3. Level 1: Basic academic level (1st cycle) module

3.6. Lesson 6 (6 hours): Transferring reflective participative learning principles to participative practice contexts

General preparation:

Learning from interactive practice experiences is strongly aided by learning “tools” that support the reflective dimension of “learning from experience”.

Tools aiding the learning process of students

- Reflective diaries (the dynamic transfer of non-linear impressions,
collected during encounters in practice contexts, to the linear process of
writing sentences is a process that mirrors the direction in which reflecting “systematises” elements of conscious and pre-conscious mental material)

- “Context sampling” (photography, audio-recording, representative objects etc. can amplify the memorisation of incidents and impressions and provide material for the “re-creation” of practice situations under
supervision; this tool underlines the different perspectives that can be taken on given situations)

- “critical incidents” (the re-construction from memory of situations that posed specific challenges and the considerations that were examined as options for intervention, as well as their theoretical and methodological
grounding)

Tools aiding
participants to have “voice”
and “tell their story”

- Life story graphs (templates for the sequential visualisation of significant life events in response to critical context changes; see example below and context in case illustration on INORP output 4, case example Ghent)

- Photography, sketching, audio-recording (handing appropriate recording gadgets for autonomous use to service users can collect material under their control. Discussions on the product allow them to attribute their personal
meaning to the items sampled)

- Story boards (specially for children, adults with communication difficulties who find it difficult to verbalise impressions, feelings and views, see
reference below)
Digital tools and access to social media

Digital communication technology is frequently portrayed as automatically enlarging participation opportunities. This may be true in certain cases but professionals must raise the issue of “access justice and equality”.
“It is not just that those who care about cultural and political participation should attend to differences in access, as they may reflect and perpetuate existing power differentials. We must go further, delving into how it is that specific forms of technology, regulations of media, types of content, and uses of digital media challenge existing structures of power and ideologies of identity by revealing what is hidden by mainstream advertising or utopian discourses surrounding new media”. (Ellcessor, 2016, p. 197).

Resources:

Storyboard example:

Emotional colour wheel, from “Voice of the child toolkit”
https://www.socialworkerstoolbox.com/voice-child-20-sheets-gain-childs-wishes-feelings-views/

Knei-Paz, C. a Ribner, D.S. (2000). A narrative perspective on “doing” for multiproblem families. Families in Society, 81(5), 475-483.

Schiettecat, T., Roets, G., Vandenbroeck, M. (2018). Capturing life histories about movements into and out of poverty: A road with pits and bumps. Qualitative Social Work, 17(3), 387−404.