More from the ELI 2007 conference:
A presentation was given by a group at the University of the Pacific on ‘Dialogical Reflection in the Digital Age’. Like many educators, Jim Phillips and Erick Marmolejo, grappled with the nature of reflection – a term that often eludes definition. Their use of what they called ‘dialogic reflection’ was focussed around reflective activities based on a play between the academic vs. professional portfolios, the production of artefacts and samples accompanied by reflective statement with a summative assessment process slotted in right at the end. They identified general problems with the reflective process when situated within an educational context in that opinion-laden task lists do not get at the heart of the strength of reflection, feedback loops can be slow and not enough time is allocated to reflection which results in very little reflective speak (there is only play around reflective dialogue). As Kathleen Yancey points out in her book “Reflection in the writing classroom” - reflection is always a fiction where students write specifically to the needs of the tutor.
The key philosophy behind their methodology to reinvigorate the process of reflection lies in pushing tutors to unlearn traditional approaches to writing instruction paralleled with the use of reflection as a means to individualise instruction and personalise learning. Here they proposed a simple set of steps to try and achieve this:
- a general introduction to students on reflective writing
- a podcast with provocations to begin reflective writing process
- a podcast to teach evaluation strategies and try and reduce the latency of feedback
- develop the students’ repertoire of providing evaluation (it is worth noting here the instructor has not yet been involved)
- a podcast with advanced provocations
- assignments then submitted to the small groups
- and finally the instructors provide feedback
By the final steps the students have had time for three rounds of feedback and *should* have an advanced evaluative repertoire and therefore a better quality of interaction with the tutor. This process of engendering dialogue as part of good reflective practice seems to work, but there remains a question of how do we get over the cost-benefit analysis that students make in terms of doing a reflective piece of writing versus completing an assignment in another of their subject areas?
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