selected analysis methods include detailed documentation of the level s of reflective evidence, analysis of one overarching corollary, three supporting corollaries and one discovered corollary as patterns of reflective interaction, participant perceptions of the experience, as well as the researcher's journals as an extended reflection on the four year inquiry. Analysis was oriented to transparency, using accepted qualitative criteria for credibility, originality, transferability and internal validity, addressed through peer review.
The interactions between mentor and participant teachers in the synchronous on-line exchanges revealed several key elements conducive to the reflective process. There is evidence that mentor proximity to the novice teacher's need to reflect and the trust between mentor and novice were instrumental in overcoming the potential limitations when mentor and novices use Computer-Medicated Communication tools as reflective environments. This was demonstrated as a rich range of reflective exchange. The patterns of meaning exhibited themselves not as clearly defined "givens" but as situation-specific, deeply contextualized guidelines for mentoring novices in synchronous on-line environments. A reflective model, based on Jonassen's Stages of Knowledge Acquisition (1991, p. 32) and recommendations for mentoring in on-line environments evolved from constant comparative analysis during and after the data collection period.
It was not the technology per se that enabled the quality and quantity of reflective exchange. It was instead the psychological elements of participant trust and mentor proximity that allowed the integral interactivity of Internet Relay Chat to become an effective communication medium. Given the trusting relationships between mentor and novice, these unstructured interviews as reflective exchange could also have taken place face-to-face. But there is distinctive advantage in this focused "lean environment" for pacing the purposeful thinking required of reflection, for portraying that thinking as synchronous text during reflection as well as the clear advantage of having tangible artifacts of these reflective exchanges.
Following a pilot study, which served as grounding for an extended engagement, the inquiry was actualized as an extended case study of specific on-line reflective experience. The multi-method analysis approach to triangulation in the extended engagement was possible because of the depth and richness of data in the extended engagement and was a proactive response to the immature and often conflicting theoretical domain of Computer-Medicated Communication. Selected analysis methods include detailed documentation of the level s of reflective evidence, analysis of one overarching corollary, three supporting corollaries and one discovered corollary as patterns of reflective interaction, participant perceptions of the experience, as well as the researcher's journals as an extended reflection on the four year inquiry. Analysis was oriented to transparency, using accepted qualitative criteria for credibility, originality, transferability and internal validity, addressed through peer review.
The interactions between mentor and participant teachers in the synchronous on-line exchanges revealed several key elements conducive to the reflective process. There is evidence that mentor proximity to the novice teacher's need to reflect and the trust between mentor and novice were instrumental in overcoming the potential limitations when mentor and novices use Computer-Medicated Communication tools as reflective environments. This was demonstrated as a rich range of reflective exchange. The patterns of meaning exhibited themselves not as clearly defined "givens" but as situation-specific, deeply contextualized guidelines for mentoring novices in synchronous on-line environments. A reflective model, based on Jonassen's Stages of Knowledge Acquisition (1991, p. 32) and recommendations for mentoring in on-line environments evolved from constant comparative analysis during and after the data collection period.
It was not the technology per se that enabled the quality and quantity of reflective exchange. It was instead the psychological elements of participant trust and mentor proximity that allowed the integral interactivity of Internet Relay Chat to become an effective communication medium. Given the trusting relationships between mentor and novice, these unstructured interviews as reflective exchange could also have taken place face-to-face. But there is distinctive advantage in this focused "lean environment" for pacing the purposeful thinking required of reflection, for portraying that thinking as synchronous text during reflection as well as the clear advantage of having tangible artifacts of these reflective exchanges.
Date Issued
1999
Call Number
LB1775 Har
Date Submitted
1999