2004 Volume 27 Issue 1-2 Pages 39-50
In this study, juniors in a preservice teacher education program developed portfolios showing the process of creating and refining lesson plans while they interacted through a CSCL environment with seniors who had practice teaching experience and with graduate students, some of whom were in-service teachers. Analysis revealed that this learning process was effective for prompting more reflective practice and for producing better lesson plans. It was also found that interaction with the graduate students had markedly greater beneficial effects on the lesson plans than interaction with other juniors and seniors. The results show that developing a portfolio while interacting with different grade students can be an effective learning method in preservice teacher education programs.