Supporting Lifelong Learning: Co-producing a Toolkit for Postgraduate Reflective Practice

This poster outlines a toolkit supporting recent graduates to reflect on their learning experiences, scaffolding their lifelong learning journeys. This is the second stage of a research project focusing on University of Glasgow MEd Childhood Practice students. At EECERA 2023, we presented findings on graduates' framing of learning experiences, connecting to research into identities of professionals engaging in lifelong learning (Trodd and Dickerson, 2019). Here we again utilise Wingrave and McMahon’s (2016) professional learning model as a conceptual framework but focus on creation of a resource to embed reflective practices in the transition from formal, supported learning at university. The initial interpretivist research (Waring et al, 2012), used collaging (Butler-Kisber and Poldma, 2010), a ‘learning story’ narrative writing approach (White and Sands, 2022), and short Zoom interviews to identify participants’ perceptions of their own agency and personal/professional development within the learning process. We continue to foreground the individual practitioners’ perspectives and experiences, taking a participatory approach (Martens et al., 2019) to development of the toolkit by working with current students to adapt methods used in stage one (Bovill et al., 2016). In working with current students, we followed all University and BERA ethical guidelines and were especially mindful of lecturer-student power dynamics. Phase one showed that dialectical methods allow representation of students’ interpretations of their professional learning journeys and their identities as knowledge holders. This toolkit (phase two) provides a flexible resource to support practitioners engaging in sustainable critical reflection, embedding a commitment to continuous improvement of practice.