The Enlightenment That Won't Go Away: Modernity's Crux

The Critical Process unleashed by the Enlightenment and endlessly resharpening itself to this day has mortally wounded the God of Deism, maybe also of theism, even of Christianity. A temptation of Christian theology is to retreat in denial into an updated version of Deism, seemingly granting full license to modern science but only so long as it does not impugn God's love. The alternative here proposed is to ride out The Critical Process, in fact to encourage it, all the way into modernity's crux: How can a design that is not benign still be divine? The Christian reply is: through a real death of God and of ourselves as well, and through resurrections beginning now, thus freeing The Critical Process from the illusion of insuring our survival and, instead, for the honest Enlightenment task of merely telling the truth.     

Learning to teach through video playback: student teachers confronting their own practice

The aim of this study was to examine the use of video playback with student teachers to promote teacher learning and to analyse patterns of reflection. A total of 14 student teachers video recorded their lessons in the practice setting and later confronted their performance, facing their videotaped lesson during the course of an interview with their university supervisor. The interviews were then transcribed and coded. Our results indicate that video playback facilitates student teacher learning and that the quality of reflection ranges from routine to dialogic. This suggests that further research into how to elicit higher levels of reflection is needed. The role of the supervisor in promoting deeper thinking should be further examined.     

Representing diabetes: ‘Brightside’ and ‘chaos’ in autobiography

This paper examines six autobiographical sources written by people with type 1 diabetes. In seeking to improve the understanding of diabetic lifeworlds; some of the autobiographies present heroic stories of ‘overcoming’ diabetes while others present a more ‘chaotic’ narrative. Regardless of their form, all the autobiographies highlight how the everyday problems and concerns associated with diabetes can be hidden and silenced. Therefore, I ask the question of how to use autobiographies as sources of evidence, being aware of the power constructs that may have directed their form. Despite this question, I argue that autobiographies remain crucial sources for exploring the experience of everyday life and much of the silencing in the texts reflects spatial and emotional challenges faced by the authors. I also consider the limitations of representation in the autobiographies calling for an understanding that the experience of diabetes carries with it feelings, emotions and affects that are non-representable and so never entirely knowable. Thus, this paper builds on recent geographical research on emotion and ‘contested’ illnesses, especially those that are not obviously visible or are easily hidden.     

Using video-supported reflection in peer groups to increase instructional effectiveness

This article reports upon the findings of research that explored change in teachers’ reflective thought and practice on a core set of complex teaching practices after the teachers participated in video-supported reflection model. Five 4th–7th grade teachers participated in the model that paired video-supported collaborative reflection with a research-based observation instrument, Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Classroom observation data was collected by video and scored to determine change in teaching practice. All video-supported collaborative dialogue sessions between peers were videotaped and transcribed. Findings point to the developmental process necessary when learning to critically reflect upon and enact complex instructional practices that are not already prominent in practice. Individual development of practice progressed as the collaborative dialogue group expanded their capacity for describing, understanding, and evaluating practice based upon a new schema of effective practice, intentionally enacting change resulting in significant increases in teacher performance.     

Beyond you and I: role play and reflection-in-action in communication training

This article will explore the development of communication training within nurse training. Beginning by outlining current thinking around this practice, it then discusses Schön’s notion of reflective practice and its frequently cited relevance to nursing before pointing out some of its limitations. In particular, it looks at the limitations of the individual being able to critically reflect on their self within a broader social context. Drawing on the theories of Habermas and Bourdieu, it suggests that encouraging a greater awareness of one’s own social context, and hence of one’s own subject position, would develop a deeper awareness of other potential perspectives and a better ability to listen to patients. Finally, it argues for the use of role play in assisting nurses to gain such awareness, particularly in difficult clinical situations such as end-of-life care.     

Reflective team in caring for people living with dementia: a base for care improvement

A reflective team (RT) is a team of professional carers who reflect on a specific caring issue under the direction of an RT leader. The goal for the reflective process is to accomplish care improvement based on research and proven experience, and the first step is to reflect upon the competence that already exists in the context in which RT takes place. This study aims to bring previous unarticulated competence in caring for people living with dementia to the surface after it has been reflected during RT sessions. Ten assistant nurses who work closely with patients who have dementia and attend RT sessions on a regular basis were interviewed about their competence for caring for people living with dementia. Using a phenomenographic analysis, two qualitatively separate categories emerged: general caring skills and dementia-specific caring skills. It was concluded that specific skills in caring for people living with dementia build in caring skills and that tacit knowledge can be explicit and be expressed when it has been reflected in RT.     

Engaging university casual tutors in collaborative reflection for improving student learning outcomes

There is a growing trend in universities to rely on casual tutors to fill the shortfall in permanent teaching staff. However, casual tutors often feel marginalised and excluded from having a voice in designing unit improvements. This research analyses five casual tutors’ perspectives on their teaching, learning, and assessing role. Data were gathered through reflective processes and semi-structured interviews. The research project and findings provide a collaborative model for capturing their input and feedback at critical points in the unit delivery and marking process. The results identify tutors’ insights, concerns, and underlying principles informing their roles. This investigation highlights the importance of listening to casual tutors’ voices. Their views can inform new ways of looking at issues, leading to enhanced student learning and progressing quality teaching.     

Not just for special occasions: supporting the professional learning of teachers through critical reflection with audio-visual information

Despite increased use of professional learning communities in the teacher education field, they do not necessarily guarantee change in teachers’ daily practice. This study is a multiple case study of three school leaders in Vietnam to connect their teachers’ learning and practice by utilising visual records. In the cases studied, we see a progression of models of joint reflection based on visual information, from only occasional reflection to daily critical reflection, the latter of which the authors call ‘vide-flection’ referring to a process for people to consider their actions, thoughts, or experiences by utilising video-recorded images. For joint vide-flection, school leaders visit every classroom for several minutes every day to observe the wellbeing and learning of pupils and video-record struggles or breakthroughs in children’s learning; they share those images with teachers to jointly reflect on the situations. Through this vide-flection, teachers develop more detailed awareness of pupils needs.     

Development of mother–infant interaction in tickling play: The relationship between infants’ ticklishness and social behaviors

This study examined the development of mother–infant tickling interaction and the relationship between infants’ ticklishness and social behaviors including infants’ looking at mothers’ face, mothers’ narrative tickling, and mothers’ laughter. Twenty-two Japanese infants aged 5 months (n = 10, five girls) and 7 months (n = 12, four girls) and their mothers were videotaped. Results revealed that the mothers’ narrative tickling was more frequent at 7 than at 5 months and the infants’ strong ticklishness showed the same tendency. The infants’ strong ticklishness was linked with the occurrence of other social behaviors. In conclusion, infants’ ticklishness was heavily connected with social behaviors. The mode of the tickling interaction at 7 months was different from that at 5 months especially in the increase of mother’s narrative tickling. A possible function of such mother’s narrative tickling to facilitate infant active communication at a higher cognitive level including anticipation, was discussed.     

The effects of process and outcome accountability on judgment process and performance

This article challenges the view that it is always better to hold decision makers accountable for their decision process rather than their decision outcomes. In three multiple-cue judgment studies, the authors show that process accountability, relative to outcome accountability, consistently improves judgment quality in relatively simple elemental tasks. However, this performance advantage of process accountability does not generalize to more complex configural tasks. This is because process accountability improves an analytical process based on cue abstraction, while it does not change a holistic process based on exemplar memory. Cue abstraction is only effective in elemental tasks (in which outcomes are a linear additive combination of cues) but not in configural tasks (in which outcomes depend on interactions between the cues). In addition, Studies 2 and 3 show that the extent to which process and outcome accountability affect judgment quality depends on individual differences in analytical intelligence and rational thinking style.