Collaborative feedback and reflection for professional growth: preparing first-year pre-service teachers for participation in the community of practice

Teaching has been described as an emerging community of practice. Within suchprofessional communities, the processes of reflection and collaborative dialogue, orcritical transformative dialogue, are central to the maintenance and improvement ofprofessional practice for individuals, and the field. This paper reports on the challenges experienced by a group of first-year pre-service teachers engaging in a processof reflection and critique with peers, as they participated in a program focused on thedevelopment of core practices of teaching. These pre-service teachers’ responses indicatedtheir growing understanding of the importance of engaging in ongoing criticaldialogue, as part of the “unnaturalâ€� aspects of teaching. The paper concludes with a reflection on the value of feedback from the earliest stages of professional learning.