Barriers to reflection

There has not been as much wider discussion this week. Most people have had enough to do contributing to the group work. But there has been some interesting discussion in the Journals forum.

On reading this through this morning, it seems to me that much of this discussion has focussed on 'barriers' to reflection. So it has been suggested that people may not be able to reflect if the topic for reflection makes them feel too uncomfortable or will release emotions that are too strong to handle. Or they may not put time into reflection because it appears too self-indulgent.

There is also the issue of assessment and whether this makes students into 'strategic learners', i.e. they jump through the required hoops to pass the course and if reflection is one of those hoops, they will do as much as is required. But is this really what we mean by reflection and what we want from our students?

And then there is the whole question of 'audience'. Is this an enabler or disabler? It has also been suggested in the Journals forum that establishing communities of reflective practitioners who share their reflections might assist the reflective process, but how much would people be willing to share?

It has occurred to me, whilst writing this post, that thinking about enablers and disablers for the reflective process could be useful - but will these enablers and disablers be any different to those for the learning process as a whole?

Source of image: http://www.accelerated-personal-development.com/image-files/barriers-to-personal-growth.jpg