Integrating reflective practice through the use of blog technology for professional development of teaching staff in higher education

Recent studies suggest that blogs may promote reflective practice among educational users (e.g. West, Wright, & Graham, 2005). This paper examines the adoption and implementation of the use of reflective blogs to support reflective professional development for participants in a Postgraduate Diploma in Third Level Learning & Teaching.The objectives of the part time Post Graduate Diploma in Third Level Learning & Teaching are to deepen teachers’ knowledge, develop individual practice, improve learning and teaching, encourage debate and build towards a culture of inquiry. The learning begins with the real experience of the lecturers in their role as teachers and facilitators of learning, and requires an integrative consideration of practice, theory and self as learner.An evolving critical reflection on this process, whilst engaged in critical debate with peers, offers a strong platform for the development of considered and innovative philosophies of learning and teaching. Participants often struggle to integrate their learning in a way which moves past the generic depiction of evidence to a more discipline specific account. The introduction of he blog as a reflective device aimed to strengthen the traditional, paper based teaching portfolio as a developmental, practitioner based mechanism for reflection. It aimed to shift from as Klenowski, Askew & Carnell (2006, p.276) advocate “the collection of evidence to a focus on the analysis and integration of learning”.Consideration of the efficacy of the reflective blogs will include an exanimation of blog entries to determine the extent and depth of reflection, and feedback from participants on their personal experiences using blogs.The implications for the use of blogs as a medium to provide and promote critical reflection for teachers, with a focus on connection to praxis in the classroom, will be discussed.