FLEX 5

FLEX 5

Capturing students’ professional development through narrative stories.

During CELT Festival in June 2016, I attended Stories of Learning and Teaching workshop by Dr. Claire Hamshire who introduced a method of reflection: narrative stories collected through participants’ visual drawing. In the workshop, we received a booklet designed by Claire and used boxes to tell our story based on experience within our practice. Claire used this approach in her research to collect data and gain insights of multi-layered experiences of undergraduate students. Such insights were later developed into booklets telling a story about the experience of Higher Education of different type of students, for example, level4, international, mature, to highlight the similar experiences new students may be going through.

Within my role I offer pastoral support, working particularly with those who are having difficulties or lack confidence. I help students to establish what support their require and help them to engage with study skills or careers workshops and engage with extracurricular opportunities. Cheshire campus has a high proportion of students from Widening Participation backgrounds and students with non-traditional qualifications, who need more assistance to acclimatise to the demands of higher education and encouragement to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. I was interested in the use of visual stories to develop some strategies I could use within my practice to help students reflect on the experiences of Higher Education and to establish what kind of support they require.

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During the workshop, I felt that the visual approach of telling a story using drawing technique could be an effective way of supporting students’ reflection on their skills. It helped me to look very deeply to the experience I was reflecting on. In here, I did not just describe what I remembered; I felt that I was going more deeply into my memory to recall the details, when trying to represent it through drawing.  James and Brookfield (2014) suggest that

‘Representing information visually can capture what matters behind the surface form of communication – the unspoken issues as well as those that are articulated. Visual images can show complex relationships and lots of information all at once. ‘

I found the prompt question used in the booklet very helpful as there helped me to consider more aspects of the experience, not just the first one, which came to my mind.  I was surprised how easily I was able to reflect and develop my story. Moon (2007) suggest that holistic or picture memory is more effective than that of isolated facts and describe stories as a valuable tool for the enhancement of reflective learning. I felt that this simple technique could be very effective when working 1-1 with students who often ask for support with their assignment, but they are not sure what help they require. The visual approach could help them to reflect on the experience of writing an essay, highlighting issues they experienced, ranging not just from the technical aspects such as use referencing but also emotional aspects linking to students’ self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a belief in person’s ability to succeed in a domain specific situations, playing a major role in how a person approaches goals, tasks and challenges (Kitching et al, 2011).  Some students ask for study skills support advice but after an initial conversation, go into more details about their future careers aspirations. This is a good point to engage students in reflection on their learning experiences and aspiration to establish where they are gaps and what steps they need to take, for example, to engage with a careers workshop, extracurricular activities, Futures Skill, volunteering. I felt this initial reflection when students shared their thoughts with me, would help students to actively engage with available support offered by other services.

When testing the drawing approach in the workshops scenario where students reflected on their unique selling point, some students did not see a value of the activity and took it light-heartedly.  James and Brookfield (2014) suggest that before students engage in a creative act of reflection the facilitator needs to be able to provide and model specific techniques. The introduction of reflective practice methods such as Gibbs reflective cycle, as a tool to identify and analyse what went well and what aspect were not as successful or  not understood clearly and exploration of what actions need to be taken for future improvement, could enhance student engagement with self-reflection.

 

Peter Lia: Learning Support Tutor: Disability Advisory Service: KCL

 

Such models combined with creative approaches such as drawing or free writing will offer more engaging process.  Other techniques such as free writing or journaling need to be considered to accommodate a range of students across faculty who may find a choice of various techniques more inclusive.

I collaborated with students on the development of extracurricular projects; their involvement enhanced their employability skills. I encouraged them to document their achievements through writing a professional blog highlighting different activities they are involved with and reflect on the skill they develop. This approach did not work, as students feedback suggested the lack of seeing a relevance of writing about professional development and difficulty in seeing their achievements as a high value and did not engage with reflections. Continuing to observe students professional and personal development, I want to encourage reflection on their experiences and skills gained and documentation of their achievements to help them preparation for future careers. Such reflection would need to happen in a more holistic way, where students look back to when they started university – reflecting on how they felt, what were they goals and how they change to help them notice they development. Hamshire and Jack (2016) suggest that ‘being a student is part of a personal life journey’ and ‘involves both a personal and social transformation’ (Britton & Baxter, 1999). It is important for students to reflect on their learning and consider transferable skills they gain to further motivate their progress. Both visual and written stories will allow a window to student’s beliefs about their skills developed through various experiences.  Recorded reflections can be developed into narratives which can be analysed for underlying insights (Riley and Hawe, 2004), taking into consideration what aspect is being explored, personal circumstances, others involved, environment and concerns and feeling of the situation in relation to the time when story was told (Bell, 2005). The narrative of a series of stories can help to develop holistic understanding of student experience to the student and for support staff to be able to offer efficient guidance and support.

Actions:

Involve students in a research aspect, were collated accounts can contribute to the development of knowledge about student experience to facilitate students’ voice and develop reflective learning communities.

To further test the use the creative visual drawing approach within tutorials to facilitate students reflection on academic and personal development and use reflective models to support student understanding of the reflective process.

References

Bell, J (2005). Doing your research project: a guide for first-time researchers in education, health and social science.  SRHE and Open University Press imprint.

Britton, C., & Baxter, A. (1999). Becoming a mature student: Gendered narratives of the self. Gender and Education, 11(2), 179-193.

Hamshire, C., & Jack, K. (2016). Becoming and Being a Student: A Heideggerian Analysis of Physiotherapy Students’ Experiences. The Qualitative Report, 21(10), 1904-1919.

James A. and Brookfield, S.D. (2014) Engaging imagination: helping students become creative and reflective thinkers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kitching, J., Cassidy, S., Eachus, P., and Hogg, P (2011) Creating and Validating Self-Efficacy Scales for Students The American Society of Radiologic Technologists 83:1, 10-19

Moon, J., & Fowler, J. (2007). ‘There is a story to be told…’; A framework for the conception of story in higher education and professional development. Nurse Education Today, 28(2), 232-239.

Riley, T. and Hawe, P. (2004) ‘Researching practice: the methodological case for Narrative Inquiry’, Health Education Research Theory & Practice, Vol.20 (2) pp.226–236