Collaborating with care: creating spaces for authentic reflective practice in academia

Abstract

Reflection is a valued pedagogical tool in academia. Research shows it is more effective when enacted collectively rather than individually. In this article, we offer fictional autoethnographic vignettes to paint an experiential picture of the daily tensions of being a reflective educator in an Australian university context. Through critically reflecting on our collaborative practices and the vignettes we produced, as well as engagement with the academic literature on reflective teaching practices, we argue that authentic, robust, and safe collaborative reflection relies upon six key qualities. These are (1) non-hierarchical, (2) non-evaluative, (3) flexible and informal, (4) unhurried and iterative, (5) welcoming of the complex emotionality, vulnerability, and discomforts of teaching experiences and, (6) able to explore and acknowledge the wider structural forces and constraints impacting teaching. To conclude, we acknowledge that this type of collaborative reflection is challenging in fast-paced, performance-driven, hierarchical, competitive, and metrified university structures. Leadership, therefore, needs to instantiate new norms in which robust collaborative reflection becomes commonplace.