Reflective journals as a research tool: The case of student teachers’ development of teamwork

The study explores the development of teamwork among a group of Israeli student teachers enrolled in a practicum, in order to help teacher educators to understand better the processes student teachers experience in becoming a collaborative team. The student teachers’ reflective journals provide qualitative evidence of the stages in the development of teamwork among the student teachers themselves as well as with members of the school staff. A combined model of team performance from the business world and the Punctuated-Equilibrium Model was used as the theoretical framework for describing the stages of teamwork the student teachers experienced and for analyzing pedagogical insights into the process. The reflective entries provided an opportunity for the researchers to explore the complexity of teamwork, identify the stages of its development and analyze its significance for teacher education. The researchers recommend testing the combined Drexler’s model on other groups, such as the teaching staff and student teachers in high schools, as well as looking for other models that might explain the development of teamwor