Page 234 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

The Impact of Pre-service Teachers’ Reflection

...the teacher sings songs together with the students (Freshmen pre-service English teacher 2, Diary).

...their teacher tells them English stories or teachers them some adjectives through stories (Freshmen
pre-service English teacher 1, Diary).

Parallel to the reflections made about teaching activities, the participants also made some reflections
on the use of instructional materials. For example:

...I observe use of technologies and visuals in the classroom...Children play musical chairs with the
songs from an I pad...So, they generally benefit from technology when they are playing games.....There
are lots of things such as the pictures of colours, numbers, animals on the walls of the classroom. Also
they sometimes put the paintings that they panted themselves on the walls (Freshmen pre-service English
teacher 1, Diary).

...the teacher uses the smart board to make the students practice. For example, she teaches them how to
search for a specific country or play a game on their individual I pads (Freshmen pre-service English
teacher 3, Diary).

...the teacher uses flashcards while presenting a new topic to the class (Freshmen pre-service English
teacher 2, Diary).

Finally, the participating pre-service English teachers emphasized the role of classroom manage-
ment in kindergarten through their diary reflections. They not only made some reflections on classroom
management, but made further suggestions as can be seen in the following excerpts:

...actually there isn’t an exact action zone for the teachers. I mean they should be able to move everywhere
in the classroom. Because children are always moving, teachers should be dynamic in order to keep up
with them (Freshmen pre-service English teacher 1, Diary).

...they are not just teachers but also they are in the role of mother and father. For instance, they help
children to wear their clothes, to eat their meals and to go to the toilet (Freshmen pre-service English
teacher 1, Diary).

...using negative or positive language is extremely effective on children. The teacher always keeps stu-
dents motivated by telling them positive things such as “good job, nice work and very good example”
(Freshmen pre-service English teacher 2, Diary).

...the teacher creates a friendly classroom atmosphere. She doesn’t start the lesson immediately, but first,
she welcomes the students, asks about their health and then starts the lesson. She knows every student
names and also treats them equally (Freshmen pre-service English teacher 2, Diary).

Besides the reflections made in the diaries, the participants shared their general impressions from
their observations in the classroom discussions which were noted by the researcher in field notes. Some
examples of field notes gathered from the class discussions were quoted as follows:

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