Reflecting on Reflection: my thoughts on blogging

When my mother found out that we would be required to submit an OT blog every week, she was ecstatic. Ever since discovering 'Diary of a Guji Girl', she had been hounding me to start my own blog, to keep whatever traces of writing skills I still had from dying a slow death.

Truthfully, I was not as impressed with the idea. The combination of enforced creative, critical writing, coupled with self-disclosure- being forced to dig out my opinion every week and smear it across the internet- was not appealing in the least. It was as though campus work was trying to insinuate itself into my personal life, and I wasn't quite ready to invite it in. It has taken me a while to realise that my personal growth is intertwined with my growth as a therapist, and that I don't need to exclude the two from each other to allow both to flourish.


7 months later, as much as I dread getting home exhausted at 4pm (or 3pm if the Clinical Sciences lecturer has an ounce of pity for us...) on a Friday afternoon and tapping listlessly at my laptop to complete a blog- with my siblings openly flaunting their Friday afternoon freedom- I have (more-or-less) made my peace with blogging.
There are days when I have to squeeze the words out like juice from a 5-year old lemon, and rare days when I have the odd epiphany that gets the blog flowing. Whether it's the former or latter, though, I always learn something new.

According to Katie Charner-Laird, co-author of 'Cultivating Student Reflection', reflection is "the mind's strongest glue", allowing us to connect ideas together, which helps us understand concepts better (Boss, 2009).

 This is something I've found to be true throughout the past few months. As a visual thinker, consolidating images into words allows me to compartmentalise information better, so that I can access it more easily when the time comes to integrate it into a new idea. It allows me to consolidate my learning at the end of the week, to reflect and regroup before heading back into the cycle of studies or fieldwork.

According to a study done by Rachel Ong on The Role of Reflection in Student Learning,

 

"Reflection journals can help to increase the value of the learning experience

by facilitating learners to make meaning out of the process they are engaged

in. It enables the learners to relate the new material of learning to prior

knowledge and hence a better understanding of the discipline. It also

enhances the learner’s meta-cognitive awareness." (Ong, 2012)

 
Reflecting on my experiences, knowing that it has to make sense to others reading my blog, is a good way for me to evaluate the strength of my viewpoint, and unpack it more comprehensively. It stimulates me to read more, to see what others have said on the topic, or whether there are alternative opinions that challenge mine.

I have begun to discover more about myself, my profession and my learning process. What was a deep aversion to self-disclosure has become more refined: I have begun to distinguish the depth to which I am comfortable with divulging and, in the process, begun to understand my own 'layers' of being.
I sometimes wonder whether it was just the fear of outside criticism that made it difficult for me to express my opinions through blogging, as putting my views out into the world left them open to judgement by others. This fear would make sense, considering that I had rarely received negative feedback before starting University. Three years into OT, I'm glad to see that fear dissipating, as (having received a lot...) I am more open to criticism. In fact, I have discovered that I definitely learn more, and faster, from negative feedback than positive.

 Blogging has been at times frustrating and stressful, and at times satisfying. It's difficult to pin thoughts onto paper, but once they're there,it's worth the effort. With so much information channelling through our brains every day, blogging allows us to consolidate, organise and move into the week ahead just a little bit wiser (hopefully) than before.

Boss, S (2009). High Tech Reflection Strategies Make Learning Stick. Retrieved on 27 August 2015 from http://www.edutopia.org/student-reflection-blogs-journals-technology

Ong, R (2012) The Role of Reflection in Student Learning. Reflections on Problem-based Learning. June 2012 (12) , pgs 1-14. Retrieved from http://www.myrp.sg/ced/research/papers/role_of_reflection_in_student_learning.pdf