Characteristics of Elementary Teachers' Reflection on Their Science Teaching Examined through Their Reflective Journals

수업 반성 저널을 통해 살펴 본 초등 교사의 과학 수업 반성의 특징

For decades, reflection has been recognised as a meaningful tool to bring forth teachers' ownership as well as knowledge and action empowerment in teacher education. Yet there have been few studies on elementary teachers' reflection on their science teaching in Korea. In this study, 71 reflective journals of 24 elementary teachers on their science teaching were analyzed. The characteristics of reflective journals were analyzed in terms of 'productive reflection', a concept suggested by Davis (2006). Unproductive reflection is mainly descriptive without analysis, whereas productive reflection can promote teachers' learning by integrating four aspects of teaching (learner/learning, subject matter knowledge, instruction and assessment). The result showed what elementary teachers consider and emphasize and how they integrate their ideas. Most of reflective journals included aspects of 'instruction', 'learner/learning', and 'subject matter knowledge'. However 'instruction' was emphasized most frequently (69.0%) than 'subject matter knowledge' (33.8%) and 'learner/learning' (26.8%). 'Assessment' was hardly included nor emphasized. More than half of the journals (56.3%) showed no integrations, which were unproductive reflection. A third of the journals (32.4%) integrated only two aspects among four. Average score of integrations was 1.6 on a scale of 4 points. The integrations were not affected by the length of reflective journals and the teaching experience. These findings suggest that productive reflection would not increase naturally with teaching experience and there needs more tactful guidance to develop elementary teachers' productive reflection on their science teaching.