At the centre of the article is a comparison between reflective assignments, as a means of charting learning and development, with the dramatic arc of a ‘star in the making’ on reality TV.
Macfarlane and Gourlay delineate the prescribed stages of a student teachers reflective journey. Moving through; a penitent admission of our failings, to a crucial transformative moment. Then, resulting in a new perspective, neatly aligned with your institutions current thinking around pedagogy.
Macfarlane and Gourlay describe the ‘reflection game’ in Foucauldian terms as a tool for institutional/ self surveillance.
This characterisation presents self reflection on the PG Cert as a box ticking exercise where notions of ‘challenging and questioning’ are knowingly performed by learners, and in actuality, represent the act and description of conformity to a set of correct ideas.
So how meta is it to be given reading material for the PG Cert which slams the PG Cert?
And how much more meta is it to write a reflective piece on my PG Cert blog about the article which asserts that; reflective writing within a PG Cert is a performative act of adherence, at odds with any meaningful exploration of pedagogy?
Well perhaps considering the answer to this would involve diving down a rabbit hole of mirrors that’s a mixed-metaphor above my pay grade. However I think Macfarlane and Gourlaym’s ideas are useful in encouraging learners to question the questions they’re being asked to ask and answer. The article made me think about the danger of reducing epistemology down to binary options: good and bad, new and old, constructive and didactic.
When dealing with individuals and their learning there can be no successful one-size-fits-all approach. Macfarlane and Gourlay draw our attention to the experience of students for whom ‘old’ styles of delivery work better due to their educational background.
Macfarlane, B. and Gourlay, L., 2009. The reflection game: enacting the penitent self. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(4), pp.455-459.
Jo – I absolutely love this layered meta analysis of reflections on the process of refection! I hadn’t read this article but you have now inspired me and I need to read more on the Foucauldian concept – the idea of self surveillance on behalf of an institution is extremely interesting and resonates with the concerns in many op-ed pieces regarding the move to working in a digitised and virtual space. The fact we are doing both in the PG Cert is something to reflect on – ha!