centre for mental health and wellbeing research beginning the internal conversation – spending...
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Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Beginning the internal conversation – spending time to build nourishing & communicative relationships
Associate Professor Keith R. McVillyClinical Psychologist & Principal Research Fellow
keith.mcvilly@deakin.edu.au
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Today’s presentation• Propose the case that it is as much about
ourselves, as it is about the student
• Explore how reflective practice might provide us with the tools needed to make a difference
• Suggest that if we are to make a difference it starts with the individual, but also requires official sanction and systemic action ‘to make it so’
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
The Underlying Premise• We need to do things differently • It’s our thoughts and behaviour that
needs to change• We need to consider the complexity of
what we are doing• We need to have a conversation with
ourselves, and make our intentions explicit in practice.
• And make our intentions explicit in policy.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
• Supporting people with disabilities
IS rocket science.
• We need to take it seriously, professionally and be committed to doing it well.
4
Take home message
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
A challenge for educators
• We need to be able to grasp the world beyond our classroom
• The curriculum is an artificial construct
• .... It is only a means to an end
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
National Assessment Program
• “NAPLAN tests the sorts of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling and numeracy”.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
A caution for educators.......
• ‘technique is what we do while we wait for the real teacher to arrive … the most practical thing we can do in any activity to know what is going on inside us when we do it’.
Palmer, P. J. 1998. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
How might we get there?
• Beginning the internal conversation
• Building nourishing communicative relationships with students
• Moving beyond the curriculum task as the focus of activity
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Building a culture of reflective practice
• ‘a way of examining our own subjective thoughts about who we are, our identities, beliefs’
• Smith, E. 2011. “Teaching Critical Reflection.” Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2): 211–22
• See also - Loughran, J. 2002. “Effective Reflective Practice: In Search of Meaning in Learning about Teaching.” Journal of Teacher Education 53 (1): 33–43.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Building a culture of reflective practice
• ‘If we know who to be, then what to do falls into place’.
Cunliffe, A. L. 2002. “Reflexive Dialogical Practice in Management Learning.” Management Learning 33 (1): 35–61.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Reflective thinking
• The concept of reflection dates back to the time of Aristotle
• Reflective thinking arose from situations of doubt, hesitation, perplexity, and or mental difficulty,
• It encourages the person to search, hunt or inquire to find material to resolve doubt.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
What do we need to do?
• ‘a cognitive function that involves consideration, contemplation, speculation, musing and pondering’
Hedberg, P. R. 2009. “Learning Through Reflective Classroom Practice: Applications to Educate the Reflective
Manager.”
Journal of Management Education 33 (1): 10–36.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Components of effective reflective practice
• An attitude of information seeking• Focused observation• Selecting and prioritising data• Recognising patterns and deviations • Interpretation and making sense of data• Calm, confident and considered responses• Clear communication• Openness & flexibility• Commitment to improvement
Tanner CA. Thinking like a nurse: a research-based model of clinical judgment in nursing. J Nurs Educ. 2006;45:204-11.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Remember Palmer’s challenge ......
• ‘Going beyond the technique’
• ‘Knowing what is going on inside us when we do it’
Palmer, P. J. 1998. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bas
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Keeping a Journal
• Journaling might be useful
• Individual reflection• Group reflection (a team journal?)
Holly, M. L. 1989. Writing to Grow: Keeping a Personal-professional Journal. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Applying Graham’s Framework of Attainment to Ourselves
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Encounter
• Are we present in the activity?• What evidence is there of our
willingness to share the moment – to be a social being social with another social being?
• What evidence is there of our willingness to tolerate dissonance and how do we cope?
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Awareness
• Are we aware of the person with whom we share the moment?
• Are we aware of the moment?• Are we self-absorbed in the action of
‘teaching’?
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Attention & Response
• Do we show signs of interest in the person and in the shared moment?
• Do we share surprise, enjoyment, frustration?
• Is this a monologue or a dialogue?
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Engagement• How do we respond to and sustain the
moment?• How do we respond to and sustain the
social dimension?
• Listening; • Looking; • Feeling; • Smelling; • Tasting.
• Sharing?
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Participation
How are we at:
• Sharing the activity• Sharing the moment• Sequencing our actions• Turn taking• Signalling back and forth – a Sender & a Receiver
• Being both a leader and a follower – a teacher and a learner
Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Involvement
Do we :
• Make an active effort to reach out to the other?
• Joining in their moment and their activity?• Recognising the worth and validating their
moment and their activity?• Making space in our moment and our
activity for the student?
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Policy & Practice
• What is your school’s policy on reflective practice?
• How do you make time and space for this?
• Is it a ‘nice to do’ when we get around to doing it?
• Is it something that needs an official sanction to ‘make it so’?
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