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health and social care professionals need to be adept at reflection

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reflection in learning and professional development: theory and practice

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice

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Reflection is a technique for aiding and reinforcing learning, used in education and professional development. This volume offers practitioners and students guidance that cuts across theoretical approaches, enabling them to understand and use reflection to enhance learning in practice.

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(also known as @Virtualleader on Twitter) and I have a passion for using technology to transform teaching and learning in my discipline, which is health and social care https://twitter.com/virtualleader

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We need something simple to use ✔

Highly visual ✔

Capable of being group edited ✔

Thinglink was the first option but it uses symbols for the links rather than adding images to the basic "canvas".

Padlet looks a little like Pinterest, but you can add links that don't have an associated image :-)

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ThingLink: Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media

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Easily create interactive and immersive visual experiences for online communication and learning. Start a free trial!

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Digital reflection for professionals

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During a recent holiday to Ibiza I met up with a friend, Gemma Tur, for montaditos, beers and a bit of a brainstorm about a collaborative project.

We found common ground in an idea to have our respective students working on a digital storytelling project with the aim being to compare their experiences of, and learning from, the process.

Gemma's students are trainee primary school teachers whilst mine are budding health and social care workers. Our plan has two stages: at the start of the course to have the students produce a reflection on what it means to be a professional, what are their professional values and their hopes about their future career. Gemma has previously done a similar exercise with her current students. (See her blog) We hope to use something fairly simple like ThingLink to get them started. (An idea I picked up from Linda Casteñada when I visited her class in Murcia).

Stage Two will be at the end of the module where a more comprehensive multi media artefact will be created to reflect on learning from across their studies as part of a portfolio assessment.

To get us started I have been doing some reading around the subject of digital storytelling and the value of reflection - Jenny Moon's book has been particularly helpful: Jennifer A Moon 1999 (2004) Reflection in Learning and Professional Development -Theory and Practice; as has Alterio and McDrury (2002) Learning Through Storytelling in Higher Education.

I've also been thinking about the whole issue of representation - why is is useful to use symbols to represent words/thoughts? How does this aid reflection and creativity?

Creative insights often occur by making unusual connections: seeing analogies between ideas that have not previously been related. All of our existing ideas have creative possibilities. Creative insights occur when they are combined in unexpected ways or applied to questions or issues with which they are not normally associated.....thinking on several planes at once.

Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds 2011

And are there useful ways in which we can talk about this as a way of learning?
An interesting video about researching this subject can be found on the Digiexplanations site (although this deals mainly with science subjects it still has a lot of relevant points to make.

I'll blog more on this topic as the project takes shape....

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Reflection and digital storytelling - an international collaboration

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During a recent holiday to Ibiza I met up with a friend, Gemma Tur, for montaditos, beers and a bit of a brainstorm about a collaborative project. We found common ground in an idea to have our respective students working on a digital storytelling project with the aim being to compare their experiences of, and learning from, the process.

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Daniel Scott's blog post

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I'm really buzzing at the moment, so to capture the moment I thought I'd write about it right now!

I don't know why, but tonight I am just excited! I have been trying something out for about two weeks now and it's like my mind has happily exploded with new ideas and thinking, just now, randomly!

What I decided to do a few weeks back was to use Padlet like an artist's blank canvas. I started collecting images and links that I really like and maybe writing some questions, all to do with personal growth and the future of eLearning; what I would like it to be and look like.

I did this with no real reason, just a space to place inspiring material for me to gaze at. I had no thought of what I was going to do with it all, just to simply reflect on this beautiful space from day to day. I didn't want to pressure myself into any creative task. Because I believe that is not the way to invoke and encourage creativity. Tonight, it helped me say; just because I don't draw, paint or play an instrument doesn't mean I'm not an artist. Work is in progress.

So now I have my picture, I should 'frame it' to complete it and make it real.

It's like this has made me a new kind of artist, all about learning!

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I'm really buzzing at the moment, so to capture the moment I thought I'd write about it right now! I don't know why, but tonight I am just excited! I have been trying something out for about two weeks now and it's like my mind has happily exploded with new ideas and thinking, just now, randomly!