A Reflective Model for Teaching Journalism by A/Professor Lynette Sheridan Burns, School of Communication, Design and Media Abstract This article considers how professionals "think by doing" and provides a theoretical rationale for reflective practice as a model for teaching journalism. It presents a model focused on the development of graduate efficacy in the intellectual skills and understanding required of professional practitioners. The model uses critical reflection as a cognitive bridge between journalism theory and professional practice. Through it, students develop self-reliance, confidence, problem solving, and adaptability, while simultaneously gaining knowledge and developing a sense of efficacy in their ability to negotiate inherent dilemmas in practice. When pedagogical strategies “block the exits” to escape from the implications and effects of their practice, students are held to high benchmarks of critical and reflective thinking. The “lived” experience provided by a problem-based pedagogy also develops confidence and a sense of efficacy in students. Moreover, this approach integrates thinking and doing in a way that binds practices with the social and ethical effects produced. Introduction Journalists often describe their thinking as so intrinsic as to defy explanation. They say they “know a good story when they see one” and “know what to do without thinking" because their thinking processes, once internalised, are used almost without consciousness. But as Adam (1993:11,13) found, journalism always involves the conferring of judgement on the shape of things. So it is important that journalists can recognise the influences on their thinking in a context “where every decision is a professional decision, a commercial decision and an ethical decision” (Sheridan Burns 1995:5). This model uses critical reflection as a cognitive bridge between journalism theory and professional practice. Through it, students develop self-reliance, confidence, problem solving, and adaptability, while simultaneously gaining knowledge and developing a sense of efficacy in their ability to negotiate inherent dilemmas in practice. If students are to explore the complexity of practising journalism, educators must give them a real sense of the often-discomforting compromises journalists may make in their work. Bandura (1986:394) showed that people with a strong sense of efficacy are spurred by obstacles to greater effort and feel more able to resolve competing loyalties. He described how people who regard themselves as highly efficacious act, think and feel differently to those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future rather than foretelling it. (Bandura 1986: 395) Reflection & the development of efficacy The model proposed here seeks to expose students to the challenges in a way that still engages their desire to be journalists. Adam (1993:4) compellingly argues that the role of a journalism educator is multi-faceted – as a journalist you want to celebrate journalism, but as an educator you want to make journalism better. He concludes that in order to do this, we are obliged to "create a deeper understanding of what journalism is." If an understanding is a pedagogical goal, it becomes apparent that lectures are limited in their potential to encourage learning beyond the accumulation of facts (Abercrombie 1979:551). Equally, Ryan (1993:60) showed that experiential learning alone is inadequate when it comes to the development of understanding. Kolb (1984:38) argued that critical reflection is a prerequisite for understanding because it "is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience". The rhetoric used by journalists to describe what they do may be built around notions of intrinsic behaviour, but it also values critical reflection, albeit not in so many words. In the vernacular of journalism, being able to "think on your feet" and "keep your wits about you" are highly valued as intellectual abilities, as these are the qualities that lead to “scoops” and other forms of commercial success. Both these phrases also describe critical reflection in practice, suggesting that journalists do think about what they are doing while they are doing it. Recent research (Smith 2002) indicates that Bandura’s position on the development of efficacy is still valid, almost 20 years after it was first posited. Among the types of thoughts that affect action, none is more central or pervasive than people’s judgements of their capabilities to deal effectively with different realities... People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking. What people think, believe, and feel affects how they behave. The nature of extraneous effects of their actions, in turn, partly determines their thought patterns and effective reactions. (Bandura 1986:21,25) Bandura (1986: 27) argued that an individual’s perceptions about themselves and the nature of things are developed and verified through four processes. These are direct experience of effects produced by their actions, vicarious experiences of effects produced by another’s actions, judgment voiced by others and future knowledge inferred from what they already know. The model described here seeks to integrate theory and practice by embedding theoretical considerations in the completion of journalistic tasks and to provide opportunities for Bandura’s four stages to occur. It has been used in teaching journalism programs at two Australian universities and its success has been measured, over 10 years, through formal student evaluations and statistical evaluation of changes in knowledge, attitudes and efficacy (Sheridan Burns and Hazell 1998) and graduate employment success. Background to the model When the author started university teaching in 1989, the emphasis in journalism units was on technical mastery, delivered via workshops used to practise writing skills. This model suited a “practitioner who teaches”, because it was something like a practitioner’s experience of mentoring, but problems arose with the emphasis on face-to-face contact as the students’ primary means of gaining knowledge. The original concerns were: · Are they learning anything or just being taught? · Why do they sit and wait for me to tell them what to do next? · How I can ensure I get across all course content in this environment? · Why do students need a break in the middle of class? · How can the time be better spent? Lectures were introduced as way of ensuring content was covered while still allowing for professional experience to be included in a meaningful way. This ensured consistent delivery of content to large cohorts, but raised new pedagogical questions centred on the passivity of lectures. These were: · How do I know if they are listening? · Are they engaging with the content, or simply writing down the overheads? · Is note taking is an accurate measure of engagement? · Is attendance guaranteed? Could they miss important content? In the next stage of development, some workshops were replaced with tutorials to discuss lecture material, allow students to raise learning issues and provide an opportunity to assess student grasp of the lecture material. In practice the directed reading/tutorial discussion model was deeply flawed. The major problems were: · Students didn’t do the readings unless they were presenting to the class; · Presentations tend to regurgitate readings; · Students passive in discussion of readings, offer little new ideas; · There is no opportunity to learn this way after graduation. The last of these concerns prompted the research that ended with this model. Research begun in journalism education moved into professional education generally, pedagogical theory, learning theory and problem-based learning pedagogy, guided by the following questions: · How do I know if they are learning anything? · Why do they have to know this? · Why am I teaching this way? · Is there a way to get them more involved in their education? · How can I make this more like practice? Several theoretical positions on education became significant to this research. Canadian academic G. Stuart Adam’s compelling defence of journalism as an intellectual activity, Notes Toward a New Definition of Journalism as Art, published in 1993, was a seminal influence. So too was the work of Donald Schon, whose two books The Reflective Practitioner (1983) and Educating The Reflective Practitioner (1986), were landmark texts addressing the particular needs of professional education. While Schon looked at the professional education of architects, town planners, accountants and designers, the concept of how professionals “think in action” was profoundly applicable to the particular dilemmas of journalism education. Another important influence was the work of philosopher Ellen Langer and her two books Mindfulness (1991) and The Power of Mindful Learning (1994). The Pedagogical Model This model attempts to use a problem-based learning methodology and reflective approach to curriculum, including the explicit development of skills in critical reflection. The framework is described in its simplest form below. 1. Starts in the real world 2. You are here…what will you do now? 3. Puts this real world in a theoretical context 4. Critically reflects on real world problem 5. Identifies the nature of the problem & decisions to be made. 6. Identifies processes for resolving problem 7. Critically reflects on processes used on problem Using this model, students encounter the “problem”, such as writing news, before they have even considered what “news” is. To complete the task, students draw on a range of knowledge/skills simultaneously. The teacher facilitates analysis of the situation and helps students identify relevant previous experience and potential resources. Students use self-directed or small group learning to form their own ideas about the best courses of action. As Barrows (1985:6) found, when students are not initially provided with, nor do teachers synthesise, all the information needed to solve the problem, it provides greater realism and free inquiry. This approach leads students to take responsibility for their own learning. Small group discussion is important to the success of the model because students are required to articulate their thinking and think things through collaboratively. This focus on active learning also seeks to address the problems of student passivity, lack of engagement with the issues and a lack of “ownership” of problems. There are two ways a teacher can make facts or ideas seem personally important. The most common approach is to shape or interpret ideas so that their relation to the lives, interests and curiosities of the majority of students is readily apparent. When critics of education clamour for relevance, they are usually speaking of this kind of relevance. The second approach is to change students’ attitudes towards the material, that is, to teach students to make the material meaningful to themselves (Langer 1997:75). Brooks reaffirms that is it is important not to give too much direction to students. Teachers' interactions should be at the meta-cognitive level and opinions or information sharing with students must be avoided. Student ownership has been shown to be essential to successful learning. If they do not own the problem, they spend their time figuring out what the teacher wants (Brooks 1993:60) Anderson and Biddle (1975:130) argue that this approach also “offers students an obvious answer to the questions ‘Why do we need to learn his information?’ and ‘what does what I am doing in school have to do with the real world?’” Students learn to use critical reflection to find an individual answer that can be supported professionally, commercially and ethically. As Bandura (1986:5) noted: “Gaining insight into one’s underlying motives is more like a belief conversion than a self-discovery process.” Blocking the exits As well as enabling students to become more adaptable in applying skills, the model incorporates contextual issues in a structured way. For example, a journalist student may be faced with a scenario where they must decide whether to pursue a story and how much of what they find they should report. In the process, the student must make decisions and judgements about the veracity of their sources. Faced with the potential harm the reporting could do, the student finds that loyalties can compete. Journalists demonstrate their expertise through their actions, which are informed by critical reflection on prior experience. Langer described how "process orientation" not only enables more reliable professional decisions but also adds a dimension of self-efficacy. Awareness of the process of making real choices along the way makes it less likely that we will feel guilty in retrospect… On occasion, after learning the consequences of a choice, we may wish we had chosen differently, but we still tend not to be quite as hard on ourselves when we know why we did what we did. True process orientation also means being aware that every outcome is preceded by a process. (Langer 1989:75) This model makes explicit the ethical context of the decision-making, requiring students to incorporate this context into their thinking. Students are inclined to shrink from such complexities when reflecting on professional practice and opt to avoid ethical decisions by arguing, “there is no one answer.” (Sheridan Burns 1995:3) This “exit” from reflecting on the implications of their actions is blocked when the curriculum calls for this to be done explicitly. Thinking about choices gives students clues to their tacit understanding, and by doing so their understanding is changed. By requiring students to justify a course of action that can be defended professionally, commercially and ethically, they must accept a role in defining a solution. They go beyond experiencing the discomfort of the colliding loyalties to the point of choosing actions that reflect their thinking. Bandura argues that a self-efficacious employee is better able to deal with contradictions found in the workplace. The satisfactions people derive from what they do are determined to a large degree by their self-evaluation standards...A sure way of inducing self-discouragement and a sense of personal inadequacy is to judge one’s ongoing performance against lofty global or distant goals. When experience contradicts firmly held judgements or self-efficacy, people may not change their beliefs about themselves if the conditions of performance are such as to lead them to discount the import of the experience. (Bandura 1986: 359) In making the necessary decisions, students are required to explicitly address aspects of their thinking and actions that may otherwise remain implicit (Sheridan Burns 2002). Active learning is also encouraged through a linked repertoire of activities. Face-to-face class contact is not usually the starting point. Potentially passive activities such as reading are “activated” by requiring students to demonstrate their understanding of readings through an activity such as a short research task. An undergraduate journalism unit with a workload of 10 hours per week would typically be divided according to the table below. Hours per week Activity 2.5 Reading as set. 1.0 Research based on activity linked to reading. 1.5 Completion of chapter-based activity 2.0 Face to face contact with staff 2.0 Linked writing exercise 1.0 Critical reflection Approaches to Assessment Academics monitor student progress through self and peer evaluation processes. Learning is assessed with reference to the integration of knowledge, skills and abilities, situation analysis and self-directed learning. Students are required to evaluate not only what they've done, but also how and why they've done it. They have to become competent at articulating their thinking as well. The focus is not on the extent of content coverage, it is on what they can demonstrate they have learned. This is because, as Prpic & Hadgraft (1998:4) found, it encourages active learning and growth towards self-directed learning. They found that facilitating group learning, research and communication skills ensures knowledge of a specified subject domain and the ability to transfer knowledge to novel situations. A variety of assessment strategies illuminate these aspects, in contrast to the “teacher as expert” approach, which tests the student’s ability to duplicate the teacher’s approach to solving the problem. Providing students with an evaluation rubric guides the evaluation process. An important element of the model is to help students identify gaps in their knowledge in order for meaningful learning to occur. Self-assessment requires students to think carefully about what they know and what they need to know to accomplish certain tasks. It also reinforces individual accountability for work produced. These strategies enhance but do not replace the formal feedback provided by tutors and put assessment in a different context. Tutor assessment within this model includes academic judgements about how successfully individuals interacted with their groups and their cognitive growth. The pre-professional preparation of journalists is incomplete without actively working to develop their communication skills, because so much of work life revolves around presenting ideas and results to peers. Oral presentations provide students an opportunity to practice their rhetorical skills. Limitations of the model While problem-based learning offers considerable flexibility when applied to the aims and objectives of journalism education, there are obstacles to its successful implementation. For a start, the teacher is a facilitator, which may be uncomfortable for academics used to controlling the flow of information. Korenman & Shipp (1994) suggest that teachers are most effective when they stimulate dialogue among learners rather than lecture and permit self-discovery rather than impose their expertise. Using this model the teacher encourages acceptance of uncertainty and reflection and refers students to additional reading material and learning opportunities instead of providing answers. If the teacher assumes these roles, the students become more engaged and less inclined to fear “wrong” answer. However, students do not always respond well to being accountable for their learning, especially if they take a “how-to” approach, which relies on them learning to follow a series of definitive steps. But overall, student evaluation of learning materials based on this model over five years suggests that students find it stimulating and engaging. In particular students applaud peer evaluation and report that the process of evaluating others also helps their own writing and confidence. Where their sense of efficacy has been tested, their responses indicate a statistically significant increase in their ability to respond appropriately in complex contexts (Sheridan Burns & Hazell 1998:70). Successful application of the model also depends on adequate preparation. “Problems” must be carefully thought through to maximise the opportunity to raise contextual issues. Students need a clear framework in which to work, especially while they are developing confidence in their self-directed learning skills. This is particularly significant when they are introduced to self and peer evaluation. Conclusion The development of this model, described at the start of this article, was inspired by perceived inadequacies, so it is also evaluated against these criteria. The focus on active learning in this model is a response to concerns about limited student engagement with course material and it partly satisfies the desire to make coursework more like practice. By focusing on the intellectual processes used by journalists, students understand the broader implications and applications of their learning. The approach to active learning is based on the hypothesis that passive student conduct is a reflection of a teacher-centred approach. Because the model approach allows for more than one “right” answer, it reduces the usefulness of students waiting to be told what to do next. And by ensuring that every class required some activity, students no longer required a break during a class, as the time was broken up into sections. The use of readings with attached activity also partially resolved the issue of ensuring students engaged with written material. In order to understand what is required of them to complete the activity, the student must engage with the readings, but there is no emphasis on being able to recount the readings. By having students undertake a “real world” task, students must go beyond knowing theory to being able to use it to act appropriately. More than this, they must also become competent in articulating their thinking and reflecting on their own performance. These are life-long learning skills, somewhat satisfying the concern that there is no opportunity to learn the traditional academic way after graduation. The model is focused on building graduate efficacy in the intellectual skills and understanding required of professional practitioners. It is argued here that the model “blocks the exits” to escape from the implications and effects of students’ practice, which means journalism practice is not reduced to technical mastery. Further, the “lived” experience provided by a problem-based pedagogy develops confidence and a sense of efficacy in students. Bibliography Abercrombie, MLA (1979) Aims and Purposes of Small Group Teaching, Society for Research into Higher Education, London. Adam, G. Stuart. (1993) Notes Towards a Definition of Journalism: Understanding an Old Craft as an Art Form, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, St Petersburg, Florida. Anderson, R.C & Biddle,W.B (1975) ‘On Asking People Questions about What They are Reading’, in Bower, G. (ed) The Psychology of Learning & Motivation, (9) pp96-132. Bandura, A (1986) Social Foundations of Thought and Action, New York: Academic Press. Barrows H.S. (1985) ‘How to design a problem based curriculum for pre-clinical years’, Springer Publishing Company, New York. Barthes, R. (1970) Mythologies, Seuil, Paris Brooks, J.G., & Brooks, M.G. (1993). The case for constructivist classrooms, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Churchill, W (1930) My Early Life, Simon & Schuster, New York, p117. Kolb D.A (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience in the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Korenman S.G. & Shipp A.C. (1994) Teaching the Responsible Conduct of Research Through a Case Study Approach— A Handbook for Instructors. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges. Langer, Ellen J.(1989) Mindfulness, Perseus Books, Reading, MA. Langer E.J (1997) The Power of Mindful Learning, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, MA Melbourne, pp71-85. Prpic, JK & Hadgraft, RG (1996) Some disadvantages of Problem Based Learning, San Deigo State University, http://edweb.sdsu.edu/clrit/webassess/studentNclasses.html Ryan,G. (1993) ‘Student Perceptions of Problem Based Learning’, Higher Studies in Education, Vol. 18 (1) pp56-63. Schon, D.A (1983) The reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action, Basic Books, New York. Schon, D.A (1986) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, Basic Books, New York. Sheridan Burns L (2002) Understanding Journalism, London: Sage Publications. Sheridan Burns, L (1999) The President’s Column, Australian Journalism Review, Vol 21 (1) p3-4. Sheridan Burns L. & Hazell T. (1998) ‘Response…Ability: Youth Suicide and the National University Curriculum Project’, Australian Journalism Review, 20 (2) pp111 –128. Sheridan Burns, L (1997) ‘Problem-based learning: Is it new jargon for something familiar?’, Australian Journalism Review, Vol 19. No 1.pp73-85. Sheridan Burns L (1995) ‘From Philosophy to Frontline: The Teaching of Media Ethics in Australia’ Australian Journalism Review, Vol 17, No. 1 pp1-15. Smith, M.K (2002) “Donald Schon: learning, reflection and change”, the Encyclopedia of Informal Education, http://infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm Contact Werrington South Campus, University of Western Sydney, Australia Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC 1797 Phone: + 61.2 9852 5246 / 4955 1403 Content Language English Publication Year 11-05-2005 15:00