Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Internships provide opportunities for students to transfer skills from the classroom to the workplace and “try-on” their professional persona. The value of those experiences is more fully realized however when students reflect, analyze, and rethink their actions, particularly within a group of their peers. Rich Pictures (RP), a form of collaborative drawing, is a mediating tool to facilitate reflection and dialogue within small groups. Collaborative drawing can help students analyze work placement challenges, the ways in which they meet those challenges, and provide an opportunity to talk to each other about becoming a professional. RPs were used in two fourth year internship seminars (n=48) to facilitate student dialogue about their experiences, and to explore the potential of collaborative drawing as a tool for reflection and discussion about professional challenges and dilemmas. The students drew figures or “actors” that play distinct roles in relation to potential workplace dilemmas provided by the instructor. Collaboratively, they drew possible responses to a problem situation and interactions they predict might occur. Students also wrote short reflections about what they learned about themselves from the RP process. The RP data provided insight into the students’ experiments with professional decision-making that challenged their ethical positioning and sense of autonomy. The RPs and reflections also offered insight into new strategies for integrating reflection with active discussion and collaborative problem solving. The use of RPs as a form of collaborative role-playing through drawing can help to further students’ learning and self-awareness as emerging professionals within a work-integrated learning program.

Presenters

Tracey Bowen
Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Ontario, Canada