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Reflective Thinking And Schon 's Theory Of Self Study

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A remarkable journey began when six teacher educators agreed to travel an unknown path together, using self-study to walk through doors of discovery about themselves, each other, and the practice of teacher education. Self-study holds great, yet largely unrealized, potential to help teacher educators better understand and impact their practice. Owing its roots to Dewey’s (1938) theory of reflective thinking and Schön’s (1983) concept of “reflection in action,” self-study, though growing respect in the education community as a mechanism for improving practice and increasing the knowledge base on teaching, is an emergent research design in need of new perspectives and strategies
(Zeichner, 2007). Much has been written in the last decade about the components necessary for selfstudy to serve as a viable research design that integrates theory and practice (Loughran, 2004). It is widely held that self-study, like other scholarly endeavors, needs to be “public, open to critique and evaluation, and in a form others can build on” (Shulman, 2004, p. 149).
Loughran (2004) warned that the title itself, self-study, connotates a research method centering on isolated introspection absent of public critique and dissemination; however, self-study is much more than merely reflection on one’s practice as originated by Schön (1983). Different from reflection, which
“largely resides within the individual”(p. 25), self-study challenges the interpretations we make of our own experiences. We record

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