I guess for those that regularly keep a written diary or blog the art of reflective writing may appear easy but for me it is something that I do as part of my studies. The first time I had to write a reflective summary for each piece of evidence for my NVQ level 4 in Management portfolio it felt alien and false. Despite the support framework suggested by Moon (2001) to give a starting exercise that eliminates the blank page my initial experience meant I was following and answering a set of questions just to meet the assessment criteria. Although this enabled me to reflect on my experiences this pre-scripted approach stifled my true understanding and limited the identification of areas that could be improved upon and actions to be taken should I choose to complete a similar task.
Moon (2001, p.3) asserts that ‘Kolb considered reflection as a mental activity that has a role in learning from experience’. Although I have only been an occasional blogger over the last year my motivation to start making blog posts was just to provide evidence to meet OU assessment requirements. It taken me some time to realize that I should be writing blog posts just for me; in my H807 Blog I expressed a concern that no one was commenting on my efforts so what was the point in bearing my soul in a public space. Perhaps I should be writing in a less formal, more personalised manner (Crème, 2005) to improve my skills whilst using the posts in H808 as a means to attain an academic grade? Knowing that this entry might form part of my final assessment inevitably affects the style and tone and, as questioned in Phyllis Crème’s core reading text, when she makes the comparison with formal assessment. Perhaps working towards a formal test may cause a student to take a more careful approach to ‘getting it right’!
As for blogs, they can be seen as a collaborative means to share personal reflective thoughts with many people globally dispersed or within a limited audience (ie OU blog community). This is a valuable communication channel to self publish own thoughts and experiences on the web and receive feedback from others. In their work on characterising the different blogging behaviours in an online distance course Kerawalla et al. (2008, p.31) identify that ‘many of the students enjoyed blogging and found it to be beneficial from both educational and social perspectives’.
Despite the positive elements blogs offer tutors may like to consider why some learners do not engage with this technology. Moon (2005, p.2) might suggest that ‘reflection is a fundamental feature if deeper approach to learner’ but this is challenged by how uncomfortable a learner might feel. Crème (2005. P.4) explains that ‘this new form of writing that was designed to get them to be ‘open’ and to ‘take risks’, and a good number were quite intimated by the whole process’. Blogs used for learning and teaching rely on a self revealing form of reflection which some students may not be comfortable displaying in the public domain. Despite making reasonable attempts to blog, my own experience tends to agree with this statement and is also supported with Kerawalla et al (2008, p.31) findings about how problematic some students found blogging, ‘they were concerned about revealing their personally perceived academic inadequacies to others’.
References:
Crème, P. (2005) ‘Should student learning journals be assessed?’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 287–96. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602930500063850 (accessed 25 Sep 2010).
Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G. and Conole, G. (2008) ‘Characterising the different blogging behaviours of students on an online distance learning course’, Learning, Media and Technology, vol.33, no.1, pp.21–33; also available online at http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ login?url=http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 17439880701868838 (accessed 27 Sep 2010).
Moon, J. (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’ (online), The Higher Education Academy. Available from:http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf(accessed 25 Sep 2010).
Moon, J. (2005) ‘Guide for busy academics no. 4: learning through reflection’ (online), The Higher Education Academy. Available from:http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id69_guide_for_busy_academics_no4.doc(accessed 25 Sep 2010).
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