Fostering Critical Self-reflection among PGCE Students: A Case of Micro-teaching Practices

Abstract

This paper explored a fostered critical self-reflection among Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students after their micro-teaching sessions. During the first and second micro-teaching sessions, student teachers attend to the pre-lesson phase; and the actual teaching focuses on the mastering of skills such as lesson planning, use of instructional teaching media, management of classroom activities and questioning skills, among others. In return, student teachers are provided with written and face-to-face feedback or a video recording as a third option. These three approaches are employed by lecturers to assist student teachers to critically reflect on their own progress and practices. The aim of the research study was to explore the use of critical reflection PGCE students after micro-lesson exposure. self-critical reflection in a micro-teaching can be useful. This study used a qualitative research approach. A purposive sample of 16 students was selected with the aim to broaden the understanding of self-critical assessment within a micro-teaching context. An open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data which was later analysed categorically into different themes, according to the items responded to by the students. The findings showed that PGCE students are able to apply critical self-reflection as a skill to enhance and confront teaching problems at a very limited scale. Furthermore, the study revealed that PGCE students find it challenging to critique themselves using various tools such as video-recordings, reflective journaling among others within Vygotsky’s