Jacqueline Beckers emphasises that effective performance improvement meetings allow trainers to support two aspects of professional development: skills and self-identification. "When we are preparing to train teachers, it's important to understand that we are also helping them build an identity, and that we need to inspire them to keep improving rather than drive them away from teaching. By asking a neutral question such as ‘what would you like to talk about?’, we are offering our support, showing them that we trust them, and making it clear that we consider them to be a future professional who is perfectly capable of preparing a lesson plan, teaching a class, and then reflecting upon how it went. This is much more respectful than saying things like 'I never want to see you to do that again.' Ideally, the student teacher's lesson should be video recorded. But if this isn't possible, then future trainers should learn how to take good notes in order to make observations they can discuss with the student teacher - such as analysing which students they called on. If the student teacher kept calling on the same students, instead of telling them ‘only two students out of thirty seem to exist in your class', we could show them a little diagram that shows who they called on, and ask them to reflect upon this with us."

Writing a "training overview"

ULg's PERF developed another tool: the training overview. "Throughout the year, future teachers are asked to reflect upon a particular aspect of their training (for example, something that happened during the class, a particular reading, or key moments in their teacher training placement and how they work in the classroom", explains Jacqueline Beckers. These dated documents are part of a ‘non-evaluated portfolio’ that aren’t read by their professors. Following this individual reflection time, student teachers who wish to do so may share some of their insights with their classmates and trainers. Then at the end of their student teaching placement, the future teachers must write up a placement report that will be part of their 'evaluated portfolio'. Based on these two portfolios, the trainers will then ask the future teachers to write up a year-end "training overview" which will analyse the way in which their perception of their profession and themselves as teachers has evolved over the course of the year. The trainers will evaluate this training overview and discuss it with the student teachers."  

Other tools that are described in the guide include the narrative method, video analysis, professional co-development, and discussion-based autoscopy. While the guide was developed for teacher trainers, Jacqueline Beckers insists that it can be useful for trainers in any field based on human interaction (child care workers, educators, nurses, etc.). "A reflective approach is necessary in all these professions, given that it's hard for people working in those fields to predict what the effects of their actions will be. One critical component of professional development is for individuals to reflect upon their actions when they are not longer facing an urgent decision, and they have information about how things turned out."