The main findings of this study provide the answers to three research questions
The main findings of this study provide the answers to three research questions. The following data were obtained on the first research question how do teachers´ beliefs about reflective teaching influence their own teaching processes. The respondents can be divided into three groups: with high, medium and low levels of reflective practice experience, accordingly 14 %, 21% and 65% of the respondents. The results of this study reveal that when teachers (89%) used reflective teaching methodologies, they came to new understandings of teaching practice and reflective teacher. They identified their own negative attitudes and acknowledged that their teaching contributed to the professional development. As for the teachers´ views on reflective teaching, the most valued items refer to helping analyze emotions and reactions to professional situations. 13 % of the teachers responded to this item disagreed.
As for second question: is there any significant relationship between teachers´ self-knowledge and their experience, following data were obtained. The results demonstrate that as teachers engaged in reflective analysis, they tended to move from the previous views of teachers´ teaching to new understanding of reflective methodology (87% of the respondents). The data indicate that they believed it helped them to improve knowledge about themselves and their own experiences (96%). They observed also that their decisions affect the students´ behavior and their learning process (67%). All teachers also acknowledged that their reflective teaching contributed to their professional development. However, the teachers gave low score to the item indicating that reflective teaching is used to help them on self-regulation. This statement can be explained by a low level of the self-regulation ability of the teachers. Thus, the appropriate training is needed.
We note the following, answering the third research question: are there any significant benefits and challenges in integrating reflective teaching methodologies and educational process. Teachers found some benefits as well as some difficulties. Among the benefits encountered by teachers (87%) was the fact that controlled reflection can be an important tool to better understanding not only the professional development, but also the relationships with students, as well as relation between teaching and learning processes. The teachers (91%) point out that reflecting about teaching has provided perception into control (33%), understand motivation, planning of teaching and its results (45%), organize time and material (43%), as well as their own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher (67%). Teachers ‘ benefits (89%) include the fact that reflecting allows to improve and extend pedagogical knowledge and eventually the quality of teaching.
However, more than half of the teachers (79%) encountered a number of challenges such as involving colleagues and educators in giving feedback. In practice, it is common that experts pay more attention to negative aspects of teaching than using of positive ones. As teachers emphasized, it was extremely difficult to challenge the opinions of experts about their negative comments. However, uncontrolled reflection may not generate understanding of reflective practice or theory for reflection. The most of teachers (88%) noted the difficulty of reflection due to lack of time and ability to reflect and to teach reflectively. Quite often the teachers (47%) pointed out that they are not enough motivated to find time for reflection. Common difficulties with using reflective evaluating the knowledge of students are associated with the individual characteristics of the teachers such as emotions that leads to a subjective form of evaluation. ?he difficulties are also related to the fact that this reflective practice assumes a new teaching process they are not accustomed to? This indicates that the practice is not widespread in higher Russian education
