Examining Preservice Teachers' Reflective Practice ... - LearnTechLib

Jl. of Technology and Teacher Education (2012) 20(3), 229-249

Examining Preservice Teachers’ Reflective Practice within and across Multimodal Writing Environments Sara B. Kajder and Kelly A. Parkes Virginia Tech, USA [email protected] [email protected] Teacher educators examined preservice student teachers’ weekly reflective weblog and videolog journal posts for instances of reflective practice. Data were collected over ten weeks, offering the student teachers an opportunity to reflect through video, image, print text, and comment fields. Analytic induction (Erikson, 1986) and content analysis (Patton, 2002) were used to categorize responses and examine how blog and vlog posts differed, given both the capacities of the medium and the ways in which students captured or revised their work. Differences that emerged provide insights into the nature of multimodal composing practices, the affordances of blogs and vlogs as reflective writing spaces, and the ways in which preservice teachers use reflection to inform instructional practice. Results suggest implications for pedagogies utilizing multiple digital modalities or participatory learning within online communities of practice.

Teacher educators emphasize the importance of fostering preservice teachers’ reflective practice given the situated, context-specific, and complex activities and development occurring during methods coursework and field experiences (Barr, Watts-Taffe, Yokota, Ventura, & Caputi, 2000). Where the conventional assignment used to elicit this type of connective thought is a written reflection journal (Spalding & Wilson, 2002), web-based tools such as weblogs and videologs provide a multimodal writing environment through which the writer conveys and discovers meaning through print text paired with video, image, sound, and other expressive modes.

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The research reported in this paper rests on our assumption that programs of teacher education are charged with preparing candidates not only to work within the dominant media forms present in today’s schools (largely print-centric), but also to integrate, use, and critically consider digital tools which are multimodal. We acknowledge that change around these tools, and the literacy practices they require, is almost constant. However, we value immersing preservice teachers in a variety of digital and multimodal composing environments for multiple reasons; both to engage them as 21st century learners and to foster a reflective and intentional flexibility of practice that allows for “constant retooling, redefining, and figuring out what to attend to during the evolution” (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). Where an emerging body of literature has established the relative merits of weblogs as a tool for eliciting preservice teachers’ reflective thought (Parkes & Kajder, 2010; Shoffer, 2009), this study examines the combined use of both text and image-based weblog entries along with video-based videolog journal entries during the student teaching placement. To mine these entries systematically for levels of reflective practice, we designed a study of the reflective practice of preservice teachers (n = 6) with these research questions as guides: 1. How do preservice teachers exercise reflection within videolog and/or weblog posts? 2. How does their reflective practice inform and impact their instructional practice? 3. What differences (if any) are evident between how preservice teachers write and reflect within the weblog post vs. within the videolog post? Review of Related Literature Preservice Teachers’ Reflective Practice Teaching, as a skilled and situated practice, requires on-going meaningmaking (Barr, et al., 2000) and identity development (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004). The reflective practitioner (Schön, 1987) works to consider his/her practice within the moment of instruction (i.e., “in action”) and afterwards (i.e., “on action.”). In as much as preservice teachers work to develop and enact knowledge of learners, curriculum, and pedagogy, they are also immersed in learning about how to learn from their own teaching. Dramatic instances of this learning occur during the field placement where, as Posner (2005) argues, preservice teachers must think deeply about their ex-

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periences or otherwise risk limiting their growth. Accessing reflective, metacognitive teacher-knowing requires pedagogical structures in which preservice teachers construct meaning not just from the surface aspects of their day (i.e., how students desks are arranged) but from the deeper aspects of their practice (Larrivee, 2008; Lytle, 2006). Where reflection can often take the form of confession as opposed to a critical examination of practice, an aim of teacher education is to lead students to a level of critical reflection (Hume, 2009; Schön, 1987) which considers and unpacks the influence(s) of the larger cultural, political and social context in which they teach. While other researchers have offered frameworks for distinguishing between varying levels of reflective practice (Sparks-Langer, Simmons, Pasch, Colton, & Starko, 1990), this study utilized Larrivee’s (2008) model given that it both works to synthesize the work that came before and has resulted in an expanded assessment tool. Larrivee’s (2008) model offers four levels of reflection (see Table 1). Teacher development is not necessarily linear, although the increasing levels do require deeper layers of conceptual thought. As Larivee (2008) writes, “teachers move from asking ‘Am I doing it right?’ to eventually asking ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ (p. 344). Table 1 Larrivee’s (2008) Levels of Reflective Prac Level of Reflective Practice

Example Teacher Question

Pre-Reflection

“Where on this hallway is my classroom?”

Surface Reflection

“How do I cover the essential questions and learning goals within this curriculum?”

Pedagogical Reflection

“How does my pedagogy impact student learning?”

Critical Reflection

“How will this strategy or approach affirm my students with different cultural backgrounds?”

Embedded within this model is the understanding that reflection is often a collaborative, social practice given that observers are positioned to provide feedback and queries that the participant-teacher is not likely to otherwise consider. Reflection begins with individual thinking, but requires critical examination (Boud, 1999). As Larrivee (2004) explained, “personal experiences need the critical checks and balances of others’ perspectives” (p. 95). Building professional growth and reflective practice in preservice and practicing teachers often involves critical friends, collaborative dialogue, and structured communities of practice which provide the safe context in which teachers are supported, pushed, and empowered.

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Not every preservice teacher comes equipped with an existing skill-set which allows them to engage in reflective practice. To that end, the literature is replete with descriptions of interventions ranging from written journals with scaffolded, exact prompts (Cole & Knowles, 2000; Russell, 2005) to microteaching paired with debriefing interviews (Sparks-Langer, et al., 1990) to a variety of structures which lead to reflective readings of videos of practice (Calandra, Gurvitch, & Lund, 2008; Yerrick, Ross & Molebash, 2005). The written reflective journal, when paired with specific prompts, can be used for dialogue, feedback, and, at the very least, providing a space for preservice teachers to stop and make meaning from an event, lesson, or reading (Cole & Knowles, 2000; Hume, 2009; Spalding & Wilson, 2002). That said, the written journal remains a print-dominant means of communication and presents physical limits in terms of sharing, collaborating, and capturing raw thinking in the moment. Uses of Web 2.0 Tools to Support Reflective Practice The ever-evolving digital media landscape of reading and writing tools provides opportunities for teacher educators and preservice teachers to leverage the unique capacities of web 2.0 writing environments in an attempt to better develop experiences that engage and develop reflective skills. As Thomas and Seely-Brown (2011) explain, “as information is constantly produced, consumed, updated, and altered, new practices of reading, writing, thinking and learning have evolved with it” (p. 42). Literacy practices have grown to include participation, collaboration and distribution (Knobel & Wilber, 2009), providing a critical opening in teacher education and k-12 curricula (Street, 2009). New forms of representation, like weblogs or videologs, open writers to additional expressive capacities that pair across modes and media and bring new authentic audiences and publishing opportunities into the classroom. These tools allow for “a different system of signification, one that transcends the collective contribution of its constituent parts” (Hull & Nelson, 2005, p. 225). A study integrating web 2.0 practices and tools into arts and humanities preservice methods courses requires a break with the typical pattern of students’ exposure to isolated technology courses (Pope, Hare, & Howard, 2002; Yerrick, et al., 2005). Without the kinds of embedded models that this work attempts to establish, this is especially prevalent in literacy classrooms as digital, multimodal tools for reading and writing present a perceived challenge to the print-centric curriculum (Snyder, 2009). As Mills (2010) argues, “this is an age of multimedia authoring where competency


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with written words is still vital, but is no longer all that is needed” (p. 36). Invoking and supporting reflective practice is of particular importance in teacher education for preservice teachers. They are learning both to implement known practices with print text and to co-create practices which invite multimedia authoring for connected, authentic audiences (Cloonan, 2008). An emerging body of literature examines preservice teachers’ reflective work within the kinds of multimedia authoring spaces described here, focusing mostly on weblogs as the composing medium. Three related studies are described next, all of which posit blogging as a literate practice but do so by situating the work of the writer in personal publishing rather than in participatory knowledge making. Studies of teachers’ reflective work within weblog posts have consistently emphasized that the ease of the interface and reliance on mostly print writing allows preservice teachers to focus on the writing rather than the tool. Ray and Coulter’s (2008) analysis of practicing English teachers’ use of weblogs revealed multiple instances of a surface-level of reflection on the part of the majority of participants along with several instances of meta-reflection. While attributing some degree of the study participants’ reflective work to the affordances of the medium of the weblog, the larger emphasis of the study emphasized the social/public nature of the weblog as a writing space that assisted in creating authentic communities of practice with expansive range. Sharma and Xie’s (2010) study of the use of weblogs for reflection offered similar comments on the affordances of weblog use in supporting an expanded collaborative community of practice. Findings indicated that benefits resulted both from the exposure to multiple points of view and “a sense of togetherness and belonging generated by the [collaboration]” (p. 147). That said, participants indicated unease with navigating how to write for a networked public, given that the weblogs were open to anyone with access to the link. Here, the web 2.0 “affordance” (i.e., capacity for audience commentary) opened a literacy practice that extended the classroom, but did so without an instructional scaffold that prepared writers for public writing in an online space. Valuing the increasing reality that preservice teachers come to methods courses with some sort of “digital preferences,” Shoffner’s (2009) study of reflective practice across media environments provided students with a choice of digital space for the writing, storage, and sharing (only with the faculty/evaluator) of reflective journals. By asking the student to choose between email, weblogs, webpages and MS Word, faculty eliminated the “distraction” of students learning a new or challenging technology space and rather, emphasized the reflective work at hand. The analysis did not look for

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instances of reflection within the specific media, focusing more on how students’ reflective practice differed across each space. Students who worked within the weblog environment intentionally chose that space given immediacy of access, ease of organization, and deliberate, known interaction with a community of respondents. And, as seen in the previous two studies, the reflective writing, no matter the medium selected, took the form of a journal entry. Multimodal Composition, Blogging, and Identity Preservice teachers are continually at work in constructing their professional identity, the goal state of what they wish to become within the context of their envisioned or field-based classrooms (Smeby, 2007). Faculty, cooperating teachers, and peers within programs of study all participate in this process as identity formation requires seeing one’s self as a teacher while also being seen by others as a teacher (Coldron & Smith, 1999). Reflective writing provides the preservice teacher with a space in which to systematically record and consider their experiences, evaluating and revising their ideas and new professional selves in response to new insights and discoveries (Liston & Zeichner, 1987). The weblog presents an additional layer of expressive capacity given that the tool supports publishing images, video, and audio alongside print text. Further, through links and the use of embed codes, the weblog can support multi-textual, multimodal writing. The use of multiple modalities for composing has mostly been studied in contexts other than the preservice teacher methods course. Hull and Nelson’s (2005) study of an out-of-school digital storytelling group for adolescent writers found that in providing a range of media and modes from which writers could work, new identities and roles were opened to student participants. Writers expressed themselves differently given the expanded toolset and the opportunity to express their identities across the production of multiple types of text. In subsequent work by Vasudevan, Shultz, and Bateman (2010), multimodal storytelling was found to be effective in engaging student writers, broadening participation, and expanding the range of stories told (and identities enacted). As Vasudevan et al. (2010) explain, “bringing together the examination of composing processes, multimodal forms of producing texts, identities and context allows us to understand the capacities of youth in our classrooms in new ways” (p. 464). Given the findings of these and other studies discussed throughout this review, it follows that engaging preservice teachers in the work of reflecting in a multimodal composing space, such as a weblog or a videolog, opens


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modes of expression that should lead them to express robust, authentic reflections which would not be possible in the mono-modal print, written journal. As such, this study was designed to analyze preservice teachers’ weblog and videolog entries during the student teaching placement for (a) levels of reflective practice, (b) connection to and impact on instructional practice and professional identity and (c) differences across the multimodal environment of the weblog post versus that of the videolog. Methods This research followed a qualitative design that utilized an interpretive approach, which was necessary given that this work is grounded in each participant’s experiences, beliefs, practice, and meaning-making perspectives as teachers. As Bolster (1983) explains, “understanding the meanings the teacher is imposing on classroom events is vital to the research conclusions” (p. 306). Data generation and analysis occurred as described below and was guided by Erikson’s (1986) analytic induction method. Participants and Data Generation Six study participants were purposefully selected graduate secondary English Education and k-12 Music Education majors enrolled in a methods course held concurrently with their student teaching field experience. Data were collected during the spring of 2009 as all students were in their final semester of study. As a course requirement, all students were asked to post a minimum of one weblog or videolog post per week, which looked back on their week in the field and looked ahead to the instruction, and learning, to come. Entries were recorded over the course of 10 weeks, and included a synthesis “BOB” (blog about the blog) entry at the close of the term. Posts were not in response to a given prompt nor were they a required length and students could choose to blog or vlog more than once a week. The data corpus grew to include end-of-term evaluation comments on the blog/vlog project, view counts of the student blog posts, comments on each post, and comments and ratings posted to the vlog entries posted within YouTube.com or Viddler.com. All video content was transcribed verbatim. Given that the two program cohorts were not evenly sized, three student participants’ corpus of blog/vlog entries were selected from each program cohort (English and Music Education) for analysis.

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Data Analysis Analytic induction (Erikson, 1986; Patton, 2002) and content analysis (Patton, 2002) were employed to analyze and interpret the data. Both authors interpreted all of the data collaboratively, following a process of iterative readings of the data as it emerged. Codes and categories first grew out of Schön (1987) and Larrivee’s (2008) individual frameworks for levels of teacher reflection. After coding the first set of written blog posts or transcribed videolog posts to establish common interpretations, codes, and inter-rater agreement, we, the authors, worked independently through the remainder of the data set, meeting repeatedly to discuss ongoing analysis and eventually develop and sequence assertions. Again, following the guides established by Erikson (1986), data analysis and data collection during this study were concurrent. Coding emerged through multiple readings of the data, with attention paid to internal convergence and external divergence to remain internally consistent while being mutually exclusive (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). From the coded data, assertions were developed through an iterative process supported by analytic memos and multiple meetings between the researchers. Next, assertions were sequenced to communicate varying inferential depth. Once all data were collected, coded, and analyzed, a final review of all codes, assertions and thought was conducted with consideration of coherence, consistency, and assuring that disconfirming evidence had been explained. Findings Using Erikson’s (1986) method of analytical induction and content analysis (Patton, 2002), three major assertions emerged from the ongoing data analysis that occurred during the course of the study. 1. All participants regularly engaged in surface reflection to support pedagogical descriptions, describe their teaching context, and make quick observations. 2. Participants’ blogged reflections worked to document content (i.e., surface level reflection) where vlogged reflections worked to document their learning (i.e., pedagogical reflection). 3. The nature of feedback/comments received during the semester impacted both the community of practice and students’ use of their blog/vlog reflections.


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Assertion One All participants regularly engaged in surface reflection to support pedagogical descriptions, describe their teaching context, and make quick observations. Study participants’ weblog/videolog entries followed a set schedule, requiring posts on the first day of their placement, after dismissal of their last class of students on the Friday completing their first full week in the field, and at the end of each subsequent Friday during the student-teaching placement. Where each of the six preservice teachers varied in the topics addressed within each post, the attributes of the posts were surprisingly similar in that all students wrote weblog entries which spoke about the process of navigating a new context, their work in addressing specific content standards or curricula, and engaging and motivating student learners. When examined through the framework provided by Larrivee’s (2008) Levels of Reflective Practice, these observations and reflective moves fell under the category of surface level reflection. Larrivee (2008) describes this as “confined to tactical issues” and offers a view of learners that is “somewhat differentiated, acknowledging the need to accommodate learner differences” (p. 148). The focus on the strategy-specifics of an instructional day was evident in Dan’s week two weblog post where he summarized logistics of the day and focused his reflection on the effectiveness of a routine shaping his classwork. He explained: I started class by calling them ‘to order,’ taking role, and speaking a couple of minutes on business matters. I reminded them of homework due the following day and went over the plan for today’s class. I liked this strategy because it gave students a chance to settle down while giving me the time to take a deep breath and quiet my nerves. (Dan, weblog, week two). Here, the emphasis is on structure, an integral first step in his beginning to establish his role as teacher within the classroom. Similarly, Eva, a Music Education student, used a weblog post to consider the importance of community building within her classes. She wrote, “It felt satisfying to really connect and have fun with the students today. I made sure to let all the classes know how much fun I had with them, and thanked them for their hard work” (Eva, weblog entry, week six). Following Larrivee’s (2008) definition, surface level observations were tied to the immediate experience of the classroom and not tied to methods course readings, research or other guiding texts. Further, those infrequent questions that emerged addressed logistics of implementing a strategy. For example, when Meg, an English

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Education student, devoted her week two weblog post to organization of reading resources to support workshop implementation, her focus was on distribution of differentiated texts rather than the practice of providing student readers with choice. Analysis of the total instances of coded surface reflections (the first number in each column in Table 2) revealed a significant difference between the number of surface level mentions within participants’ weblog/blog posts when compared to the videolog/vlog posts. The second number in each column, indicates the total number of posts. Looking just at the three English Education preservice teachers’ posts, the weblog posts offered significantly more instances of surface level reflection. Weblog posts for these three participants were mostly print-based, offering an image only as a “signature” or identity stamp at the close of the post. Examining the three Music Education preservice teachers’ posts shows first, that they posted weblogs more frequently than the English preservice teachers; weblogging seemed to be more comfortable for them, as Eva illustrated “I like thinking about what I have achieved across the week and typing lets me stop - think more- and then keep writing. Sometimes I lose my train of thought in the videos”. Preservice music students weblogged 7 times, whereas the English students weblogged a total of 5 times across the semester. The Music Education students started videolog/vlog posts later, as it took them longer to learn the technical skills of posting videologs. Examining the Music Education students’ instances of videolog posts reveals less posts than the English students (i.e., 5 instead of 7) but overall, both the English and the Music Education students’ weblog/blog posts offered significantly more instances of surface level reflection in terms of reflective content. Table 2 Instances of Surface Reflection English Education

Surface Reflection within Total Weblog Posts

Dan

19/5

8/7

Cara

24/5

9/7

Meg

21/5

7/7

Eva

21/7

8/5

Sharon

22/7

5/5

Katie

20/7

7/5

Surface Reflection within Total Videolog Posts

Music Education


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Assertion Two Participants’ blogged reflections worked to document content (i.e., surface level reflection) where vlogged reflections worked to document their learning (i.e., pedagogical reflection). Larrivee (2008) describes pedagogical reflection (i.e., “level three” of the levels of reflective practice) as characterized by the teachers’ “constant thinking about students’ learning and how to enhance learning experiences” (p. 348). For example, Eva, a Music Education participant, spoke in her final videolog about the relative merits of opening her pedagogical strategies to including an audio recording technology. She explained: I knew that they were learning because when we would do the criticism part of it – after listening – they knew what they needed to do next. I’m definitely going to use this strategy – the recording and playbacks – it is a valuable tool. I surprised myself and let them surprise me. (Eva, final videolog, week ten). Here, the preservice teacher considers not only a pedagogy that she’ll carry into her future practice, but she does so with the realization of her own framework of opening opportunities for co-learning alongside her students. Not all instances of pedagogical reflection were positive, as seen when Cara, an English Education preservice teacher placed in a rural middle school, recognized in a videolog post that she had erred in directing her plans for a class discussion of a literary text around questions for which she already had prepared answers and which were anchored to her textbook. Her on-screen emotion was apparent as she shared, “I studied up on our reading from methods and read so much to prepare. I wrote killer questions. But, I forgot the kids. You only have to learn that once… I forgot the part of teaching that I value the most” (Cara, videolog, week five). Cara worked throughout the post to resolve her instructional beliefs against what actually occurred in her classroom practice. Where this kind of discovery becomes incorporated into the reflective teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge, it also demonstrates the identity work occurring within the field placement context as theory moves into classroom practice. Similar to what was seen in the data from assertion one, instances of pedagogical reflection were much more evident in videolog posts rather than in the written weblog posts (see Table 3). Pedagogical reflection demonstrates a move from a teacher’s focus on the “what” that is happening

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within their teaching to the “how” and the “why.” The videolog format was largely conversational as preservice teachers spoke to a webcam or handheld video camera, taking on the feel of a practitioner’s think-aloud. Table 3 Instances of Pedagogical Reflection English Education

Pedagogical Reflection within Total Weblog Posts

Dan

2/5

9/7

Cara

7/5

20/7

Meg

4/5

13/7

Eva

6/7

11/5

Sharon

3/7

9/5

Katie

4/7

8/5

Pedagogical Reflection within Total Videolog Posts

Music Education

When asked to reflect at the end of the course on their use of these composing/reflective spaces, these study participants identified a clear difference in their writing process when working in a weblog or in a videolog. Weblog entries were subject to revision and were typically composed over a sustained period of time. As Meg explained, “I write as a reader and a teacher when I’m doing a blog entry. Those are, for me, lists of what happened. I hadn’t realized that until just now” (course evaluation). This process was in stark contrast to the videolog entry which was considered ahead of recording but was stream-of-consciousness in composing/delivering. In describing her videologging process, Meg explained, “it is like having a conversation with myself” (course evaluation). Identity development was also a factor as each of the three English Education students spoke of the importance of re-viewing their recorded videolog posts. Cara explained, “I re-read these when I’m planning. I learn from re-visiting the teacher I am when I’m speaking there.” Instances of pedagogical reflection afforded all six of the preservice teachers an opportunity to experiment with and yet hear their own professional voices emerge as they unraveled aspects of their practice within their field placements. The videologs provide a medium supporting the work of re-viewing and re-hearing a teacher’s developing professional voice as it enters a public, attentive community of practice composed of colleagues.


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Assertion Three The nature of feedback/comments received during the semester impacted both the community of practice and students’ use of their blog/vlog reflections. Both the weblog and the videolog post provided preservice teachers with a means of connecting with two levels of networked publics: first, the immediate cohort of students within the program of study (i.e., Music Education or English Education), and, second, the larger networked public that accesses the URL and participates through comments or, where possible, an IP address-linked cluster-map. Using wordpress.com as the weblog platform allowed preservice teachers to set mechanisms for feedback beyond a written comment including, but not limited to, hit counters measuring the times each post was accessed, hit counters for the larger weblog site, and star ratings for readers to “favorite” or rank a post’s effectiveness, etc. This second level of publicity was employed for the English Education students only, as the Music Education students voiced concerns about their work being viewed by others outside the immediate learning community of the class cohort. Music Education students only shared their weblog and videolog posts with the professor and at selected times, other Music Education preservice teachers in the same cohort. Music Education students come from a background of experience that places them in solitude, in a practice room, rehearsing their instrument in private. They share and rehearse with others in ensembles but this is usually a group of peers, that are well-known to the students. Weblogging and videologging were new skills for the Music Education students, and they expressed hesitation at sharing with a ‘public’ they didn’t know. They were unconfident and unwilling to have practicing teachers or mentors viewing their learning-in-process. Preservice English Education student study participants were impacted by the public/community nature blogging/vlogging in three particular ways. First, on multiple occurrences across both media, posts acknowledged the role of the reader/viewer in helping the writer to grow as an English teacher. As Meg offered in her week two videolog, “It’s a conversation. Comments challenge me, or at least help me feel not so alone in the classroom. So, please comment below.” Comments were spaces for exchange, as noted in Table 4.

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Table 4 Postings to Comments Tally English Education

Total Posts within Blogs and Vlogs

Dan

12

127

46

Cara

12

103

33

Meg

12

94

21

Total Number of Comments Appearing on Blog and Vlog Posts

Total Instances of Preservice Teacher Response to Comments Received

Where Meg was slightly less interactive within the commenting space of her blog/vlogs, all three preservice English teachers used the space to interact with the ideas expressed in the comments. Meg explained her use of the comments in fashioning later entries, “Where I know some of us spoke right back within the comments, I needed to think about the ideas there and try them out as you see in later posts. I asked for feedback but I needed to play with the ideas, literally, in order to respond” (course evaluation). Dan spoke of his interactions within the context of participatory learning, offering “the push and pull within the comments is where I learn the most. It is one place where I stand along multiple others to figure out what is happening in the classroom and what tomorrow should do” (final videolog, week 10). Where all students were active in commenting on one another’s posts, Dan tended to be the most vocal on his peers’ entries “because I’m getting to learn in their placement through what they write and share and question” (videolog, week two). Both the weblog and videolog environments (i.e., wordpress, youtube, or viddler) allowed for different levels of writer-established security and permissions. For those preservice teachers who posted content that was better made private to the class community, password protection was enabled. Others were concerned about how the larger community might respond to posts that captured learning-in-process. To that end, several used comment moderation functions, which gave them control over which comments appeared on their actual site. As Cara explained, “I get feedback that coaches me. Granted, I like the moderation options as this is part of my digital footprint, but I like making this more than class” (weblog post, week six). Lastly, study participants spoke of a level of trust shared with readers, in that they felt as if they were speaking with a group that held a set of shared values and beliefs about teaching. Dan offered, “I take some risks in the vlogs that I don’t in other writing, and it pays off as the audience


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will reel me back in if I’m too far off course” (final videolog, week 10). This was not an immediate process, as none of the study participants had existing experience writing within weblogs or other “public,” networked spaces beyond the use of secure, class-specific threaded discussions within undergraduate courses which utilized course-management systems with embedded web 2.0-like features. Trust came with the first level of response – from course faculty and peers working across the aggregated list of class weblogs. The community of practice grew to include peers in other disciplinary student teaching cohorts (i.e., Social Studies education) and then cooperating teachers and mentors with whom preservice teacher/writers shared their URLs. Cara explained, “this is all a class assignment until you have a reader who isn’t your professor. I’ve never had so much feedback, and that might be because instead of one professor, I had about thirty” (final videolog, week 10). The tie to identity development made these posts increasingly raw, as Meg offered, “I say what’s real because I now know that I can do that here. Took awhile. And, I’m grateful for that process as I didn’t have something real to say until I was underwater in my placement” (weblog, week 5). Dan linked the weblog and videolog writing to goals beyond those he held for most class experiences, saying “this isn’t an assignment for [you.] This is about learning how I learn” (final videolog, week 10). Discussion Learning to teach is a complex process, especially during the student teaching placement where preservice teachers put into practice the understandings, insights, and strategies studied and potentially enacted within coursework and smaller-scale field experiences. Where the importance of engaging in reflection at this stage of teacher-development is well known, this study examined how two multimodal composing spaces supported, evoked, or limited the levels of reflective practice demonstrated by members of cohorts in both secondary English education and k-12 Music Education. Analysis of the data using Larrivee’s (2008) Levels of Reflective Practice indicated that where instances of surface level reflection were predominant within weblog posts, videologs captured more instances of pedagogical reflection. Composing processes differed as preservice teachers worked within each medium, with the weblog post used most regularly as a written, revised, and largely hyperlinked/connective entry compared to the conversational, stream-of-consciousness nature of the videolog. Further, student teachers relied on the community of practice supported in both envi-

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ronments to extend their learning which resulted in writing that was active, participatory, and public despite the sometimes raw identity work occurring within the posts. By requiring weekly reflective posts that alternated between the composing mediums of the weblog and videolog, study participants were stretched to work within different digital modalities within and across their entries. Here, preservice teachers needed to consider both what they had to say and how the particular modes of communication (i.e., video or print) would work to convey meaning (Hull & Nelson, 2005; Mills, 2010). Given that the composing processes required by each medium differed, and that study participants offered significantly different types of reflection within the weblog and videolog posts, it follows that the specific medium used provided a pedagogical support leading preservice teachers to engage in a particular level of reflection. That said, surface level reflection is not a level to be “skipped” over. Instead, participants’ teacher-identity or voice moved in layers, describing what was planned (or what occurred), how it mattered, and any new learning that might inform subsequent pedagogy. As such, Larivee’s (2008) notion of surface reflection is necessary and foundational. Preservice teachers in this work authored and enacted professional identities that were mediated by both the modalities used and the response of the multiple communities of practice and, in some cases, participatory cultures (Cloonan, 2008; Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2006) that developed around their work. Where weblogs could be used to replicate individual, diary-like writing as within a reflective notebook (Shoffner, 2009), the feedback exchanged in these weblogs served to foster additional processes of collaboration (Knobel & Wilber, 2009) and participatory learning (Jenkins et al., 2006). Here, English Education preservice teachers who were just starting to form professional identities were engaging as colleagues amongst a community of peers and practicing teachers. These two public interactions were more complex and provided additional opportunities for new meaning-making. Findings indicate that interaction within the community that developed around preservice teachers’ posts led to a re-shaping of the task of posting weekly reflections during the student teaching field placement. For the Music Education students who did not enter into public interactions with practicing teachers or other music educators, their initial experience with weblog and videolog started as a ‘diary-like’ experience with regard to their posts. However, as they grew in confidence, they also recognized the potential the videolog posts had for new-meaning making and by the end of the semester were willing to include selected excerpts of those posts in their summative public work, the required ePortfolio, to illustrate their growth over time in reflective practice.


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In exposing our students to the modalities that we (the researchers) were already comfortable with, and by coding their use of these modalities, we were able to observe unique changes in their reflective practice. Reflective practice is required by a host of teacher preparation accreditation agencies, but often there is less attention given to the actual quality of these reflections. In this study, we further immersed our students in learning about how to learn from their own teaching. As already noted in the vast teacher education literature, it is important to ask students to think deeply about what they are learning, and have them articulate these thoughts; however we suggest it is also incumbent upon us as teacher educators to move our preservice teachers toward twenty-first century skills and equip them with new modalities of expression, rather than only print-centric expressive devices. As teacher evaluation becomes a pressing national concern, our paper suggests that as they move into the workforce, these preservice teachers will be more likely to be able to articulate thoughts about their continued learning via the modalities they had the opportunity to employ as preservice teachers Limitations We see these findings as useful in advancing teacher educators’ practices in using multimodal composing tools and varied digital modalities when eliciting preservice teachers’ reflective practice. That said, as with any inductive study, findings are not meant to be generalizable as they are unique to particular class settings and contexts. Instead, our goal was to gain access to and learn from the meaning-making practices of study participants. Second, we acknowledge that there may have been bias in reviewing the data as we both worked closely with our own respective cohorts of students. In an attempt to address that, we worked to limit that influence by each coding and analyzing the full dataset, not just the data related to our individual cohort/group of students. Further, our immersive reading and re-reading of the entire data corpus was meant to limit potential bias in analysis and give a closer understanding of the data (Morrow, 2005). Implications for Practice Given study limitations, we intend the results of this work to prompt methods faculty in programs of preservice teacher education to use networked, multimodal composing tools and environments with students in order to develop particular reflective skills as well as practical knowledge

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and skills. The work calls our attention to the unique collaborative and expressive capacities of any of the digital media we invite students to use in the context of our courses. Study participants’ work within the weblog and videolog posts required that they do more than transfer a familiar, print-centric writing task into a multimodal space. Instead, the task must change with attention paid to literacy practices and affordances now presented within the medium. This work was much less about incorporating weblogs into the methods course and much more about transforming preservice teachers’ reflective work during the student teaching placement. Inasmuch as this task was framed by established definitions, purposes and expectations for reflective writing, we learned alongside students by investigating the reflective potential of the particular modalities and media. Being open to learning new platforms was an important part of this work, and resources such as www. wordpress.com, www.viddler.com, and www.youtube.com were accessible by all study participants. Additionally, Learning/ Course Management Systems such as Sakai, Blackboard, and WebCT also have variable weblog and videolog capabilities. These resources all feature various levels of privacy settings and therefore are suitable for use both within coursework and field placement situations. Implications for Further Research As this work captured our first attempts at using weblogs and videologs with preservice teachers during the student teaching placement, this study is meant to offer initial insights that need to be studied further in analyzing subsequent cohorts of data. Additionally, our work looks more closely at the discourse practices of participants within this work. Future research questions might include: does discourse analysis of the videolog entries and the weblog entries yield additional insights into the ways in which each supports or limits reflective practice? Next steps for research also require additional attention to fostering instances of critical reflection within preservice teachers’ practice, regardless of the modalities or medium used especially as they were so notably absent from this dataset. Additionally, longitudinal studies could further investigate preservice teachers’ reflective practice once they become practicing teachers asking; what is their use of these modalities as part of their own continued reflective practice and professional development? We believe that there is value in examining individual student’s multimodal composing processes in greater detail while also considering how specific layers of participants within the resulting community of practice


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influence levels of the instances of reflective practice. Further work could also investigate how this kind of contextualized digital learning experience within teacher education impacts participant practices in integrating multimodal digital tools and literacy practices in their own classrooms. It might also investigate how graduates utilize these kinds of multimodal, reflective, and participatory learning acts to extend their continued professional growth and learning. This is of particular importance, as amidst an ever-changing landscape of digital media, the literacy and learning practices developed and engaged in this work should long outlast the digital tools through which they are enacted. In summary, the differences that emerged from this study illustrate the nature of multimodal composing practices, the affordances of blogs and vlogs as reflective writing spaces, and the ways in which preservice teachers use reflection to inform instructional practice. Results, as presented here, may inform pedagogies across disciplines whereby multiple digital modalities, or participatory learning within online communities of practice, might be utilized and leveraged effectively. Note This project was supported by research assistance funded by the Virginia Tech Office of Academic Assessment grant program. References Barr, R., Watts-Taffe, S., Yokota, J., Ventura, M., & Caputi, V. (2000). Preparing teachers to teach literacy: Rethinking pre-service literacy education. Journal of Literacy Research, 32, 463–470. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107-128. Bolster, A. (1983). Toward a more effective model of research on teaching. Harvard Educational Review, 5(3), 294-398. Boud, D. (1999). Situated academic development in professional work: Using peer learning. International Journal for Academic Development, 4, 3-10. Calandra, B., Gurvitch, R., & Lund, J. (2008). An exploratory study of digital video editing as a tool for teacher preparation. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 16(2), 137-153. Cloonan, A. (2008). Multimodality pedagogies: A multiliteracies approach. The International Journal of Learning, 15(9), 159-168.

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