Tools for learning...

Good to check-in with those of you on the evening Skype at the weekend.

A thread I picked up through the conversations was the notion of having, needing, seeking, support in your learning and we talked about referencing across the modules of the MA in order to re-engage with specific tools like reflection, when needed.

Reflective practice is introduced in the first module and very much forms the basis of the analysis and writing you are engaging with there as you compile your portfolio of prior learning (annotated CV, Job Description, Area of Learning claims, Review of Learning essay).  The tasks you get to grips with through the Introductory handbook (reader) in module one, are offered as tools for your learning beyond this module however.  The notion and value of reflective practice is something that runs throughout the MA and we believe is important as we see ourselves as embodied, living, sensing, experiencing beings.

In Module two, you should feel as though you are perhaps more forward-facing as you identify and area of potential research and plan for how you might undertake this.  Time for reflection (as a considered 'act') may not seem as pertinent here, but should still be flowing through your practice, notes made in journals, blog posts to share your experiences and thoughts as you process your engagement with extended literature, research methodologies, revealing your questions around your professional practice.  

As you delve into those research questions on module three, and remain open to others that may come, you should find yourself looking back in order to move through your research.  Coming back to and re-analysis theories, viewing your practice through the lens of your research, reading, considering, forming responses to others through blogs and linked-in discussions are all methods of you continuing to engage in reflective practice and should all feed your research, your journey.

With reference to Adesola's blog this week on distance, something that I was aware of through our conversations on the Skype call was a sense of immediacy that seemed to come with the action of 'reflection'.  Making notes immediately after an event, or in-situ particularly through your observations is important, but consider perhaps that these notes have not experienced any space/time/distance yet from the event to which they relate and so 'reflection', I would suggest has not yet been possible.  Try not to look at the MA, your research, your practice as a linear journey from a beginning to an end, but more of an interweaving thread of connections that go back and forth and around in their journey of knowing and understanding, with plenty of 'not-knowing' on the way.

Beginning to see reflective practice as something of a rhizome underpinning, flowing through the MA is perhaps more useful that addressing it as a specific 'thing' one module at a time.

What are your thoughts?


Helen