Dimensions of Reflexive Thinking in Social Foundations Pedagogy: Complicating Student Responses for Theoretic Understandings

摘要

This study explores how dimensions of reflexive thinking in a social foundations pedagogy facilitates an understanding of student and teacher talk and text in a social foundations classroom. Even though pedagogy is defined as both thinking and acting, discussions about teacher pedagogy in teacher education have often focused on the behavior or actions of teachers in the classroom. This study focuses on the thinking aspect of pedagogy and seeks to portray thinking in pedagogy as a way in which theoretic meaning can be derived from students' talk and text in the classroom. In the study, I draw on Garman's (1998) levels of reflection and weave the concept of reflexivity through the reflective process and call this reflexive thinking. I use this framework to explore the problematics of teaching social foundations in order to come to theoretic understandings of students' talk and text. This study attempts to reframe the notion of pedagogy to include reflexive thinking as a pedagogic act. This interpretive study draws on student and teacher dialogues as well as teacher journal texts from a social foundations course. Five fictive vignettes are crafted from these texts which demonstrate reflexive thinking in pedagogy. Each vignette explores a problematic encountered while teaching social foundations in order to derive theoretic meanings. This study attempts to demonstrate how reflexive thinking in pedagogy is a pedagogic act which can prepare one for future action in the classroom.