Expanding Approaches to Reflective Practice in University-Based ITE

Ramsay, Alison (2025) Expanding Approaches to Reflective Practice in University-Based ITE. Doctoral thesis (EdD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The project came out of my practice as a former secondary school Drama teacher and now Drama lecturer working on an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme within a large university in the north of England. My role in developing a new unit of study based on reflective practice for the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) secondary course, and my specific work with postgraduate secondary school Drama student teachers, provoked questions around the extent to which written reflection was privileged within the existing teacher education programme. This led to an exploration of reflection as an aspect of ITE and how student teachers are expected to reflect at this current time. The literature review explores the concept of reflection from Dewey to Merleau-Ponty and how these notions of reflection have been applied in the process of teacher education. Literature pertaining to the field also reveals reflective practice in ITE to be a contested arena with significant interest in expanding the modalities available for doing reflection through more arts-based collaborative approaches. As a drama practitioner, I developed an alternative approach to doing reflection with student drama teachers by setting up a creative drama workshop. Therefore, my first research question is: How can drama education approaches take us beyond the conventional view of reflective practice in ITE? The drama workshop took place in the drama studio within my university faculty building during the second half of the PGCE programme. Broadly, activities made use of drama education approaches, including process drama, Teacher-in-Role and Dorothy Heathcote’s conventions. Fifteen student teachers took part, with ages ranging from early to late twenties. All were aspiring to become secondary school Drama teachers. My emerging interest in the sociomaterial paradigm that draws on process philosophy and quantum cosmology enabled me to diffract workshop events through posthuman new material feminism(s) concepts. The second research question is how might posthuman new material feminist (NMF) approaches expand understandings of reflective practice in ITE? Findings revealed what more reflective practice can be when posthuman NMF concepts are used to elaborate a vibratory notion of reflection that privileges becoming and the ‘more-than-human’ over abstract, static, cognitive notions of reflection. I make suggestions for how teacher educators might call upon a posthuman vibratory practice to think about alternative ways to enable reflection in teacher education in the university.