Pre-service teachers on Noticing: A group perspective

In the summer semester of the academic year 2023-2024, my pre-service students (PSTs) reflected on their practicum experiences by alternating between using Noticing (through Noa) and talking to human mentors.

The human mentors were previously trained to facilitate non-judgemental mentoring practices using Systematic Informed Reflective Practice (SIRP, Malderez, 2015, 2024). See our previous blog post on Reflective Practice.

Once the students completed the module, I administered a questionnaire containing both closed and open questions to better understand their experiences of being mentored. 15 out of 20 PSTs responded.

Points of agreement

Likert-scale items revealed near unanimous agreement that talking to Noa was a positive learning experience, because:

• It was a straightforward, enjoyable and safe experience
• Noa ‘understood’ how the PSTs felt, as captured in sentiment analyses
• It helped PSTs to establish links between the theory and their teaching practice
• It developed PSTs’ reflective skills, while helping them realise the importance of reflection for teaching
• It supported the development of PSTs’ critical thinking skills
• It helped them develop as teachers, to better support their learners’ learning

The PSTs seemed to also agree that chatting to Noa improved the quality of their conversations over time, and that there is an initial adjustment period.

Varied opinions

When asked to compare the ‘mentoring’ the PSTs received through chatting to Noa and through chatting to their human mentors, the results were mixed, suggesting complementary roles rather than superiority of one mentoring format over the other.

Opinions were also divided about the length of the sessions reflecting with Noa, with some PSTs suggesting it was time well spent, and others reporting feeling frustrated by the length of the conversations.

A subsequent Chi-square analysis indicated that the distributions of the above PSTs’ responses were significantly different from chance.

Advice to prospective pre-service teachers

When I asked the PSTs what advice they would give to prospective PSTs who are about to start using Noticing on their teacher education module, the following main themes emerged (PST language gently edited):

• Give it time and keep an open mind: " Just relax [and] say what's on your mind.”; “At the beginning [it might] feel weird talking to AI and [you] may not be that open to it, but with time you will get comfortable and even see it as a place where you can fully express yourself."
• Use it regularly: “Always seek feedback and make [using Noticing] a routine, rather than a class task.”
• Use Noa as a sounding board: “You should not fear to think outside the box and fear that your thoughts are bad ideas. There is no such thing as a bad idea, and Noa guides to you to clearance and perspective with even the smallest thought you have.”

Readers might be interested to follow this up by looking at a summary of the interviews with selected PSTs from this cohort for more finely grained insights into the benefits and challenges of reflecting with Noa.