Alternative angles

From my school days I so clearly remember learning the basic law of reflection that states that a light wave’s angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Optical reflections have continually fascinated me whether in the outdoors, in my work as a rehabilitation specialist and more recently with cellphones and tablets on which we can take selfies that can be playfully distorted.

Reflective practice has become increasingly incorporated into medical education with the belief that self-awareness and critical thinking enhance professional development. Reflection is said to help us to make sense of an experience. To teach reflection is

to encourage the development of a habit of processing cognitive material that can lead the student to ideas that are beyond the curriculum, beyond learning defined by learning outcomes, and beyond those of the teacher who is managing the learning. 

Moon 2001:15

The many paths that reflection has taken since John Dewey first introduced the concept of the reflective practitioner in 1932, demonstrate the wide uptake of this dimension to pedagogical practices. There have been a growing number of educational theorists picking up different angles of reflective practice. To name just a few, Brookfield (1995) explains critical reflection in relation to influences of dominance and power. Kolb (1964) proposed a 4-step experiential learning cycle, Mezirow (1998) identified the transformative potential of reflection and Schon (1983) asserted that reflection is more valuable through a linear time frame that recognizes reflective action before, during and after an event.

When I worked with first year Health Science students in a module on developing their professionalism, the reflective dimension was a core component of the curriculum. Students had to write weekly reflective commentaries and hand these in, initially as hard copies then later by uploading the Word docs into a Learning Management System, like posting a letter. In my role as one of a group of facilitators, I conformed to instructions to allocate marks to these reflective commentaries according to set criteria. It irked me. I wondered how this practice could become more constructive and productive.

In my recent research findings a student openly shared that these reflections (and course evaluations) become a chore, something that just had to be done to get ticked off. This mindset appears to set a pattern of thinking for future years.  His insights are shared by others. How do we as educators bring a turnaround to these kinds of negativities?

In developing my own teaching initiative with fourth year students I have had opportunities to experiment with reflective practice without the pressure of assessment needs and conformity to a designed curriculum. My angles of teaching have changed. Moving away from a structured linear controlled approach I engage with rhizomatic thinking and practice. This opens up possibilities for connections and multiplicities where mapping differences can bring new insights.

Students upload their reflective commentaries on Google Drive to share with each other. This can initiate deeper thought across individual boundaries. Apart from normalizing their challenging experiences in obstetrics there is growing evidence of something else happening. It appears to be a circulation of affect that offers the potential to act in different ways. Perhaps the sharing of reflections in the online space (which can feel quite risky for some students) offers the potential for ‘asignifying ruptures’, one of the principles of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome.. There is a break in habits of thinking, a breaking off of development, or rupture in one direction to start a new and connected development in another direction (Deleuze & Guattari 1987). Possibly the process of sharing reflections facilitates a movement towards a ‘Body without Organs’ that O’Sullivan (2006:19) suggests “is a kind of strategy, or practice, that allows an opening onto the realm of affect”, a plane of becoming, a gap of potentialities.

The image above was drawn using the Visualator App on my iPad. I was illustrating the effect of looking through multiple and different lenses to create something new and exciting. It gives an idea of the effects of differences that overlap with each other.

Brookfield, S. 2010. Critical reflection as an adult learning process. In N. Lyons (Ed.), Handbook of reflection and reflective inquiry: Mapping a way of knowing for professional reflective inquiry (215-236). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. 1987. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Dewey, J. 1933. How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

Kolb, D. 1984. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Gliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mezirow, B. 1998. On critical reflection. Adult Education Quarterly. 48:3:185-198.

Moon, J., 2001. PDP Working Paper 4. Reflection in Higher Education Learning. http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/hr/researcher-development/students/resources/pgwt/reflectivepractice.pd

O’Sullivan, S. 2006. Art encounters Deleuze and Guattari: thought beyond representation. Palgrave MacMillan. New York.

Schön, D. 1983. The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.