Reflection on Practice: end of week three

I cannot believe how fast time has flown and that we're nearly half way through the 'Reflection on Practice' course. This week has been an interesting week in which we have explored what reflective practice means on a personal level in relation to theory.

Theoretical perspectives
One of the main resources I have pointed students to is the Preceptor Education Program. This is an online program that prepares health professionals for working with students in the clinical context. The modules I have incorporated into my course are modules 5a Fostering Reflective Practice and 5b Advanced Topics in Reflective Practice. These modules work you through the theoretical frameworks, shows video exemplars and works you through reflective exercises. I think these modules are extremely useful - it will be interesting to get feedback about them.

Telling stories
We had another enjoyable online discussion last Monday in which we discussed reflective practice and three types of reflection: technical, practice and emancipatory. The thing that struck me about the session was the total honesty of the midwives, and the stories they told illustrated the different types of reflection so well. I was concerned that I would not have interesting stories to illustrate the theory, but actually the midwives told their own stories which made life so much easier for me to 'teach' the theory.

Privacy
But again, I wondered about the issues of privacy and confidentiality in an open environment. I advertised the session on this blog but no 'outsiders' attended. I made the decision not to openly publish the recording because I felt the discussions were too personal. What I found particularly interesting was the results of a quick poll following the session in which I asked how the students would feel about the discussion being in an open environment: one person felt that it would be a good way to teach/learn; two students didn't like the potential of consumers or media joining the discussion; and two students had mixed feelings about it. None of the students replied that they would have been happy if other midwives or students had joined the session. I was expecting for 100% of the students to say that they wouldn't have liked the discussions in an open environment, but actually opinions were divided.

I think what this shows is that there are open minds about the whole issue of 'openness', and that we should not automatically fence ourselves in when it comes to talking about midwifery practice online. I believe there is a time and place for open reflection, and what we have to do is work out our boundaries around what is open and what we do in a more restricted, private place.

E-portfolios and blogs
The other thing that this week has been exciting is that a couple of students have set up their own blogs which they are planning to make into e-Portfolios. So please pop along and say hello to:

• Tania - Tania's E-portfolio
• Valerie - Rosebud's blog
• Julia - Tales from Foxton Beach
• Pam - oh my god, I have a blog
• Bryn - brynportfolio
  

What I am loving is seeing how they are flying with their ideas and use of technology. For example, they have been playing with Glogster, which I had never heard of, but I really like how it works in a portfolio format.

Random thoughts

1. Sending texts the day of the Elluminate session acted as effective reminder for people.
2. Need to do some reading around assessing comments and online participation in a course.
3. Need to start thinking about privacy issues of an open online professional portfolio, and how midwives can deal with them.
4. Connecting people to my blog as well as the course blog has been a little confusing, and some people have been unsure exactly which was the course blog and where they should be commenting. Will have to keep this in mind another time.
   

Image: 'Seeing You' sgs_1019
www.flickr.com/photos/77555797@N00/133217415