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Reflective Blogging as "Forced Performance"?
Path-Finding Activity:
I was reviewing Lilia Efimova's mathemagenic blog, and came across Jen Ross' blog.
Her ideas resonated with me in that I had summarized a crucial issue for student bloggers that needs to be addressed, and found many of her ideas are aligned to mine.
I seek to encourage student bloggers to see the larger picture, and go beyond the institutional practice network. Yet Jen Ross has pointed out some issues I had not considered before, that learners do need to consent to having their identities shaped by the activities required of them. This tends to become acutely felt when students are required to use blogs and other network tools to perform within a practice network.
We need to make the emotional shift from showing and acting upon our reluctance over voicing our opinions, to possessing what can be only described as impervious optimism, to be courageous enough to “connect-for-oneself” despite the real possibilities of ridicule and indifference, from oneself and from others.
We need to make the emotional shift from reticence and fear over voicing our views, and bolster our resolve and strengthen ourselves, so that we can confidently write for ourselves even in the absence of any guarantees of reciprocity, of feedback, or of acknowledgement from others.
the convergence of surveillance, authentication, assessment and reflection exposes students and teachers to a new intensity of gaze and to increased demands for confession as performance.
Source: Traces of self: online reflective practices and performances in higher education (Ross, J., 2008). URL: http://jenrossity.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/ross_tracesofself_aoir08.pdf
Retrieved July 17, 2010
Significant Concepts:
1.categorizing reflection into four types: informal, non-academic, low-stakes, and high-stakes
2. reflection as performance: map, mirror and mask metaphors
3. six genres of mask: disguise, performance, protection, transformation, discipline, and trace
4. "metaphor of the subject as palimpsest (a manuscript where previous writing has been scraped off so that the paper can be reused, but traces remain)" (Ross, pg. 7).
Relevant Quotes:
"Hargreaves (2004) argues that compulsory reflective practices are essentially narrative in character. She claims that: “in producing narratives for assessment students are being asked to produce a story, and… in nursing (and possibly other professional settings) only three ‘stories’ are legitimate” (199). She identifies these as ‘valedictory’, ‘condemnatory’ and ‘redemptive’ narratives (200)."
"In constructing a narrative for the purposes of assessment the successful student understands which kinds of stories are legitimate, and shapes her words accordingly."
Glenn Groulx
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Comments
Thanks for this Glenn. I have saved this article and the Hargreaves piece because reflective practices are becoming more of an issue in nursing, particularily because every province in Canada relies on reflection about personal competence as a measure for registration. How valid is that?
We have been very conscious of privacy issues in our Centre and do not require students to post photos or peronal information but they MUST at the graduate level, participate in group discussion and in several courses are required to share their assignments.
Hargreaves' concept of legitimate narratives is very important. Smart students can figure out what their instructior wants to hear about. If they don't actually fabricate their reflections, they certainly censor them (even unconsciously).
I recently participated in a doctor dissertation by a student at Capella University, on online course design. The insistance of social activity in the design made me uncomfortable and I am an online social ;-) I believe that some of the "reflective practices" required of students are an invasion of privacy.