The document discusses experiential learning and reflective practice. It defines informal learning as conscious learning from non-routine experiences through reflection, and incidental learning as unintentional learning embedded in beliefs without reflection. Most learning comes from informal and incidental experiences rather than formal education. Reflective practice, like journaling and blogging, helps learners process experiences and challenge assumptions. Digital storytelling also supports reflective learning by engaging learners to creatively express themselves through combining narrative, images and music.

1. The Nature of Experiential
Learning
Often dysfunctional, always incomplete
Need to use present experience to test our
beliefs, correcting the misinterpretations we’ve
made
We often manipulate experience to fit our beliefs
We usually see and hear selectively

2. Stop and Think
Can you recall a personally
significant learning experience?
In formal education or in the school of life?
What was it? What were the
circumstances surrounding the experience?
Why was it significant to you?

3. What Makes Learning Significant?
(experience attended to
and reflected on)
(experience not
attended to)
Learning Non-Learning
Experience
Non-Significant Significant
(can involve expansion but is
not subjectively valued)
• Subjectively valued
AND
• Has personal impact
involving expansion or
transformation

4. Informal and Incidental Learning
from Experience
Informal Learning: Can be planned or unplanned,
but usually conscious awareness that learning is
taking place
Incidental Learning: A by-product of some other
activity; usually unintentional, unexamined, and
embedded in closely held belief systems
Marsick and Watkins’ definitions, 1990, 1992

5. Informal Learning
Requires becoming aware of conscious learning
in a non-routine situation as people reflect on
experience

6. Incidental Learning
When incidental learning occurs, people often
act with little or no reflection, and the learning is
thus embedded in their action
To bring awareness of learning to surface
requires making tacit assumptions explicit;
Langer calls this concept “mindfulness”

7. What proportion of our learning
do you think is informal and
incidental as compared to
formal learning?
What are the implications of this
for the learners you teach?

8. What do we mean by “reflective
practice?”
Stephen Brookfield’s
concept of critical
reflection
David Boud’s ideas
about reflective
learning through
writing
Donald Schön’s
concepts
• Knowing-in-action
• Reflection-on-action
• Reflection-in-action

9. What strategies do you use to
engage learners in reflective
practice?
Journal writing
End-of-course reflective essays
Blogs as reflective learning journals
Digital storytelling

10. Practices to Enhance Student Blogging
Explain the
“WHY” for
engaging in
reflective
practice
Explain the “HOW” of
reflective practice with
a blog
Create some structure:
Model the
process with
your own blog!

11. How do
Digital
Stories
Contribute
to
Reflective
Learning?

12. Steps in the Digital Storytelling
Process
First, write the story –
aim for 300 words
Share the story orally in
a story circle with peers
Continue to refine and
reduce the story to its
key elements; peer
feedback helps
Create a storyboard
Remember, it’s an
iterative process

13. Search free digital media sites for
photos licensed under the Creative
Commons for remixing and
Attribution/ Share Alike
Choose music to create tone and
set the emotion of the story
Use an editor such as iMovie or
WeVideo to arrange photos, music,
transitions, and narration to create
the desired effect
Save your work as a file that can be
uploaded to YouTube
Steps in the Digital Storytelling
Process

14. What is the Creative Commons?
A San Francisco non-
profit organization
founded in 2002 that
has developed
several copyright
licenses that are free
to the public,
designed to expand
the range of creative
works for others to
build upon

15. In Conclusion, Reflective Practice …
Engages students in deeper-level learning
from experience
Can challenge taken-for-granted
assumptions
Generates social learning when carried out in
a supportive community of student bloggers
Can be creative and emotionally expressive
when learners are engaged in digital storytelling

16. References for this presentation
Boud, D. (2001, Summer). Using journal writing to enhance reflective practice. New Directions for Adult
and Continuing Education, 90, 9-17.
Boud, D., Keogh, R., & Walker, D. (1985). (Eds.). Reflection: Turning experience into learning. New York:
Kogan Page.
Brookfield, S. D. (1987). Developing critical thinkers: Challenging adults to explore alternative ways of
thinking and acting. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Brookfield, S. D. (1997, Fall). Accessing critical thinking. New Directions for Adult and Continuing
Education, 74, 17-29.
Carter, T. J. (2010, in press). Blogging as reflective practice in the graduate classroom. In K. King & T. Cox
(Eds.), Teaching with digital media: Best practices and innovations in higher education. Charlotte,
NC: Information Age Publications.
Hull, G. A., & Katz, M. (2006, August). Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling.
Research in the Teaching of English, 41(1), 43-81.
McLellan, H. (2008, October). Digital storytelling: Expanding media possibilities for learning.
Educational Technology, 18-21.
Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st
century classroom.
Theory into Practice, 47, 220-228. doi: 10.1080/00405840802153916
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wilson, A. L. (2009, Fall). Reflecting on reflecting on practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing
Education, 123, 75-85.