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Blog Post by Dr Victoria Bowen & Dr Janet Orchard

There is a shortage of RE teachers which must be addressed urgently if schools in England and Wales are to meet their statutory responsibilities to provide the subject to all pupils aged 3 – 18. The shortage is longstanding and well-documented; the government’s recruitment target for new secondary RE teachers has been missed in 11 of the last 12 years, despite energetic lobbying by stakeholders, and continues to be ‘masked’ by schools and policy makers. The National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) has gathered unambiguous evidence over time of schools systematically flouting their RE-specific legal responsibilities.

The re-introduction of a bursary for those training as secondary RE specialists in 2023-4 is welcome, but too late and insufficient on its own to address the problem at scale. In March 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) withdrew funding for RE-specific Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses for trainee teachers, further undermining the likelihood of a suitably prepared workforce. Furthermore, a response by the minister for schools to a parliamentary question revealed 51% of secondary teachers of RE spend most of their time teaching another subject, that is the one in which they are trained to teach as a specialist, leaving them to plug gaps in the workforce, and to varying effect.

Unsurprisingly, overall standards of teaching practice continue to be poor, with honourable exceptions. Ofsted’s newly published RE subject report ‘Deep and Meaningful’ (April 2024) found that across primary and secondary schools most statutory non-examined RE was of inadequate quality. Lessons were insufficient, it concluded, for pupils to “make sense of a complex world where aspects of religion and non-religion hold various places in the lives of its citizens” (OFSTED, 2024).

Why the shortage of RE teachers matters

Within a few weeks of being elected in July 2024, the new UK government faced its first big political challenge as civil unrest broke out across England, following inaccurate online reports that a so-called ‘Muslim migrant’ (he was neither a migrant, not Muslim) had attacked children in Stockport at a holiday dance and yoga club. RE is commonly identified as a key subject that promotes knowledge and understanding of different cultural and religious beliefs, and which prepares students for their future as global citizens. Taught well, as one part of a broad and balanced curriculum, good RE can develop multiple transferable skills, including critical thinking and analysis, empathy and cultural sensitivity and imaginative insight. Not only does RE teach students to disagree well around controversial issues, it could promote community relations (see the Shared Space project), prepare our nation’s young people to be well informed and thoughtful about religious and non-religious traditions that shape the world (Ofsted, 2013). It could, were there sufficient specialist RE teachers to achieve this.

Good RE has a part of play in promoting warmer community relations, but this is not the only aim or purpose for the subject. As well as being an inherently fascinating and worthwhile academic subject, when taught by conscientious specialist teachers, quality RE can contribute to pupils’ cultural development more widely, in partnership with other subjects. Interpretation of literature, art, music, history, architecture, all draw to some degree on religious and cultural literacy. Moreover, recent moves in the subject community to develop its academic rigour and to ensure that it is relevant to the needs of all pupils by including ‘worldviews’ alongside religion are key moves to shake off the image of RE as being like Sunday School. Contemporary RE, where it is taught by specialist teachers isn’t like that.

The DfE (2024) have ambitions to “drive up academic standards so that children and young people in every part of the country are prepared with the knowledge, skills and qualifications they need” and should include all compulsory curriculum subjects in their vision. Given the newly elected UK Government’s mission to reform childcare and education systems to remove class ceilings on the ambitions of young people in Britain, it should be reminded of RE’s track-record in being egalitarian (Fisher Family Trust). Pupils are twice as likely to do A Level RS if they come from a disadvantaged background and go on to do better in their public examinations than in other subjects. Despite many significant publications over the decades endorsing the major contribution RE has for children and young people, the unrealised potential of the subject remains.

What support do RE teachers need?

With these challenges in mind, an invitation-only symposium was held at the University of Bristol in June 2024 to address the problem and identify the professional development needs of those 51% of secondary teachers of RE trained in another subject specialism. Mindful of a previous project undertaken in the 1990s by NATRE and Brunel University, we have chosen to categorise this group of teachers as ‘RE TWOs’ (Teachers with Other Specialisms). We are realistic about the special challenges faced, but distance ourselves from the deficit language of ‘non-specialists’.  Currently, RE TWOs must transform into subject specialists with minimal in-service professional development to both teach, and even lead, RE in their respective schools. Too often, TWOs covering RE may be chosen because of their religious commitments, undermining efforts to be more academically rigorous and inclusive.

Now is the time to engage with the ongoing importance of high-quality RE teaching in English schools and the imperative for investment in this area. The DfE spent £0 on RE projects between 2016 and 2022, while Maths received £154 million. Ofsted (2024) has recognised how a lack of coherence in the subject has negatively affected leaders and specialist and non-specialist teachers of RE. The absence of any government-funded infrastructure to support them has only served to compound problems that already existed, notwithstanding the sterling efforts of stakeholders to fill the gaps through voluntary effort and charitable funding.

Thus, teachers’ subject knowledge has not improved. The legacy of poor subject and pedagogical knowledge, scant training and a lack of clarity about RE content persists. In too many schools, the RE curriculum is poorly constructed, poorly implemented and poorly learned (Ofsted, 2024), compounded by a shortage of subject specialist RE teachers. 25% of RE lessons are being taught by teachers with no post A-level qualification, with overall numbers falling by 1800 (-10.9%) since 2011. RE teacher recruitment in England is now a post code lottery, with the East Midlands and the North East particularly badly affected. [1]

Despite everything, 70% of parents continue to have a positive opinion of the subject, recognising the role RE plays in preparing young people for life in the modern world (RE Policy Unit, 2018). Ofsted (2024) note how an ambitious RE curriculum, taught well, has a long-term positive impact on pupils’ lives, yet without serious attention, how can its potential to support pupils making deep and meaningful sense of the world continue to be realised?

RE needs government funding to address this issue at scale. The valiant efforts of various subject associations, organisations and networks, including those charities currently filling the funding gaps, need to be better supported. Our immediate concern is local and national training and support programmes for RE TWOs, notwithstanding the need to recruit and retain new specialists in the future. Support for RE TWOs needs root and branch reform, through co-ordinated specialist support, including funding, to develop their professional knowledge and pedagogy.

 

[1] Key findings from a report on the shortage of subject specialist teachers for religious education (The Religious Education Policy Unit, 2018)

Blog Post by Pen Williams

Reflecting on the time I spent in Sparks Bristol with the exhibition of photographs by the participant-photographers who worked with me on my doctoral project, the phrase “It’s not my exhibition” is probably the one I uttered the most.

The project picked up on preliminary interviews that I had conducted with post-16 leaders in the Bristol area on the challenges of delivering citizenship education to post-16 students. While there is no statutory guidance for delivering citizenship at key stage 5 in England, the Department for Education (DfE) does place importance on citizenship, and it is acknowledged as a key ‘life skill’ for post-16 learners (Craig et al 2004). Despite this, post-16 leaders generally felt that time and logistics, subject knowledge, and practitioner confidence were key challenges to delivering citizenship and expressed sadness and regret over the lack of time spent on global and environmental topics. Overall, there was a tension between a will to ‘do more’ and a lack of resources and opportunities (of all kinds) to do so.

The subsequent intervention was therefore designed to engage small groups of post-16 students in a creative workshop-style exploration of citizenship. Participants were asked to represent themselves (Strack et al 2004) as citizens and communicate the matters they identified as important through the creative process of photovoice, enabling a response which represents them without restricting them to a text, thus promoting engagement (Grant et al 2009).

Photovoice is a method of gathering data which involves participants documenting and representing their experiences through the generation of photographic images and the stories attached to them. As a research method it is particularly accessible to young people due to the use of digital images and technology for sharing and commenting on these images. It has proved very effective in engaging young people, especially from (but not limited to) urban contexts (Delgado 2015). It has also been shown to promote community and civic engagement. The project ran with 6 groups across 4 education settings in the local area, involving more than 50 post-16 students. The photos were taken, titled, captioned and shared with the group in order to begin to identify themes.

The focus on voice and engagement which is central to photovoice as a participatory research method culminates with a public sharing of the photographs and the accompanying text in an exhibition – giving voice to the participants and facilitating consideration of issues of their civic and community engagement (Powers et al 2012) as global citizens.

Having worried about the logistics – financial, practical and aesthetic – of the exhibition from well before there was anything to exhibit, this final stage felt somewhat ambitious and a lot like a leap of faith. I felt strongly that the participants in the project should have the opportunity to contribute to a public exhibition, but I could not see how this would be possible given a lack of funding – at least to a standard befitting the time and personal investment the participants would be committing. Enter the TLC collaboration grant which enabled me to rent the space, pay for printing and display materials and provide refreshments at the event launch on July 10^th.

It is hoped that in developing this small intervention where participants can step back, reflect, and take time to consider themselves as citizens and what this means for their local, national, and global priorities they can engage with issues outside of their geographical and generational experience. The exhibiting of their photographs provided a forum to give them voice and spark wider recognition of young people’s concerns and priorities.

To see all the images exhibited at Sparks, visit the online gallery https://citizenshipgallery.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/the-bigger-picture-and-the-everyday-online-gallery/

References

CRAIG.D.K.R., WADE. P. AND TAYLOR.G. (2004) Taking Post-16 Citizenship Forward: Learning from the Post-16 Citizenship Development Projects. NFER

DELGADO, M. (2015) Urban Youth and Photovoice: Visual Ethnography in Action. Oxford University Press, Incorporated

DfE (2023) 16 to 19 study programmes guidance: 2023 to 2024 academic year. Available at: www.gov.uk

GANT, L.M., SHIMSHOCK, K., ALLEN-MEARES, P., SMITH, L., MILLER, P., HOLLINGSWORTH, L.A. & SHANKS, T. (2009) Effects of Photovoice: Civic Engagement Among Older Youth in Urban Communities, Journal of Community Practice, 17(4), 358-376, DOI: 10.1080/10705420903300074

POWERS, M. C., FREEDMAN, D. A., & PITNER, R. (2012) Final snapshot to civic action: A photovoice facilitator’s manual. University of South Carolina School of Social Work

STRACK RW, MAGILL C, MCDONAGH K. (2004) Engaging Youth through Photovoice. Health Promotion Practice, 5(1), 49-58

 

 

The word academy is like a label spread around the world. As legitimate peripheral learners in academia, doctoral students aim for a full member or a master member in the whole community of practice. Doctoral students are living in the space- between old-timers and new-timers; between novices and seasoned scholars; between fully online and face-to-face learning. It is intriguing to delve into doctoral students’ social learning space with a more holistic view as our minds, formal and informal learning contexts, and online and offline environments constitute each other.

Is loneliness the nature of doctoral students’ learning space? In fact, I have found there is a coexistence of solitude and cooperation in the doctoral journey. In the digital era, when various new technologies expand the connectedness and networks expand connectedness and networks, I feel the role of social learning in doctoral learning is getting more critical. From the perspective of the theory of social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), knowledge is constructed within social activities and learning takes place in the daily interactions with others. Learners create and negotiate meanings through different activities in an active and inquiry-based way. Learners jointly co-create their reality and develop the professional knowledge body with multiple perspectives. Furthermore, according to social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), humans learn through observation, interactions, and modelling as we are social animals.

Nevertheless, doctoral learners’ social learning seems to be unique. We do not have fixed schedules like undergraduate and master’s students do. We spend much time doing our study alone. It does not mean social learning does not happen among students. Instead, doctoral students’ social learning happens in a specific way, which can be explained by the concept of situated learning from the theory of community of practice (Wenger, 1998). I am finding it useful to consider doctoral students as a group of legitimate peripheral learners in academia. Beyond our individual projects and outside some core skill and required classes in the early stage, as doctoral students we seek wider support from different layers and types of communities of practice within and outside academia. The networks are supporting us intellectually, socially, and emotionally, having great influences on our whole doctoral learning trajectories. The social connections play an important role in our identification with the scholarly community, facilitating our mental wellbeing. In addition, the social space has become a part of a hidden curriculum embedded in their doctoral learning.

From the Wengerian view, learning is doing. In the dynamic learning process, doctoral learning shapes our identity as doctoral students. Through legitimate peripheral participation, doctoral identity is a kind of ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994) since we are already a member of academia to some degree but have not achieved our full goals yet. This in-betweenness reflects the ambiguity of doctoral students’ status as a trainee or an apprentice. I analyse doctoral students’ learning experiences as a contextualised social phenomenon, and our legitimate peripheral participation identifies how we grow from newbies/novices to seasoned researchers by situated learning within multiple layers of practice. The communities in which doctoral students participate in can be institutional, culture-based, language-based, and common interest-based. These connections help us produce knowledge together, get socialised, and cultivate a sense of belonging and a doctoral persona. However, every community of practice required maintenance for sustainability. Overcoming diverse obstacles together in the academic odyssey relies on regular and meaningful connectedness. Support systems may not always be a defaulted part of the pedagogy offered, but we can be active in creating the social networking opportunities we need.

With portable technologies as a conduit for virtual communities of practice, doctoral students’ identity formation and belonging development become more expansive, fluid, and dynamic. Throughout education, we are traversing the spectrum of experiences that include identification and belonging’, ‘dis-identification’, and ‘dis-belonging’. This nonlinear socialisation unfolds within the regime of knowledge and happens when we cross boundaries to approach other landscapes of practice where boundaries are considered a learning asset. In the realm of doctoral education, there exists a decoupling of teaching and learning, implying that the act of learning is not soley a direct outcome of instructional efforts.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity.UK: Cambridge University Press

 

Date: October 16,  2023

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?“

This philosophical thought, often attributed to George Berkeley, considers the manner of sound and perception, does sound exist outside of the listening ear? Using funding from the TLC Research Centre, we are trialling ways to record and edit the soundscape of a school, using the School of Education as a test case. However, some of the questions that we are grappling with are these: What is a soundscape? Whose soundscape are we recording and when? What about ‘human created’ sounds, such as footsteps, encounters between the fabric of the building and the visitor? Research into otoacoustic emissions suggest that our ears make sounds when listening (see, for example, Shera, 2022). If sound exists in relation to the listening ear, can the school have a soundscape or are there multiple layers of soundscapes? Should we say OUR soundscape or MY soundscape? If we are focusing on sounds in the periphery of consciousness, whose cognitive and emotional responses are being considered?

Thinking reflexively, there are inevitable consequences of relying on our own listening ears as researchers, our own personal responses that affect the process. The sounds recorded depended on the recording devices and studies show that we are affected by inaudible, hence unrecordable, hypersonic sounds (see, or example, Kawai et al, 2022). Further questions arise that ask: What sounds are recorded? What sounds exist that we, as the researcher team, have not previously been aware of? How can we capture what we do not know exists? How can we be in the moment, hear what there is to hear, rather than what we expect to hear? How do we deal with silence, which could be said to have no sound but can be impactful as part of a person’s soundscape?

The challenges of recording a soundscape are the dilemmas of what to include and exclude, what is known and not known, what is heard and not heard. It could be argued that a soundscape exists in the act of listening to sounds rather than the sounds themselves, the responses that a person has and the memories and/or affect that are invoked. Not objective but subjective, a tapestry of sound, listening and response.

References

Kawai, N., Honda, M., Nishina, E. et al. (2022). Positive effect of inaudible high-frequency components of sounds on glucose tolerance: a quasi-experimental crossover study. Sci Rep 12, 18463 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23336-0

Shera, C.A. (2022). Whistling While it Works: Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions and the Cochlear Amplifier. JARO 23, 17–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-021-00829-9

A poem

                                        Thoughts about soundscapes

                                                       lead to

                                                                   questions

                                       A sound scape

                                                     layering?

                                                                  yours or mine?

                                      Listening ears

                                                   Lack of knowledge?

                                                                 In the moment?

                                     Silence

                                                  Soundless?

                                                              Impactful?

                                     A tapestry

                                                 listening?

                                                              response?

Victoria Bowen, Harriet Hand and Alf Coles

It all started with an idea… a seed of something indistinct… a way of acknowledging the kaleidoscope of research work happening daily within the Teaching Learning and Curriculum (TLC) community at the School of Education, University of Bristol. A group of three formed and we mused …

One of us shared this take on the idea of a pamphlet:

“One has complete freedom of expression, including, if one chooses, the freedom to be scurrilous, abusive, and seditious; or, on the other hand, to be more detailed, serious and ‘high-brow’ than is ever possible in a newspaper or in most kinds of periodicals… Above all, the pamphlet does not have to follow any prescribed pattern. It can be in prose or in verse, it can consist largely of maps or statistics or quotations, it can take the form of a story, a fable, a letter, an essay, a dialogue, or a piece of ‘reportage.’ All that is required of it is that it shall be topical, polemical, and short.” – George Orwell, in an introduction to the British Pamphleteer

And so, a seed was planted.

An invitation went out to the TLC community to contribute to a pamphlet that would showcase and connect the diversity of research happening in the research centre. This first pamphlet would be aimed at teachers and, in defining a pamphlet, would take inspiration from Orwell giving authors complete freedom of expression. We hoped the pamphlet would help connect some of our research to a those working close to practice.

Two weeks later, following a brief editorial process, the first ‘TLC pamphlet’ was curated with a range of contributions, images, and links to other work. A further two weeks welcomed its publication with the aim of helping the diverse perspectives and research interests and activities of the Centre reach a wider practitioner audience through distribution to the School’s PGCE students. We asked each PGCE student to read the pamphlet and then give it to a teacher in their placement school.

A seed was now a sapling, with hopes of one day becoming a tree, rooted and established in the teaching and learning community. A step towards this will be the publication of issue two in the summer.

Issue one of the ‘TLC pamphlet’ can be found here. There are some spare hard copies at the reception desk of 35 Berkeley Square. If you would like to contribute to future issues, we welcome submissions from postgraduate researchers and academic staff. Or, perhaps, you would like to be part of the editorial team. Contact: victoria.bowen.2018@bristol.ac.uk.

By Mrs Michelle Graffagnino, Senior Lecturer in Education, and Dr Nicola Warren-Lee, Senior Lecturer in Education.

After attending a Bristol Education Partnership Climate Change event at City Hall in Bristol, Nicola and Michelle recall the brilliance of the student contributions, the passion of the senior leaders and the ambiguity of the attending DfE representative.

City Hall in Bristol is impressive.  Even more so on a crisp autumnal morning full of enthusiastic school students armed with posters, and a cohort of beginning geography teachers ready to take their first steps into a microteaching event on climate change curriculum improvement in October 2022. The Bristol Education Partnership (BEP) had organised a climate conference to showcase individual schools’ climate change initiatives and to bring students to take part in workshops on different areas of climate action.  The School of Education, PGCE Secondary Geography group were there to support discussions on how the curriculum that students follow could be changed, improved and linked together.

Reflections on the day for school students

Young people don’t need to be told to think ’blue skies’, they just do.. A snippet of their ideas from the morning includes:

• write climate change speeches in English
• look at the industrial revolution and link to climate change in history
• explore the fight against climate change in France/Spain; helping to understand climate change as a worldwide issue
• meat-free Mondays
• Walk + Wheel; an initiative to get more people walking and cycling
• lesson time on empowering voices; encouraging their student climate voice

Full of ideas, they heard from Mya-Rose Craig in the afternoon whose recently published book ‘We Have a Dream’speaks of Indigenous people and people of colour who are disproportionately affected by climate change, yet often are not heard in global conversations.

The opportunity then came for a speaker from each school group to voice their concerns and offer strategies to the audience in the Grand Council Chamber at City Hall.  The students were passionate and articulate in voicing their aspirations for climate change to be at the heart of the curriculum, school and wider communities. The school students, representing the 14 BEP schools, ended the day by listening to Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, discussing council-led initiatives and how each city and their communities should be the focus of grassroots climate change initiatives to have the impact needed at a global scale.

Reflections on the views of senior school leaders

What was clear from attending the working lunch with senior leaders of the BEP schools is that there are different priorities across very different contexts. In feedback to the Bristol City Council, some school leaders present wanted quicker planning permission to make school site changes, some wanted acknowledgement that the current government showed complete ignorance of the day-to-day concerns of their student population, including their climate anxieties. One headteacher suggested they (the BEP) collectively reject some of the government guidance on what to teach/what not to teach (referring to guidance on being apolitical in classrooms).  Senior leaders present suggested taking a ‘Bristol Approach’ to the curriculum, featuring social justice and climate concerns at the heart. For our part, we spoke of a climate curriculum in schools which was research informed, joined-up and incremental. We emphasised it is not a case of a one size fits all approach, instead each school’s Climate Change Curriculum should include the context of its young people and their communities. The Climate Change Education Research Network (CCERN) was (re)introduced and all senior leaders showed interested in working with academics from the University of Bristol in helping to shape their school curricula going forwards. This is something we have trialled and hope to develop further (see Cabot climate project).

Bristol’s One City Climate Strategy states that, ‘We will move faster than the national average, learning with other cities on our journey. This strategy sets the vision for where we need to be in 2030 based on sound science’.  It is clear that Bristol’s schools must lead the way in creating and modelling a ‘fit for the future’ curriculum, one which uses robust and available research evidence on climate change and climate change education. This is something which we, as a university, are calling for as well (please see PolicyBristol).

Reflections on the views of a strategic lead

In attendance was Jonathan Clear, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Department for Education, who agreed to join the climate conference to hear the students’ ideas and to find out more about what Bristol is doing in response to the climate crisis. He spoke of “flexibility in the curriculum” to deliver a quality climate change education for Bristol’s young people. National curriculum documents that are “slow to change”, as he put it, can be enriched and enhanced by utilising this flexibility. Orchard et al. (2016) encourage teachers to discover and create ‘leaky spaces’ in the curriculum to explore and reflect on normative ethical inquiry – we wondered if Jonathan was referring to something similar.  If so, this raises many questions:

• How do (head)teachers know when, where and how to flex their 950 (ish) hours of curriculum time across the year to ensure the students are ready for living in, and positively contributing to, life in a net zero world?
• Aren’t all of the ‘leaky spaces’ often taken up with a knowledge-rich (heavy?) curriculum, post-pandemic literacy interventions, and an increasing need to evidence certain types of performance, etc.?
• Doesn’t leaving climate education down to inclination seem irresponsible and woefully inadequate?

Jonathan Clear has agreed to attend a future CCERN meeting so perhaps we can follow up these questions with him in the near future

 

Michelle Graffagnino and Nicola Warren-Lee

Many thanks to Dr Lucy Wenham and Dr Simon Brownhill for their encouragement to write a blog via the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Curriculum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post contains details of our new “Research Collaboration Grant” for 2021-22. We have been given £1,000 to support Research Centre activities and we would like to use £900 of this to support research collaboration. So, if you have an idea you would like to pursue, we would love to hear from you! This grant is available for staff and for PGRs. You can bid for up to £300.

 

Examples of grant ideas include (but are not limited to):

• A small-scale research project or exploratory research activities with collaborator or partner.
• Purchasing of supplies to help support collaborative research.
• Fees for attendance at conference for collaborators.
• Research assistant time, to support research collaboration.

 

If you would like to bid for this money, please complete the application form (which you will find in an email sent on 29th Nov). The deadline is 31^st January 2022. Please send applications to: alf.coles@bris.ac.uk. If we receive applications for more money than we have available then we will email for volunteers to form a small group of TLC members, who have not put in a bid, to read the applications and to use the following criteria for selection:

(1) fit with TLC aims: (e.g., from our website: “The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Curriculum (TLC) is concerned with questions relating to education in schools, universities, community and out-of-school contexts, including a focus on issues of social justice. We research the learning of individuals, groups and systems from a range of perspectives, including practitioner research”);

(2) potential for/of collaboration;

(3) innovation.

 

If you would like to discuss this opportunity, please get in touch. We look forward to receiving your applications!

 

With best wishes

 

The TLC Planning Team!

SELF-REFLECTION: THE WHAT, THE WHY, AND THE HOW

Dr. Simon Brownhill

simon.brownhill@bristol.ac.uk

 

The call for learners to become accomplished in reflection is increasingly prevalent across much of the world (van Velzen, 2017). To aid this, a wealth of practical paper-based manuals, online tutorials and face-to-face training is available for teachers to learn from to help foster student engagement. However, a noticeable gap in this support is evident when teachers seek to engage learners in self-reflection. This blog entry aims to positively address this by offering adapted extracts from a literature-based thoughtpiece entitled Asking key questions of self-reflection which was written by Dr. Simon Brownhill and published in the journal Reflective Practice (2021). Let’s start with a very important question: what is self-reflection?

 

What is self-reflection?

In simple terms, Neale (2019) describes self-reflection as ‘taking time to think, contemplate, examine and review yourself as part of increasing your self-awareness.’ This resonates with the thinking of Shaw, Kuvalja and Suto (2018, p.2) who see self-reflection, in the context of students, as ‘reflect[ing] upon their own learning, which includes their personal experiences, perspectives, beliefs and claims.’ Synergies here are noted in the description of self-reflection proposed by Jonassen, Howland, Marra and Crismond (2008, p.3):

by reflecting on [a] puzzling experience, learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about the world, or they establish goals for what they need to learn in order to make sense out of what they observe.

Whilst some authors regard self-reflection as a trait or a state, self-reflection is commonly considered to be ‘a processof self-analysis, self-evaluation, self-dialogue and self-observation’ (Yip, 2006, p.777; added emphasis). Just as there are various types of reflection, so too are there different types of self-reflection. These include:

• Self-reflection which embraces a problem or solution-focused approach – this is where learners constructively reflect on how best to reach their goals.
• Self-reflection which utilises a self-focused approach – this is where learners attempt to understand, contain or dissipate their negative emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions. This approach connects to the idea ofcritical self-reflection which refers to the process of questioning one’s own assumptions, presuppositions, and meaning perspectives (Mezirow, 2006).
• Collaborative self-reflection – self-reflection is typically seen as a solo venture whereas collaborative self-reflection (involving two or more individuals, be they peers, teachers or family members) can be specifically used ‘to better understand the needs of [others]’ (Sutherland, 2013, p.113).
• Structured and unstructured self-reflection – this is either ‘organised around one or more questions, either evaluative or exploratory’ [structured] or ‘letting thoughts flow without restriction, permitting ideas, insights and connections to randomly surface’ [unstructured] (Johnson, 2020, p.26).

So, if we know a little about what self-reflection is, another key question that needs to be asked is: why is it important?

 

Why is self-reflection important?

Ardelt and Grunwald (2018, p.188) recognise the importance of self-reflection by arguing that it ‘foster[s] human development and personal transformation and, ultimately, a better society.’ To validate this claim, the development and transformation of select groups of learners in different contexts as a result of engaging in self-reflection are presented in Table 1:

 

Location	Context	Details
United States of America	Middle schools	‘Self-reflection provides opportunit[ies] for students to think about their own thinking and their own progress … allow[ing] students to honestly evaluate their own engagement with learning’ (McCoy, 2013, p.151). As such, this enhances students’ self-awareness and helps them to associate their learning efforts with the evaluation and grades they ultimately receive for their work.
Estonia	Social work undergraduates	‘Self-reflection is significant to students’ training as it enhances their personal and professional development in practice … increas[ing] professional growth and competence, [which] in turn increases the quality of social work’ (Toros and Medar, 2015, p.89).
Lithuania	Special education degree students	‘[S]elf-reflection provides students with [a] deeper perception of themselves as people with special educators’ needs and problems, personal strengths and competence limitations that enable them to identify sources and means for solving existing and future professional activity problems’ (Bubnys, 2019, p.1).

 

TABLE 1: The development and transformation of select groups of learners in different contexts as a result of engaging in self-reflection.

 

So, if self-reflection is important, a key question that needs to be answered is: how can self-reflection be practically undertaken?

 

How can self-reflection be undertaken?

The most commonly advocated technique is the use of reflective questions and prompts for learners to ask themselves and answer. Osmond and Darlington (2005) support this, suggesting that these questions fall into different categories:

• case analysis questions – these are questions that help a student to self-reflect on an incident they were involved in, e.g. Why did you struggle to accept your teacher’s constructive feedback on your written work?
• exploring differences and presenting contingencies – these are questions that provide alternative eventualities, e.g. How would your explanation of the robbery (fictional) have differed if the alleged robber was found to be a woman? and
• before-and-after questions/sentence starters, e.g. What are your feelings before the mock job interview? What are your thoughts now?

Assertions that these questions and prompts are likely to only yield internalised responses from learners are challenged by Epler, Drape, Broyles and Rudd (2013) who advocate the use of ‘think-alouds’ which involve students verbalising their self-reflective thoughts and considerations while solving a problem. ‘Spoken self-reflection’ [my term] allows learners to articulate their self-reflective thoughts to facilitate deeper self-awareness and to allow others to be privy to their thinking and understanding. Other oral self-reflection techniques exist; these include:

• the recording of voiced thoughts as part of a digital diary (video or podcast),
• engaging in one-to-one discussions (face-to-face or online),
• giving verbal presentations, and
• partaking in a spoken dialogue with critical friends.

Self-reflection can also be facilitated through written activity, e.g. engaging with jotters, completing forms and templates, and producing essays, reports, papers/articles and blogs. Lindroth (2014, p.66) suggests that the use of journals has been identified as an ‘effective tool’ to promote self-reflection; indeed, Hatcher and Bringle (1996) recognise a variety of journals that students can engage with; these include personal, dialogue, highlighted, key phrase, double-entry, critical incident, and three-part journals. Creative approaches to self-reflection, including pictorial representation, mapping, game play and visualisations (Govaerts, Verbert, Klerkx and Duval, 2010) add to the plethora of techniques that are available to aid self-reflection. Of importance is the idea that learners are able to use and adapt techniques of their choosing that are both meaningful and work for them; this is due to the fact that it is theywho are the ones who have to put these selected techniques into action for their self-reflection.

 

Concluding thoughts

As a 21st Century Skill, self-reflection is deemed to be a new competency ‘which society is increasingly demanding of the existing workforce and, in educational terms, of the youth who need to be trained today for future jobs and careers’ (Joynes, Rossignoli and Amonoo-Kuofi, 2019, p.8). Its importance requires an academic investment in articulate, comprehensive and practically-informed resources to help teachers support their students engage in self-reflective activity. It is only by learning from literature such as that which is offered in this blog that a better understanding of self-reflection can be acquired, and the benefits of self-reflection to improve the potential for behavioural change can be reaped (Smith and Yates, 2012).