Collaborative Reflection Through Blogs: Discoursal Patterns and Iranian EFL Pre-service Teachers' Comments

Despite the significance of writing critical recall and reflection journals for pre service teachers, a multitude number of recall and reflection journals written by them are descriptive and minimalistic. In view of this problem, the aim of current study was twofold: ۱) to analyze discoursal patterns of pre service teachers ‘collaborative reflection via Edmodo, ۲) to examine if it can improve their reflective writing from descriptive to critical. To this end, a total of forty-three pre service teachers participated in the study. The participants were then required to write their reflections on their classmates' teaching performances in Edmodo collaboratively. To examine their improvement, the discoursal patterns of their reflective writings were analyzed using Prilla et al.'s (۲۰۱۵) framework. To elicit EFL pre service teachers' comments on collaborative reflection via Edmodo, a questionnaire was assigned to the participants, and an interview was set up to shed more light on their comments. The results indicated that some discoursal patterns of critical reflective writing had emerged in pre service teachers' recall and reflection journals. The analysis of the questionnaires and the interview also revealed that the majority of the participants agreed that Edmodo had had positive contribution to their critical reflective skill. The findings have implications for EFL practicum courses.

Keywords:

Collaborative Reflection , Critical Reflection , Discoursal Patterns , Edmodo , Writing Recall and Reflection Journals