


































Frontiers of Contemporary Education 
ISSN 2690-3520 (Print) ISSN 2690-3539 (Online) 

Vol. 2, No. 1, 2021 

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1 
 

Original Paper 

Pedagogical Counselors’ Self-exploration of Writing Feedback 

on Preservice Teachers’ Teaching Journals 

Esther Cohen-Sayag
1*

, Nitzan Cohen
1
, Dita Fischl

1
, Anat Kessler

1
 & Dafna Govrin

1
 

1
 Kaye Academic College of Education, Beersheba, Israel 

*
 Esther Cohen-Sayag, Kaye Academic College of Education, Beersheba, Israel 

 

Received: December 17, 2020   Accepted: December 28, 2020  Online Published: February 4, 2021 

doi:10.22158/fce.v2n1p1              URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fce.v2n1p1 

 

Abstract 

The study examines types of feedback pedagogical counselors write in response to preservice teachers’ 

reflective writing in Teaching Journals during their practicum. The study also examines variables that 

can affect written feedback on reflective writing: year in the college, preservice teachers’ levels, changes 

in feedback over time and personal differences among counselors. 689 comments written by five 

counselors from 74 Teaching Journal entries were explored. The results showed eight feedback types, in 

which asking for clarifications and leading preservice teachers to infer from pupils’ responses, were 

the most frequent. Differences of feedback types written to student teachers was affected by year in the 

college, by levels of the student teachers and by the context of the practicum. The discussion will focus 

on the eight feedback types and the linguistic aspect of the feedback.  

Keywords 

teaching journal, written feedback, reflective writing  

 

1. Introduction   

Teaching Journals are a type of reflective writing that our preservice teachers have been engaging in as 

part of their practicum assignments for the last 20 years in special education department. Our experience 

with Teaching journals shows improvement in self-reflection although we did not found significant 

improvement in critical thinking. In our previous study, we found differences in level of reflection of two 

groups in which different feedback they received affected differences in level of reflectivity 

(Cohen-Sayag & Fischl, 2012). Our experience with face to face feedback suffers from gaps between our 

feedback/evaluation and student teachers’ point of view and evaluation. We tried alternative of 

collaborative reflection with colleagues as the respondents, but the results of this move ended with 

praising and left behind professional knowledge and critical thinking on the reflective writing. 



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Studies on the importance of feedback on reflective writing, led us to self-exploration of the feedback 

that we pedagogical counselors write. We expected that this self-exploration will give us insights to the 

interaction on the reflections with preservice students and understandings of the variables that affect this 

feedback. Four years ago when we searched for studies on feedback on reflective writing, we did not find 

empirical descriptions of feedback given to reflective writing on teaching.  

We therefore decided to examine the type of comments we, as pedagogical counselors, write. We also 

wished to examine the variables that can affect feedback on reflective writing such as iteration of the 

reflective writing (first, second or third time), preservice teacher level, year in the college and individual 

differences among the pedagogical counselors. 

Reflective writing: Reflective writing in the teacher education practicum is a platform to promote 

professional development. It enables preservice teachers to examine pupils’ learning in light of their 

instructional techniques, test their planning ideas, observe their pupils’ achievements, analyze the 

dynamic of groups in class discourse and shape their beliefs and educational conceptions. One of the 

main ideas of reflective writing in teacher education is to connect theory to practice in order to 

construct pedagogy within an academic frame. McGuire, Lay and Peters (2009) describe the act of 

reflection as a “core skill for functioning effectively”. Reflective writing mediates between existing and 

new knowledge and breaks habitual ways of thinking.  

The act of writing process is considered to generate ideas, organize and elaborate on them throughout 

drafting, revising and editing (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1987, 1991). A high- quality writing process is 

not a recall but rather a reconstruction of knowledge (Flower, 1990). Hence, the act of reflective 

writing can support and enhance critical thinking as part of meta-cognitive processes (Davis, 2006; 

Monyanont, 2014; Ryan & Ryan, 2015). Although reflective writing is described as an act of 

self-exploration that enhances meta-cognition it requires formative feedback in order to reach a high 

level of reflection (Bain, Ballantyne, Packer, & Mills, 2002; Davis, 2006; Brookhart, 2008; Fry, 

Ketteridge, & Marshall, 2009).  

Since the nineties, reflective writing in teacher education developed in several forms, creating different 

kinds of feedback dialogue in writing journals.  

Drawing on research and accounts of practice, Lee (2008) described four types of reflective journals in 

teacher education and their benefits for preservice teachers: 1) Dialogue journals involving reciprocal 

responses of college teachers and preservice teachers’ writing and the exchange of ideas. Its benefit lies 

in promoting autonomous learning, enhancing confidence, and helping preservice teachers connect 

between different subjects in their teaching. 2) Response journals relating to preservice teachers’ 

personal reactions to what they read, write, observe and hear, discussing their reactions with others and 

its benefits for learning. This is mainly a self-exploration journal. 3) Teaching Journals based on 

teaching experiences in the practicum aiming to involve preservice teachers in writing and exchanging 

ideas with their pedagogical counselor about teaching. This journal is very popular in field experience 

in teacher education. 4) Collaborative/Interactive group journals, focusing on group dynamics and 



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synergy created by the preservice teachers. It encourages preservice teachers’ responsibility for their 

learning by sharing ideas and developing insights among colleagues, skills that will benefit them 

throughout their careers. All forms of journals benefit from feedback, which deepens self-exploration.  

Feedback: Feedback can be a powerful tool if performed well. Its power lies in addressing both 

cognitive and motivational factors, giving learners information they need so they can understand how 

to react and what to do next. Hattie and Timperley (2007) proposed a model describing the complexity 

of feedback in three dimensions: feed up, feedback, and feed forward, by asking three questions: Where 

am I going? How am I going? and Where to next? Each question can address four levels of feedback: 

(1) about the task, (2) about the process (strategies that could be used), (3) about self-regulation 

(preservice teachers are informed how to continue), (4) about the preservice teacher as a person. 

In an instructional setting, feedback is described as one of the many procedures that inform a student 

whether his/her response is right or wrong. Additionally, feedback can also provide instructional 

information to the student that gives a reason for why a response is correct or incorrect. The 

meta-analysis of Hattie's database of 7000 studies (Hattie, 2015) point at feedback as one of the most 

effective variables in improving learning. 

Researchers in teacher education realized that feedback messages are filtered through the preservice 

teacher’s perception, influenced by their prior knowledge, experiences, and motivation (Kagan, 1992). 

The research review of Butler and Winne (1995) revealed that external feedback (such as teacher 

feedback) and internal feedback (such as preservice teacher self-evaluation) affected preservice teacher 

knowledge and beliefs. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found that the effects of feedback depend on its 

nature. For example, feedback that includes what to do and why, helps preservice teachers develop a 

feeling of control over their learning, thus acting as a motivational factor (Brookhart, 2008). Preservice 

teachers must be engaged with the feedback process in order to develop self-regulated skills (Tunstall 

& Gipps, 1996).  

Feedback to Writing Journals: The purpose of feedback in higher education is to help preservice 

teachers monitor, evaluate and regulate their own learning (Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2013). Although 

reflection is an act of self-exploration, researchers claim that reflective writing without feedback does not 

improve reflective thinking (Bain, Ballantyne, Packer, & Mills, 2002; Davis, 2006; Cohen-Sayag & 

Fischl, 2012). Thomas and Packer (2013) claim that preservice teachers need help in their reflective 

processes otherwise they will focus on “thinking about the tasks” and “thinking about the pupils” and 

will leave “thinking about myself as a teacher” behind. Consequently, pedagogical counselors should 

encourage preservice teachers to rethink their values and recognize prejudices and contradictions 

between values and actions. Descriptions of the dialogue during fieldwork in Nickle’s (2013) study 

gave us a glance on feedback of the instructor and its importance on navigating students to delve into 

their reflection, but this study was among student teachers in their first semester of university and was 

not focused on teaching.  

 



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As we inquire the research on reflective writing and the feedback of supervisors, we recognized two 

problems, which we experienced in our work as pedagogical counselors: First, Dissatisfactions from the 

feedback on reflective writing: Nicol (2010) described the dissatisfactions and difficulties of the 

feedback on the reflective writing from both sides, students claim on unclear feedback and Pedagogical 

counselors’ report on misunderstandings, describing feedback as useless act which the student teachers 

did not change/improve their acts as suggested in the feedback. Second, a contradicting point on 

writing feedback: Immediate corrective feedback was found to be more effective than delayed feedback 

(Gürkan Serkan, 2018), without immediate feedback might leave the internal dialogue of the preservice 

teacher at a low and immature level of reflection. Yet, feedback from the pedagogical counselor can be 

interpreted as an act of assessment and might limit the self-exploration process (Ditchburn, 2015).  

Considering these problems and the claim that reflective writing can be effective if preservice teachers 

take an active role in the process (Nicol, 2010), we decided to explore our feedback in an open platform, 

which will not entail remarks on the quality of reflection but only on submitting Teaching Journals. 

Preservice teachers were also encouraged to respond to our questions and were not evaluated on their 

level of reflective writing, but were rather credited for the act of submitting a reflective journal. 

Creating the right environment of reflection on teaching we decided to delve into our written feedback 

in order to understand how we encourage students to take a critical position and what affect our 

feedback.   

Our main question was: What are the characteristics of counselors’ feedback to reflective writing and 

which variables shape feedback to reflective writing? 

 

2. Method 

The study used a mixed method array regarding the following research questions:  

1) What types of comments did we, the pedagogical counselors, write in response to the Teaching 

Journals?  

2) To what extent did our comments on reflective Teaching Journals differ by year of learning in 

the college, iteration (first, second, third time of reflective writing), by teaching level of the 

preservice teachers in the practicum, and by individual differences among the counselors? 

Questions 1, was analyzed qualitatively, while question 2 was explored quantitatively.  

2.1 Participants  

25 preservice teachers and five pedagogical counselors from the special education department in a 

teacher education college in the south of Israel participated in the study. Two supervisors were 

relatively inexperienced (four years or less) and three had an average of 20 years of experience. Three 

pedagogical counselors were experts in Learning Disabilities (LD) and two were experts in Complex 

Developmental Disorders (CDD). Three were supervisors in the second year and two in the third year. 

At the end of the year, each supervisor chose 5 preservice teachers from her group who displayed three 

levels of performance in field experience (low, moderate, high), in terms of planning and teaching in 



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class, which were classified with the consultant of the cooperative teacher. Scores of 88-100 in field 

experience were considered “high level”, scores of 75-87 were considered “moderate level” and scores 

below that indicated “low-level” (Table 1). These 25 preservice teachers submitted 74 Teaching 

Journals divided between second/third year and three levels of preservice teachers as follows: 

 

Table 1. Cross-tabulation of 74 Journals 

Preservice teachers’ level Second year journals Third year journals Total 

Low 13.6% (6) 20% (6) 16.2% (12) 

Moderate  40.9% (18) 30% (9) 36.5% (27) 

High  45.5% (20) 50% (15) 47.3% (35) 

Total  100% 59.5% (44) 40.5% (30) 100% 

 

Levels of functioning in the practicum was similar across years in the college. No significant difference 

of Teaching Journal submission was found between the distribution of preservice teachers ( (1)
2

 =1.105; 

n.s.). 

The Context-Practicum in Special Education Department: The special education department enables 

the student to choose between focusing on Learning Disabilities (LD) practicum or Complex 

Developmental Disorders (CDD). This focus starts in the second and continued in the third year of their 

learning. Its meaning is mainly in the practicum but also in courses they can choose. LD needed to take 

6 hours on reading, and language teaching and diagnosis and a course in emotional disturbances, while 

the focus on CDD courses on complex disability suggest, autism, social development issues of CDD 

children and a course on learning to use technology for the benefit of improving communication and 

learning. 

The practicum was two days a week, LD students in regular schools, small classes or individual 

teaching with children in the Inclusive education program. The focus was on teaching reading and 

writing strategies at the different stages, alphabetic phase, solid alphabetic phase and fluency and 

reading comprehension. The student also practiced subject matter teaching history mathematics and 

other subjects according to their decision with the cooperative teacher in the classroom. Student 

teachers in CDD focused in their teaching on Literacy, communication capabilities and subjects related 

to daily life, Holidays and seasons.    

2.2 Research Tools and Procedure 

2.2.1 Reflective Writing 

A reflective writing guide (Appendix 1) contained 10 questions which directed preservice teachers to 

different levels of reflective writing (a new version of the guide based on Cohen-Sayag & Fischl, 2012). 



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We decided to use these question because we recognized in the questions potential to lead the students 

to the five levels of reflection which was described in Bain, Ballantyne, Parker and Mills (1999): 

Reporting (simple descriptions of the lesson), Responding (descriptions of writers’ responses to the 

occurrences in the lesson), Relating (explanations of the occurrences), Reasoning (analysis of the 

occurrences in the lesson based on Educational Literature) and Reconstruction (integration of 

theoretical concepts, self - experience and knowledge). 

The reflective writing guide according to the five levels: 

1) Explain the objectives of this lesson and the activities that you planned to achieve them. 

(Reasoning) 

2) What is the topic? Why did you choose to teach this topic and what is its importance? 

(Reasoning) 

3) Describe your lesson as it was performed. (Reporting) 

4) Describe success or failure in your lesson. (Reporting) 

5) Did you observe children’s resistance to the activity? If so, how did you handle it? (Responding 

and Reporting) 

6) Did you learn anything new about the pupils in your class? (Relating) 

7) Do you think you should change the activities in some way? Describe the change and your 

reason for it. (Relating) 

8) What did you do to encourage interaction between the children? (Reporting) 

9) Can you connect between your personal learning experience and the occurrences in your lesson? 

(Relating) 

10) What kind of concepts that you learned in the special education department helped you 

understand your lesson? (Reconstruction) 

2.2.2 Writing Feedback 

Pedagogical counselors wrote their feedback on the reflective writing of student teachers. In order to 

start a dialogue with the preservice teachers, each supervisor wrote comments on the preservice 

teachers’ reflective writing. The comments were intuitive and had no guide, but since starting a 

dialogue was in our mind we used a lots of questions which the students had to respond. We read the 

reflections and responded in various ways, relating to the lesson plan, its implementation, pupils’ 

responses and the preservice teachers’ critical thinking. We also responded to linguistic errors. This 

correspondence was conducted via Google Drive which enable us to create a follow up on the students 

reflective writing and on our responses on time. 

2.2.3 Research Procedure  

As part of their practicum assignments, the preservice teachers reflected on their teaching experiences 

in Teaching Journals three times each semester. We, as pedagogical counselors, wrote feedback 

comments in order to deepen their critical thinking. The process involved five steps:   

 



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1) Each pedagogical counselor presented the reflective writing guide, explaining its importance to their 

practicum and to teacher education development in general. Examples of reflective writing were 

exhibited in order to demonstrate different levels of writing. Discussion was held in order to enable the 

students to ask questions.  

2) The preservice teachers wrote Teaching Journals about a lesson we had not observed, since our 

presence ended with face-to-face feedback which gave the preservice teacher insights and ideas on the 

lesson and would affect their reflective writing. Each reflection was written 1-4 days after the teaching 

lesson took place. 

3) Reflective writing was sent to the Pedagogical counselor within a week of the lesson.  

4) Pedagogical counselor wrote feedback and sent it to the student by email. within a week of 

submission.  

5) Preservice students was encouraged to respond. The examples that follows will give a brief glance 

on the process.   

Vignettes from the dialogue in the Teaching Journals with three different levels of preservice teachers 

(low, moderate and high in this order): 

1) Context: A preservice teacher wrote about her good feeling regarding pupils’ relations with them 

even when alone with the pupils.  

The preservice teacher wrote: It may be that the pupils perceive us now as an authority more than at the 

beginning of the semester. 

The pedagogical counselor’s comment: I think this is not a matter of authority but of your caring 

attitude towards them [pupils], they feel that you try very hard to promote their learning abilities. 

(Preservice teacher did not respond). 

2) Context: A preservice teacher asked the pupils to discuss questions about a story they read in small 

groups and encountered pupil’s difficulties in maintaining the discussion in groups.  

The counselor’s comment: If you had to perform the activity again what change would you make?  

The preservice teacher wrote: If I had to teach the whole class again I would change the activity from a 

group activity to a whole class activity.  

The counselor’s response: Why are you giving up on group work?  

The preservice teacher’s response: It is important to mention that I did not give up, and I’m a great 

believer in group work. But, because the pupils were asked to discuss in groups, I understood that the 

difficulty lay there. Therefore, looking back, I would give them pair assignments. I think it would be 

easier for them and it could be a step towards group work.  

3) Context: A preservice teacher expresses her opinion on the importance of the subject she is teaching: 

The preservice teacher wrote: It is important to teach the students about the “seven species of fruits” 

(Shiv’at Haminim). It is a Jewish tradition that the students should be aware of.  



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The counselor’s comment: Why is it so important to teach Jewish heritage? What are, in your opinion, the 

difficulties of teaching tradition in a mixed population (Jewish and Muslims)? How can this problem be 

approached by the teacher? 

Preservice teacher’s response: Thank you for this comment honestly I did not think of it at all. It is part 

of the annual program. 

2.3 Data Gathering  

The overall data of reflective writing included 74 Teaching Journals written by preservice teachers, 44 

of which were written by second-year preservice teachers, and 30 by third-year preservice teachers.  

Our data of comment types was based on 689 comments which we, the pedagogical counselors, had 

written as feedback to the Teaching Journals submitted by the preservice teachers across two semesters. 

The large number of comments enabled us to perform statistical analysis of the feedback with different 

variables as an answer to the second research question regarding differences of supervisors’ feedback 

by year of learning in the college, iteration (first, second, third time of reflective writing), by teaching 

level of the preservice teachers in the practicum, and by individual differences among the counselors. 

2.4 Data Analysis 

Feedback writing of the supervisors was analyzed qualitatively by grounded theory process:  

1) Analysis of comment type: We started by reading the data in pairs suggesting categories of comment 

types. The classification of the comments was analyzed in the group of all five researchers, in order to 

achieve consent. This process was repeated several times until the final version reported here was 

reached (Table 2).  

 

Table 2. Types of Counselors’ Feedback Comments  

Categories Sub-categories Examples 

a. Suggestions for 

instructional moves  

Explicit suggestions  I would suggest working in pairs. 

Implicit suggestions  Did you write the numbers under the 

picture? 

b. Express opinions 

and feelings  

 

Expressing her opinion I think it is our duty to encourage interaction 

between pupils. 

Asking preservice teacher to 

express her/his opinion    

What do you think about the event? 

Asking preservice teachers to 

express her/his feelings  

How do you feel about it? 

Expressing empathy with the 

preservice teacher. 

I can understand your conflict. 

c. Asking for Asking for clarification on How many times did the pupils read the 



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clarifications  instructional moves text?  

Asking for clarification on 

change in retrospect 

Can you think of another option? 

  

Asking for clarification on 

instructional aims and 

expectations 

Pay attention to the time spent in reading 

those two words, is it the aim of this lesson? 

Asking for clarification on 

assessment  

How do you know what your pupils 

learned?  

Asking for information about 

pupils 

Please write more about this pupil. 

d. Praising the 

preservice teachers  

Praising the preservice teachers 

with an explanation 

Very good! I can see that you connect 

between the course content and your 

practice. 

General praise  Very nice; Excellent! 

e. Asking for 

conclusions 

Reflecting on/interpreting 

preservice teacher writing 

I think this is not a matter of authority but of 

your caring attitude towards them [pupils].   

Asking for conclusions Do you have any conclusions about peer 

learning?  

Raising important issues  Why is it so important to teach Jewish 

heritage?  

What are, in your opinion, the difficulties of 

teaching tradition in a mixed population 

(Jews and Muslims)?  

How can the teacher approach this problem? 

f. Linguistic 

corrections  

Linguistic corrections (syntax 

and spelling) 

Please change the order of the words in this 

sentence.  

 Paraphrasing preservice teachers’ 

writing 

I think you mean that you changed your 

attitude. 

g. Connecting theory 

to practice  

Asking preservice teachers to 

connect theory to practice 

Do you remember what you learned about 

reading fluency? 

Directing preservice teachers to 

relevant reading  

I suggest reading about the difference 

between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. 

Suggesting a concept which 

generalizes preservice teacher 

descriptions 

By paying attention to pupils' needs you are 

improving their sense of autonomy. 

h. Suggesting Directing preservice teachers to Did you watch the cooperative teacher? 



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3. Results 

The results will be presented in two parts: frequencies of feedback types, and differences that affect 

feedback types. 

3.1 Frequencies of Feedback Type 

The graph below shows that one quarter of all the comments appeared in the asking for clarifications 

category. The other six comment types were quite evenly distributed and ranged from 15% to 8%: 

expressing opinions and feelings, praising the preservice teachers, asking for conclusions, linguistic 

corrections, asking preservice teachers to connect theory to practice, and suggestions for instructional 

moves. Referring preservice teachers to staff for consultation was the least frequent type, accounting 

for only 1.7% of the comments (Table 3, 4).  

 

 

Figure 1. Frequencies of Comment Types: N=689 Comments 

 

 

 

 

 

consultation with 

staff  

observe the cooperative teacher Look at what she does with this pupil. 

Asking preservice teachers to 

consult with the cooperative 

teacher 

Please consult your cooperative teacher on 

this matter. 

Asking preservice teachers to 

consult other members of staff 

I suggest consulting the speech therapist. 



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Table 3. Counselors’ Sub-categories Frequencies of Comment Types on Reflective Writing 

Categories Sub-categories Frequency of 

sub-categories 

a. Suggestions for 

instructional moves  

Explicit suggestions  65% 

Implicit suggestions  35% 

b. Expressing 

opinions and feelings  

 

Pedagogical counselor expresses her opinion 43% 

Asking preservice teacher to express her/his 

opinion    

43% 

Asking preservice teachers to express her / his 

feelings  

7% 

Pedagogical counselor expresses empathy with 

the preservice teacher. 

7% 

c. Asking for 

clarifications  

Asking for clarification on instructional moves 48% 

Asking for clarification on change in retrospect 15% 

Asking for clarification on instructional aims and 

expectations 

11% 

Asking for clarification on assessment  12% 

Asking for information about pupils 14% 

d. Praising the 

preservice teachers 

Praising the preservice teachers with explanation 62% 

General praise 38% 

e. Asking for 

conclusions 

Reflecting on/interpreting preservice teacher 

writing 

14% 

Asking for conclusions 60% 

Raising important issues  26% 

f. Linguistic 

corrections  

Linguistic corrections (syntax and spelling) 70% 

Paraphrasing preservice teachers' writing 30% 

g. Connecting theory 

to practice  

Asking preservice teachers to connect theory to 

practice 

47% 

Directing preservice teachers to relevant reading  18% 

Suggesting a concept which generalizes 

preservice teacher descriptions 

35% 

h. Suggesting 

consultation with 

staff  

Directing preservice teachers to observe the 

cooperative teacher 

43% 

Asking preservice teachers to consult with the 22% 



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Table 4 shows the following: a. Pedagogical counselors wrote twice as many explicit suggestions for 

instructional moves as implicit suggestions. b. Pedagogical counselors expressed their opinions and 

asked for preservice teachers’ opinions equally. c. Nearly half of the comments asking for clarifications 

related to instructional moves. d. Praising the preservice teachers with explanations was twice as 

frequent as offering general praise. e. Asking preservice teachers for conclusions was the most frequent 

feedback in that category out of three subtypes in this category. f. Linguistic corrections referred more 

to syntax and spelling than to paraphrasing. g. The most frequent form of connecting theory to practice 

was asking to connect theory presented in the courses to their practice.  

h. Directing preservice teachers to observe the cooperative teacher was more common than consulting 

with the cooperative teacher or other staff members. 

3.2 Differences That Affect Feedback Types 

3.2.1 Differences by year (Table 4) 

A Pearson t-test between second- and third-year preservice teachers indicates statistically significant 

differences for three comment types: 1) Suggestions for instructional moves were more frequent in the 

third year. 2) Asking for conclusions was more frequent in the second year. 3) Asking preservice 

teachers to consult cooperative teachers and other staff members were more frequent in the third year. 

 

Table 4. Differences of Written Comment Types between Second and Third Year  

Comment types Year N Mean S. D t df 
Sig. 

(2-tailed) 

Suggestions for 

instructional moves 

Second 44 4.28 6.76 

-2.867 35 *.039 

Third 33 14.23 18.16 

Asking for conclusions 

and interpretations 

 

Second 44 16.64 11.04 

2.626 72 *.011 

Third 33 9.55 11.93 

Directing preservice 

teachers to cooperative 

teacher and the staff. 

Second 44 0.15 1.00 

-2.521 72 *.017 

Third 33 4.10 8.54 

 

 

cooperative teacher 

Asking preservice teachers to consult with other 

staff 

35% 



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3.2.2 Differences by Iteration (Table 6) 

Supervisors wrote more linguistic comments in the first Teaching Journal entry (20.7%) compared to 

the second (9.9%) and third ones (10.6%). Expressing opinion/feelings was changed over time but 

these results is not statistically significant. Asking for clarifications was stable as much as other 

comments. 

 

 

Figure 2. Differences between Counselors’ Comment Types for Three Iterations of Reflective 

Writing 

 

3.2.3 Differences by Preservice Teacher Level (Tables 7, 8) 

Overall, counselors wrote more comments to high-level preservice teachers (362 comments, 52.54%) 

compared to the number written to moderate (229 comments 33.24%) and low-level preservice teachers 

(98 comments 14.22%). However, linguistic comments were made more frequently to low-level 

preservice teachers (26.53%) compared to high and moderate levels (13%-11%). Asking preservice 

teacher to connect theory to practice was less frequent for low-level preservice teachers (4.08%) than 

for high-level ones (11.33%). Suggestions for instructional moves were minor for low-level preservice 

teachers (4.08%) compared to moderate and high-level preservice teachers (8.3% and 9.12%). 

 



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Figure 3. Differences between Counselor Comment Types for Three Levels of Preservice 

Teachers 

 

Two of these differences between writing comment types and preservice teachers’ levels were 

statistically significant: Expression of opinions and feelings were more frequent for low-level 

preservice teachers, and asking preservice teachers to connect theory to practice was twice as high for 

high-level ones than for moderate ones and six times higher than for low-level ones.  

  

Table 5. Effect of Preservice Teachers’ Levels on Comment Types  

 

 

 

 

Comment types Level Mean S. D f df Sig. (2-tailed) 

Expressing opinions and 

feelings 

Low 24.59 12.15 

3.179* 
71 

 
0.04 Moderate 16.97 12.06 

High 14.30 12.31 

Asking preservice teachers to 

connect theory to practice 

Low 2.79 5.13 

~2.925 71 0.06 Moderate 6.95 11.04 

High 12.20 15.17 



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3.2.4 Differences by Pedagogical Counselors as Individual 

Three pedagogical counselors (A; G; E;) were experts in Learning Disabilities (LD) and (D; N) two 

were experts in Complex Developmental Disorders (CDD). Pedagogical counselors differed in writing 

feedback types as presented in Table 6. 

 

Table 6. Differences in Comments Types among the Pedagogical Counselors 

Comment type Counselors M SD Df f 
P- 

value 

 

Suggesting 

instructional 

moves 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

6.42 

4.08 

13.60 

2.34 

14.85 

6.90 

7.98 

22.91 

4.98 

12.55 

4;69 *2.879 0.029 

 

Expressing 

opinions and 

feelings 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

22.86 

11.33 

20.80 

9.51 

20.47 

12.14 

12.09 

13.75 

8.56 

10.97 

4;69 **4.126 0.005 

 

Asking for 

clarifications 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

17.74 

11.02 

32.80 

23.09 

34.89 

8.53 

10.47 

22.84 

17.00 

23.08 

4;69 

 
**4.954 0.001 

Asking for 

conclusions 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

15.57 

16.57 

18.84 

13.66 

2.52 

10.44 

12.61 

14.04 

8.19 

5.49 

4;69 

 
**5.824 0.000 

 

Linguistic 

corrections 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

9.14 

24.51 

8.70 

15.56 

0.30 

11.36 

20.45 

12.92 

17.49 

1.17 

4;69 

 
**5.928 0.000 

Connecting 

theory to 

practice 

A 

G 

D 

11.23 

9.22 

2.02 

13.00 

11.51 

4.49 

4;69 

 
*3.350 0.014 



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E 

N 

16.69 

4.19 

19.23 

6.37 

 

Turning 

preservice 

teachers to 

consult with 

staff 

A 

G 

D 

E 

N 

0.00 

0.00 

0.47 

0.00 

8.21 

0.00 

0.00 

1.78 

0.00 

10.73 

4;69 

 
**8.199 0.000 

 

Post hoc Duncan test indicates the source of these significant differences:  

1) Counselors A, D and N wrote more comments expressing opinions and feelings.  

2) Counselors G and E wrote more linguistic comments.  

3) Counselors D and N wrote more comments asking for clarifications. They also wrote more 

suggestions for instructional moves, fewer requests to connect theory to practice and more comments 

directing the preservice teachers to consult with school staff. It seemed as if N and D supervisors of the 

CDD had more in common than the supervisors of the LD.  

Summary of results: The results presented a broad description of feedback types on reflective writing 

and several significant differences regarding the variables that we explored:  

1) Feedback comment types-Eight feedback types aimed to encourage a high level of reflectivity by 

asking for more information about what happened in the class, leading preservice teachers to infer from 

pupils’ responses, urging the preservice teachers to express their opinions, asking them to link theory to 

practice and directing them to revise their writing. Asking for clarifications was the most frequent 

comment type; counselors needed these clarifications in order to understand the procedures of 

instructional acts and the preservice teachers’ responses. We will discuss this result. 

2) Changes of feedback over time-Feedback changed over time but only linguistic comments lessened 

significantly over time. We do not think that the preservice teachers improved their writing through 

such short experience of reflective writing, but perhaps they became more aware of their writing after 

reading the linguistic comments.  

3) Writing feedback to second or third year students-The pedagogical counselors wrote more comments 

with practical suggestions and comments about turning to the cooperative teacher and the staff to 

third-year preservice teachers. But we wrote more feedback asking for conclusions to second year 

students. Directing third-year preservice teachers to consult with staff might be due to different 

goal-setting in the third year, expanding the practicum to the school system beyond the class. More 

feedback asking for conclusion in second year, might be due to absence of conclusion in their first 

reflective writing. 

4) Writing feedback to different level of students-The dialogue with low-level preservice teachers 

focused mainly on linguistic corrections and asking for expression of their feelings and opinions. The 



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linguistic corrections that we focused on was partly due to their poor level of articulation in Hebrew. 

But the explanation for the second comment type we used might be that with low-level preservice 

teachers we did not felt free to raise doubts in order not to undermine their confidence; instead we 

asked them to explain their feelings and express their opinions.  

5) Writing feedback and the context of the practicum-All comment types were affected by the complex 

developmental disorders context (second and third year). The Complex Developmental Disorders CDD 

counselors made more suggestions for instructional moves and directing preservice teachers to consult 

with cooperative teachers than other counselors. This result might be due to the complex difficulties 

dealing with Individuals complex difficulties. 

Research limitations: This study has two limitations: conclusions from these findings need to be 

handled with caution due to the small sample of counselors all from one college in one special 

education department. These might significantly limit the generalizability of the results.  

 

4. Discussion 

The discussion will focus on the eight feedback types and the context of feedback. The second part will 

discuss on asking for clarifications as major result and as linguistic aspect of the feedback.  

Our motive to portray the types of written feedback was to reduce the gaps on the interpretation of 

teaching lessons between preservice teachers and their pedagogical counselors. The process we created 

in five steps invited the students to respond to feedback they received. This was an act of changing 

view on their teaching lessons, not an act of evaluation as Dylan (2016) suggest. In order to achieve 

this goal our feedback was delivered without evaluation of the reflective writing of each student. 

Our self-exploration pointed out on eight feedback types which can be concluded to four levels 

directing student teacher's to professional development: 

(a) empowerment of the preservice teachers-by praising, sharing opinions and feelings; (b) improving 

teaching skills by explicit and implicit suggestions for instructional moves; (c) reconstructing 

instructional knowledge-by asking them to connect theory to practice, read up on the matter they were 

writing about and suggesting they consult with staff; (d) encouraging critical thinking-by asking for 

conclusions and clarifications on teaching moves and on pupils’ behaviors.  

Our findings on eight types have some similarity to late publication we found of Novillo Paula and 

Pujolà (2019) which pointed out on explicit and implicit suggestions in e-tutoring and asking for 

clarifications which was named Inquiring for reflection and our finding on praising was named in this 

study as Giving positive feedback. This similarity supports our thought that the reflection dialogue in 

special education context is similar to other teacher education programs. But, on the other hand, we 

found significant differences between learning disabilities and complex developmental disorders. The 

explanation can be that dealing with complex disorders in special education is a challenging field and 

differs from the regular education environment where learning disabilities classes are included. The 

preservice teachers dealing with complex disorders need more suggestions for instructional moves as 



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well as consulting with cooperative teachers than in the learning disabilities field experience. This 

result was found in our previous study (Cohen-Sayag & Fischl, 2012) indicating the context of field 

experience affecting the type of comments pedagogical counselors make on reflective writing.   

Since our main feedback was asking for clarifications we wondered to what extent our feedback was 

mainly linguistic. Although asking for clarification might appear to be a merely linguistic matter, we 

distinguished them from the linguistic comments because this was characterized by focusing on the 

content of the lesson- asking questions about class activities, plans, interactions and navigation. These 

questions usually caused rethinking the teaching moves and interactions as demonstrated in the example 

dialogues. We can conclude that, the pedagogical counselors’ feedback, demanded clarity from student 

teachers’ reflective writing above all by asking for clarifications more than any other feedback type. 

Clarity is one of the main demand of writing in general, but here our clarity demands was in context of 

teaching and thus lead students to rethink and rephrase their teaching descriptions. The very act of 

writing can support and enhance critical thinking as part of the writing processes (Monyanont, 2014), 

by our demands for clarity we widened their critical point of view.   

Most of the pedagogical counselors were convinced that linguistic comments are important. 

Nevertheless, the common thinking was that linguistic comments might hurt the writer’s feelings. 

Furthermore, focusing on linguistic comments is not the main aim of reflective writing in teaching 

journal. In order to overcome this difficulty, we asked the preservice teachers whether they would like 

us to give feedback with linguistic comments or to ignore the linguistic aspect. All the preservice 

teachers were enthusiastic about improving their writing, some of them set a meeting to discuss their 

writing difficulties. A discussion like this is a strategy recommended by Kohn (1992), who argues that 

advancing reflective thinking in reflective writing depends on the comment type and context. He 

suggests encouraging discourse between the writer and the commenter.  

Implications for teacher education: The implications of this study to teacher education are four: 

a. Self-exploration of pedagogical counselors’ feedback was our main derive of this research and we 

think it should be an important act of teacher education staff.  

This research experience is vital to the development of pedagogical counselors in their efforts to create 

significant field experience for their preservice teachers. We recommend this self-exploration process 

for beginner pedagogical counselors, to explore their own feedback through such process. We think this 

point of observation can pave the way to reduce gaps and tensions between preservice teachers and their 

counselors that have been reported in several studies (Frankel, 2002; Cohen-Sayag, Hoz & Kaplan, 

2012). 

b. The use of comment type that we found can be used as indicators for self-exploration of pedagogical 

counselors to look at their feedback from different point of view. Further studies are needed to give a 

broad perspective on feedback types to reflective writing from different teaching education programs. 

c. Our main suggestion is to promote preservice teachers’ writing abilities through reflective writing. 

Although it is not the aim of reflection, but since reflection is vital in the process of writing, it seemed 



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that reflective writing is a good platform to enhance writing abilities in the context of professional 

environment.  

d. The research process not only revealed differences between us, but also raised questions about the 

differences in the feedback given to second/third year preservice teachers and to the varying 

performance levels of the preservice teachers. We recommend that counselors be aware of these 

variables, mainly of the type of feedback we write to low-level preservice teachers in their field 

experience. 

 

Acknowledgement 

We thank the management board of Kaye College of Education, Beersheba, Israel, which funded and 

supported this research. 

 

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Appendix 

Appendix 1. A Guide to Reflective Writing 

Please write your reflections on the lesson according to these questions and attach the lesson plan. 

1. Explain the objectives of this lesson and the activities that you planned to achieve them.  

2. What is the topic? Why did you choose to teach this topic and what is its importance?  

3. Describe your lesson as it was performed.  

4. Describe success or failure in your lesson.  

5. Did you observe children’s resistance to the activity? If so, how did you handle it?  

6. Did you learn anything new about the pupils in your class?  

7. Do you think you should change the activities in some way? Describe the change and your 

reason for it.  

8. What did you do to encourage interaction between the children? (Reporting) 

9. Can you connect between your personal learning experience and the occurrences in your lesson?  

10. What kind of concepts that you learned in the special education department helped you 

understand your lesson?  

 

 

https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.070509
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09271-3_15
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327809jls0101_3
https://doi.org/10.20489/intjecse.107923
https://doi.org/10.1080/0141192960220402

