Reflecting team – a structured method for peer reflection on challenges in teaching

ABSTRACT

Reflecting team is a structured and guided method for peer collaborative reflection on critical incidents in teaching. The present evaluation study combining quantitative and qualitative data investigates the perceived usefulness and central insights associated with the participation in a reflecting team session. This method was implemented among three groups of teachers in Germany: student teachers, school teachers, and higher education teachers. All three groups reported high levels of perceived usefulness of the method and provided insights into their central experiences in connection with the reflecting team. Differences between the three groups in terms of perceived usefulness and central insights of peer reflection stem from participants’ distinct organizational and educational contexts and show various ways of how teachers can derive benefits from the reflecting team method.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer reflection
• teachers
• school
• higher education
• academic development
• reflecting team

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data materials for this study are not available due to institutional restrictions.

Ethics approval

We enclose a document ‘Irrelevance of Ethics Statement’ from our ethics committee.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2024.2305887

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Framework “Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung” under Grant number FKZ01JA1819; and by European Community under the Erasmus +2018 Key Action 203 Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education program [number 2018-1-UK01-KA203-047920].

Notes on contributors

Miriam Hansen

Miriam Hansen, PhD in Psychology, is the Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary College for University Teaching at the Department of Psychology and Sport Studies at Goethe University since 2011. Previously, she was a research assistant at the Institute of Psychology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, where she got her PhD in 2006. Her research focuses on culture, computer-based communication, and emotions in higher education, as well as in schools.

Julia Mendzheritskaya

Julia Mendzheritskaya, PhD in Psychology, is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Interdisciplinary College for University Teaching, Department of Psychology and Sport Studies at Goethe University. Since 2015 she has been involved in facilitating and designing courses in academic development. Her current research interests focus on feedback in higher education context and, in particular, on understanding the role of affect in lecturer-student interactions from a cross-cultural perspective.