Fostering Self-Awareness Through Core Reflection and Coaching: Enhancing Online Teaching Practices in Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

As online and blended learning become more embedded within teacher education, helping pre-service teachers reflect on who they are as educators—not just what they do—has become an urgent challenge. This study examines how structured coaching, informed by the Core Reflection Model, supports self-awareness development within a blended practicum setting. Eighteen pre-service computer teachers from a university in northeastern Thailand took part in a three-phase coaching cycle centered on goal setting, simulated teaching, and post-session reflection. Drawing on supervisors’ detailed field notes from the coaching protocols, participants’ reflective writing, and researchers’ observation notes, the analysis used the Core Reflection Model’s six-level framework, which spans from observable behaviors to core values and identity. The findings indicate most participants engaged in reflection-on-action after teaching, while some began to demonstrate reflection-in-action in the moment during simulated teaching, suggesting an emerging capacity for real-time instructional adjustment. More than half showed signs of connecting teaching choices to personal values—a shift toward deeper, identity-informed reflection that aligns behavior with professional purpose. Coaching provided a psychologically safe space to process discomfort and rethink teaching purpose. Rather than treating reflection as a routine task, participants experienced it as a process of growth. The study suggests integrating coaching grounded in this model into online practicum supports both pedagogical development and professional self-understanding.