When microblog meets microteaching: a case study of Chinese K-12 Pre-service teachers' experiences of Using microblog in their reflective practice in microteaching

Abstract

Microteaching has been widely accepted as one of the most important methods for providing on-campus clinical experiences to pre-service teachers (Amobi, 2005), while reflective practice is one of the important processes in pre-service teachers' microteaching. The communication among pre-service teachers, their supervisor and peers are the core of the process (Dewey, 1933; Schön, 1987; Shulman, 1987). On the one hand, the previous studies (e.g., Wepner, 1997) indicated that the traditional online communication tools, such as e-mails and e-journals, helped pre-service teachers conduct better reflective practice in microteaching compared with paper-based communication tools. However, these previous studies only focused on pre-service teachers' reflection-on-action (reflection after practice) and, sometimes, reflection-for-action (reflection before practice), while ignoring their reflection-in-action (reflection during practice) in microteaching. On the other hand, the recent research literature indicated that microblog, as a comparatively new online communication tool, had significantly positive impacts on education, including pre-service teachers' general reflective practice (Wright, 2010). However, none of the existing studies examined whether and how microblog has impacts on pre-service teachers' three types of reflective practice in microteaching, especially in a specific sociocultural context. Therefore, in order to fill the above research gap, this study uses a case study approach to explore Chinese K-12 pre-service teachers' experiences of using microblog to integrate the three types of reflective practice in microteaching. The contributions of this study are two-folded. On the one hand, from the theoretical perspective, after reviewing the research literature regarding pre-service teachers' technology-enhanced reflective practice in microteaching, this study calls the attention of reforming the existing pre-service teachers' reflective practice to integrate the three types of reflective practice. This recommendation provides a new direction for future studies related to pre-service teachers' technology-enhanced reflective practice in microteaching. On the other hand, from the practical perspective, this study examines how Chinese K-12 pre-service teachers used microblog to integrate the three types of reflective practice in microteaching. The findings from this case study present the empirical evidences regarding whether and how pre-service teachers use technologies to integrate the three types of reflective practices in microteaching in a specific sociocultural context. These evidences offer the valuable reference for future eLearning tool development and technology-enhanced microteaching course design.