1st March, a summary of ‘The reflection game: enacting the penitent self (MacFarlane & Gourlay 2009)’
The article draws a parallel between reality shows and reflective assignment. The idea being that in refl assignment students are constantly asked to reflect on their journeys and show willingness to change, to give examples of misbehaviour and evidence change after the pain, much like some reality shows that attempt to change people’s lives.
The authors present with some advice to “win” the game, it covers the need to “eat the humble pie” and through reflection admit its mistakes and faults, using the workplace as example of errors. It follows by the second advice which is “revelation brings conversion” in which they highlight the conversion pathway where through reflection and after admitting to the errors you can give examples of how you’ve improved and applied the new way of doing things. Finally it gives the advice of “toe the line – or else” which I understand as keeping the new learned way of doing things as a dogma without questioning any aspect of it or how it even applies to your reality.
By following those steps the learner who is a teacher themselves can game the system and use reflective assignment in a way of conforming to the norm in vogue. It doesn’t dismiss this practice as a valid way of teaching but instead question its application without criticism and validity within different course and cohort scenarios.
It suggests that reflection can be driven by a real critical evaluation of theory and in a way use reflection to loop back into the practice in place at the time.