Reflection for meaning and action as an engine for professional development across multiple early childhood teacher education contexts

Drawing from sociocultural theories of learning and literature on reflection in educational contexts, this article describes reflective practices as a meaning-making and action engine to support early childhood education practitioners’ professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions. We argue that the process of reflection requires a differential approach to account for various contexts of professional learning for early childhood practitioners: preservice, in-service, and technical assistance providers/leadership. In order to conceptualize these ideals, we present a new conceptual framework of reflective practices in early childhood professional learning and provide practice examples where we as teacher educators implemented reflective practices with practitioners at different levels in the continuum of early childhood education: preservice teacher candidates, in-service teachers and technical assistance providers supporting child care directors and staff in state quality improvement initiatives.