Theme: efl teachers' reflective practice via online discussions plan: I. Introduction II. Main part

THEME: EFL TEACHERS' REFLECTIVE PRACTICE VIA ONLINE DISCUSSIONS


PLAN:


I. Introduction
II. Main part

1. 
   EFL teachers' reflective practice via online discussions.
   
2. 
   Statement of the Problem
   
3. 
   Research Question
   
4. 
   Significance of the Study
   
5. 
   John Dewey as the Father of Reflection
   
6. 
   Donald A. Schön as a Constructor of Reflective Practice
   

III. Conclusion
IV. Reference

Introduction
Teaching in general can be defined as an interactive process as teachers consciously or unconsciously shape their teaching according to several factors such as students’ profiles, ages and backgrounds. Upon involving in a teaching activity, most of the time, teachers take part in a thinking process to gauge the consequences and outcomes of these actions. This process can be described as reflection or reflective practice.
Since the concept of reflection was first coined by John Dewey in 1910 and 1933, it has increased its importance as an alternative approach to the existing models of teacher education, which still predominate (Erginel-§anal, 2006). It has been used as an important tool in practice-based professional learning, as it helps teachers transfer their pedagogical knowledge into their teaching experience. Therefore, it may be seen as the most important source of personal professional development. Studies have been conducted in both pre-service and in-service teacher education, with the help of tools such as journals, diaries and portfolios. More recently, the concept of reflective practice and its tools have developed over its research history and started to be utilized on online platforms such as blogs and discussions.
Schön (1983) divided the reflective practices in two categories: reflection on action, which is the evaluation of past experiences, and reflection-in-action, which is done simultaneously at the time of teaching. While their categorization is still accepted by many researchers, in 1991, van Manen contributed to the field by adding another category, reflection-for-action. Van Manen developed this category, which is
based on evaluation of the existing experience and making inferences about the future situations or problems, as he thought that Schön disregarded the use ofreflection for future actions. Although these three categories were recently found to be effective and supplementary to each other (Uzum, Petron, & Berg 2014), relatively few studies have been conducted in the field of ELT using this framework of reflective practices, especially on their utilization in online/asynchronous platforms. This study addresses that gap by examining the use of reflection-on, -in and -for-action by analyzing online reflective practice in in-service teacher education.