The development of the reflective practitioner through digital storytelling

Abstract

This paper presents a multiple case study on the use of digital storytelling to support the development of reflection and digital skills in professional education. Students from two universities, one group studying health and social care, the other training to be teachers, were asked to produce two artefacts, at the beginning and end of their respective modules, in which they reflected on the aspects of professional and personal learning. The artefacts, some of which were produced in groups, others by individual students, were analysed for recurring themes, levels of reflection and digital competence, particularly in the use of open educational resources. Findings from the analysis support the use of digital storytelling methods to develop a range of key skills pertinent to professional education in general but concluded that the deeper levels of reflection may be most evident in individual artefacts produced in the later stages of professional education. The study provides some important insights for teaching and learning in professional education as it suggests that digital storytelling provides a highly engaging way of introducing both reflective and open educational practices.

An interdisciplinary approach to the development of professional identity through digital storytelling in health and social care and teacher education

“…From Lambert's (2009) classification of digital stories, here we focus on stories about people's activities and, specifically, those related to students' professional activities and social commitments involved in the construction of their professional identities. As for the use of tools in the creation of the digital story, there is now available a wide range of Web 2.0 tools and applications offering vast opportunities in the field of education while requiring minimal or no additional expertise in their use (Asing-Cashman, Gurung, Limbo & Rutledge, 2014;Challinor, Marín & Tur, 2017).…”

“…At the presentation of the task in class, students were told that the resulting posted artefacts would be analysed for research aims and that they were free to delete the artefacts when the assessment was concluded and for this reason 3 artefacts in TE were missing. The possibilities of digital artefacts for storytelling have been analysed in previous work (Challinor, Marín & Tur, 2017;Tur, Challinor & Marín, 2016): It has been observed that students improved their digital skills by exploring the possibilities of OER (Open Educational Resources), developing multimedia communicative skills and empowering creativity.…”

“…This work on professional identity is a development of previous work in which reflection for learning was at the core: firstly, the construction of teachers' identity was analysed in the narrative presented in digital storytelling artefacts built by student teachers (Tur, Challinor & Marín, 2016); secondly, the evolution of identity revealed in two digital storytelling reflective artefacts was supported by systematic scaffolding in both the TE and HSC programmes (Challinor, Marín & Tur, 2017). In addition the affordances of digital platforms have been explored and conclusions drawn suggest that virtual tools can enhance both reflectiveness and creativity (Challinor, Marín & Tur, 2017). Based on these lines of research, the current study explores themes emerging from the digital stories created by students of diverse courses of HSC at a Nottingham Trent University (UK) and TE at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain) from an interprofessional perspective, focusing on professional identities.…”

Promoting inclusiveness, creativity and critical thinking through digital storytelling among EFL teacher candidates

“…There is a rich body of literature about the educational use of DST, particularly from a constructivist approach (Wu & Chen, 2020), since it has been used to engage students in their learning progress as an expression of their own identity (Kortegast & Davis, 2018), be it in the mainstream classroom (Tur et al 2017) or in some specific area related with different minorities (Anderson & Mack, 2019). Creativity has been the object of study in most cases, for example Schmoelz (2018) examined student interaction in classroom activities that adopted DST to enable co-creativity, highlighting its positive impact on factors such as engagement, control, shared enjoyment and fun.…”

The impact of organizational storytelling on organizational performance within Jordanian telecommunication sector

“…Training and development are influenced by two mechanisms such as exchanging stories and engagement in dialogues to achieve a shared life story and an organizational identity. Strategic leaders stimulate training and development with the promotion of new ideas, thoughts and assumptions, collective action and intra and extra organizational dialogue (Tur et al , 2017).…”