This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module forms part of the suite of optional modules for the PGCHE / PGDip / MA programmes. It has been designed to address a gap in the offering and specifically appeal to students interested in Reflective Practice, Practice as Research and Reflexivity in teaching or research. Reflective Practice is a term that is used a great deal in contemporary educational and professional discourse. It is often seen as a vital and underlying component of education just as creative learning through mistakes, by reflection, is seen as a vital component in learning. Reflexivity is a term that has different meanings depending on the context. Within research, it requires that researchers reflect upon the research process in order to assess the effect of their presence and the research techniques on the nature and extent of the data collected. It requires that the researchers reflect critically upon the theoretical structures they draw upon and draw out of the research process. Practice as Research is a form of academic research which incorporates an element of practice in the methodology or research output. It is often informed and underpinned by both reflective and reflexive practices. This module will draw on current research and practice into embodied reflective practice from the module convenor, to exemplify research led teaching.
Please note that attendance is particularly important for the experiential sessions in this module, as material is hard to make up in individual tutorials or by reading.
Completion of, or exemption from UN819/UN828 and UN831 are pre-requisites. The module is underpinned by the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education 2011 and will raise your awareness of how the UKPSF can guide your professional development.
The module consists of five 2 1/2-hour workshops, combining tutor input, small group discussions, and opportunities for cross-disciplinary discussion of the issues explored in each session. The students will be encouraged to synthesise their own understandings following reading and discussion. One session will explicitly be experiential, allowing the students to explore embodied reflective practice, though other sessions may incorporate elements of this approach. There will be opportunity to explore practical applications of reflection within HE including reflective writing, and how it is used in teaching and in research, including the challenges of assessing it.
There will be a requirement to keep a reflective journal throughout the module. A reflective journal is designed to allow the students to reflect on their experiences, their thoughts, their feelings, and how these relate to their teaching, practice, and research within the context of the material they are studying. This will not be assessed directly, as direct assessment of reflective journaling has been demonstrated to have a negative effect on students' reflective practice, in that they keep the journal to pass the assignment rather than to develop their reflective practice. Instead, this journal will be used as a basis for work in seminars and may form part of the final assignment if they wish. It may be written, or in another appropriate format, e.g. video.
Students will be offered individual tutorial support to support completion of assessed work. There will be 135 hours of independent study in preparation for taught sessions, reading more widely about issues raised in taught sessions and in preparation for assessed work.
These combined will enable participants to meet the subject-specific and generic learning outcomes for this module.
An assignment portfolio equivalent to 3,000 words. Students will have the option of a practical research submission e.g. a video submission plus critical commentary, or a more theoretical essay. Individual titles and formats of assessment will be negotiated with the module convenor, to allow participants to critically evaluate and illustrate the principles which underlie their practice. For example, an indicative title might be 'Practice as Research in Drama'.
Indicative list, current at time of publication. Reading lists will be published annually
1) Bleakley,A. (1999). From reflective practice to holisitic reflexivity. Studies in Higher Education, 24(3):315-330.
2) Cordingley,P. (1999). Constructing and Critiquing Reflective Practice. Educational Action Research, 7(2):183-191.
3) Clegg,S., Tan,J., & Saedidi,S. (2002). Reflecting or Acting? Reflective Practice and Continuing Professional Development in Higher Education. Reflective Practice, 3(1):131-146.
4) Dewey,J. (1933). How We Think:A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. (Pollard, Ed.) Boston:D.C.Heath.
5) Leigh, J. (2016). An embodied perspective on judgements of written reflective practice for professional development in Higher Education. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 17(1). doi:10.1080/14623943.2015.1123688
6) Ross,J. (2014). Performing the reflective self: audience awareness in high-stakes reflection. Studies in Higher Education, 39(2):219-232.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
By the end of the module you will be able to demonstrate that you can:
• Evaluate critically the factors that have influenced use of reflective practice, reflexivity or practice as research within the HE sector (UKPSF A5,K2,V3,V4).
• Evaluate critically, and engage with current research and scholarship relating to models and theories of reflection, reflexivity or practice as research within HE teaching and research (UKPSF A4,A5,K5,V3).
• Critically reflect upon, analyse and describe their own reflective practice and/ or the practice of others e.g. teaching practice, practice as research, or reflectivity/reflexivity within research (UKPSF K2,K3,K5,A5).
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