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Technology, Pedagogy and Education
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Digital reflection: using digital
technologies to enhance and embed
creative processes
Carole Kirk a & Jonathan Pitches a
a School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of
Leeds, Leeds, UK
Version of record first published: 15 Feb 2013.
To cite this article: Carole Kirk & Jonathan Pitches (2013): Digital reflection: using digital
technologies to enhance and embed creative processes, Technology, Pedagogy and Education,
DOI:10.1080/1475939X.2013.768390
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Digital reflection: using digital technologies to enhance and embed
creative processes
Carole Kirk* and Jonathan Pitches
School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
(Received 18 October 2011; final version received 30 April 2012)
This paper shares the findings of a teaching and learning project (Digitalis) that
investigated ways in which digital technologies can be used by teaching staff to
facilitate reflection on creative practices within performing and creative arts disci-
plines. Two types of reflection are considered: (i) reflection on creative practice
and (ii) creative forms of reflection,withfive case studies from a range of arts sub-
jects representing a spectrum of reflective activity. Drawing on a model of cooper-
ative enquiry, simple technological enhancements were made to the design of five
existing modules, and these were evaluated through student focus groups, observa-
tion of student work, and reflective interviews with the module leaders. Through a
thematic analysis of the data, the paper shares the learning from these modules,
along with a suggested model of digital reflection, outlining the place of capture,
documentation and organisation technologies in the reflective process. The paper
concludes that there are benefits to be gained from digital reflection, given its
facility to aid students to ‘look again’at their own ephemeral creative processes.
Keywords: creative reflection; blended learning; reflection on practice; flip
camera; digital storytelling; blogs; digital reflection; digital literacy; creative
assessment
Introduction
This paper shares the findings of a teaching and learning project that investigates
ways in which digital technologies can be used to facilitate reflection on creative
practices within performing and creative arts disciplines. Within performance, where
work is often practice based, ephemeral, and the result of complex collaborative
processes, the use of technology as a mechanism to enhance reflection has been
used to good effect (Dennis, 2007; Doughty, Francksen, Huxley, & Leach, 2008).
Traditionally, written work is the main method of undertaking and evidencing criti-
cal reflection. However, this may not be the preferred method for all students in
terms of either the process (writing) or the communication vehicle –particularly for
creative arts students who may have a preference for visual/aural reflection
(Doloughan, 2002). Through employing digital technologies within the teaching and
learning process, the Digitalis project has aimed to: (i) explore the potential of digi-
tal technologies for multi-media/multi-layered forms of documentation and reflection
on creative outputs; (ii) raise questions about potential alternative forms of
assessment; and (iii) understand the extent to which digital literacy (in terms of
*Corresponding author. Email: c.kirk@leeds.ac.uk
Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2013.768390
Ó2013 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education
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students having the skills needed to apply digital technologies to education [JISC,
2012]) may enhance or limit effectiveness. Simple technological enhancements were
made to the design of five existing modules, and these were evaluated through stu-
dent focus groups, observation of student work, and reflective interviews with the
module leaders. The paper will share the learning from these modules, along with a
suggested model of digital reflection.
Context and background
Historically, there has been increasing pressure on arts education to become more
outcome focused, leaving less room for creative, reflective processes (Dineen &
Collins, 2004; Freeman, 2006). The changing higher education landscape could be
seen as an opportunity to reverse this trend. Taking advantage of this opportunity is
important to develop graduates with the creativity and problem-solving skills that
are essential for innovation (Oakley, Sperry, & Pratt, 2008). It is also important for
arts graduates, as it has been suggested that reflection leads to high-level metacogni-
tive skills that are essential for navigating the portfolio-style careers adopted by
many of them (Birkenhead & Stevens, 2002).
Reflective practice, based on the ideas of Donald Schön (1983) amongst others,
has become embedded within higher education over the last 25 years. Students are
routinely expected to ‘critically reflect’(although it is not always made clear to
them what is meant by ‘critical reflection’, and indeed staff may have differing
ideas as to what it actually means [James, 2007; Moon, 2009]). A helpful definition
of reflection suggested by Birkenhead and Stevens for their (performing arts)
students is ‘purposefully thinking about experience to gain understanding and
change practice’(Birkenhead & Stevens, 2002, p. 2).
So what do we mean by ‘creative’reflection? For the purposes of this article,
our definition is two-fold: (i) reflection on creative practice and (ii) creative forms
of reflection.
(i) Reflection on creative practice
An aim of teaching and learning within arts curricula is to encourage students to
engage in ongoing critical reflection on their creative practice. Critical reflection can
involve reflection on what they did, how they did it, and potential meanings in the
work. In Nelson’s (2009) model of practice-as-research process, critical reflection
can include information recorded in sketchbooks, photos, video, etc.; records of
audience response; location in a lineage of similar work; and location in a concep-
tual framework (Nelson, 2009).
Students seem increasingly to be focusing their ambition on getting the best
grades, and this can work against taking risks and creating experimental work with
uncertain outcomes. However, creative arts subjects by their very nature involve
uncertainty, particularly as the effective facilitation of creativity development often
involves giving students a very open brief (Freeman, 2006). This can be frustrating
and uncomfortable for creative arts students, as there is no ‘blueprint’for them to
follow. It has been suggested that reflective practice can have a role to play in help-
ing students to manage this uncertainty (Birkenhead & Stevens, 2002). It could also
become the thing that is assessed. If, as has been suggested, there is an increasing
tendency to value creative products rather than creative processes (Dineen &
Collins, 2004), then maybe the creative process itself should be assessed (Freeman,
2006). To be assessed, it needs to be documented, and this is another benefitof
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creative reflection. Learners need to reflect to document; and in the process of
documenting, they reflect.
One of the aims of reflection is to reflect ‘upon ourselves’. Creative practitioners
literally need a form of ‘reflection’as in the mirror image to reflect upon. In the case
of performance arts in particular, the camera/video/audio can provide a ‘mirror’in
addition to the audience –although digital media cannot completely replace the ‘wit-
ness testimony’of the live audience (Nelson, 2006). Creative practitioners need to
experience the performance/artwork as a ‘stranger’. Digital technologies can provide
a distancing mechanism, putting the maker into the shoes of the viewer. For exam-
ple, Delahunta and Shaw (2006) discussed a software tool called RotoSketch which
enables choreographers to play back and draw on the moving image. A dancer com-
mented that: ‘Transferring the information into a different medium allows you to see
or “resee”what you’ve done. To be able to stand outside the movement …could
allow you to go back into the movement with new information’(Delahunta & Shaw,
2006, p. 55). This process of transmediation (Siegel, 1995) can increase the learner’s
opportunities to engage in generative and reflective thinking as they translate
between different mediums to produce and invent new meanings and connections.
(ii) Creative forms of reflection
Most literature on reflective practice has focused on written reflection (James,
2007), with common methods of undertaking and evidencing critical reflection
including the use of diaries, evaluative essays and learning journals. However, these
may not be the preferred methods for all students in terms of either the process
(writing) or the communication vehicle –particularly for creative arts students who
may have a preference for visual/aural reflection (Doloughan, 2002; Simons &
Hicks, 2006). It has been suggested that more creative forms of reflection/learning
can empower learners for whom writing is not their preferred way of learning, and
who ‘may have been excluded from traditional forms of learning which value
cognitive and verbal means of learning and assessment’(Simons & Hicks, 2006,
p. 77). A range of approaches to reflection is perhaps needed.
Reason and Hawkins (1988) suggested that there are two basic forms of reflect-
ing on and processing experience –explanation and expression. Explanation is the
mode of classifying, conceptualising and building theories. Expression is the mode
of allowing the meaning of experience to become manifest, by partaking deeply of
experience rather than standing back. ‘To make meaning manifest through expres-
sion requires the use of a creative medium through which the meaning can take
form’(Reason & Hawkins, 1988, p. 81). They suggested that the ideal is to develop
a dialectic between the two so that expression can illuminate explanation, and
explanation can clarify expression.
Taking digital storytelling as an example, the aesthetic decisions taken in work-
ing with images, text, transitions, sound, voice and movement can be an intuitive
process. Practitioners may not be ‘thinking’what they are doing, but are more
likely ‘feeling’their way. They reach a point where they think ‘that’s it, that’s just
right’–but they may not know ‘why’. There is knowledge, but it is tacit knowing-
in-action (Schön, 1983). We can define this as creative expression, or an expressive
mode of reflection. It is emotive, intuitive and ‘felt’. In Nelson’s (2009) model of
practice-as-research process, it is ‘practitioner’knowledge (embodied, tacit,
phenomenological experience, or ‘know how’).
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Practitioners can then reflect critically (bringing in the explanation mode of
reflection) on what they have just made/performed. By asking themselves questions
about the decisions they have taken in terms of editing, layering, juxtaposing,
choreographing, etc., and how these affect meaning, they can ‘query’their creative
reflection. By becoming their own ‘observer’, and finding a language to describe
and then theorise what they are doing, they develop ‘knowing in action’to
‘knowledge in action’(Schön, 1983).
Pettit (2010) highlighted the importance of using embodied forms of knowing
(or ‘expression’) within critical reflection to reveal internalised power structures:
Critical reflection is often seen as a process of reconstructing our mental maps, but less
is said about how to change internalised feelings of power, dispositions and emotions –
the very reflexes that cause us to contradict our beliefs and widen the gaps between rhet-
oric and practice …If the aim of learning is to be transformative, helping us to reveal
and shift internalised power, then it needs to be as multi-faced as power itself. We need
to ‘know’power through our bodies, senses and feelings. (Pettit, 2010, p. 30)
In her work on teacher education, Tracey (2007) challenged the action–reflection
dichotomy of reflective practice, suggesting that creative reflection can explore the
‘liminal spaces between action and reflection’. She presented a four-stage model of
creative reflection:
(1) Preparation: the creative process involves uncertainty and possibility and
she suggested that we need a stage of preparation to access a state of
receptivity, e.g. using images, visualisation, music, relaxation;
(2) Play: based on the assumption that learning happens through play, that play
is an essential aspect of cultural development, and that we create meaning,
possibility and new insights through the processes of play;
(3) Exploration: an active phase, with the purpose of creating a product.
Processes involved may include creative writing, storytelling, use of art mate-
rials, or action methods based on psychodrama to ‘concretize experience’;
(4) Synthesis: presentation and reflection on ideas, stories and images. In this
phase, we engage with and reflect on the artefact produced by the creative
process. ‘Through this process, the experience and learning are synthesised
into new understandings, or the identification of new questions’(Tracey,
2007, pp. 3–5).
Whilst this provides a helpful model which expands on Reason and Hawkins’
‘expressive’mode of reflection, it does not deal explicitly with ‘explanation’.
Indeed, it is not intended to, as Tracey proposed this as a model to explore ‘the
complexity of the spaces between reflection and practice’(Tracey, 2007, p. 5) rather
than cognitive, retrospective sense-making. What is needed is a richer understanding
of how both creative and critical forms of reflection can be facilitated within
creative arts pedagogical practice.
What are the current problems/difficulties experienced by teaching staff
facilitating creative reflection?
One of the major problems encountered by teaching staff when introducing reflec-
tive activities is that learners often do not understand what they mean. Indeed,
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many teaching staff have different levels of understanding of what is meant by
reflection (James, 2007; Moon, 2009). Some cultures do not even have a word for
reflection (Moon, 2004). A common problem is that students’reflections stay at the
level of description, not moving into deeper levels of reflection that demonstrate
questioning. Moon (2009) has suggested using a ‘graduated scenario’technique,
whereby students are introduced to examples of reflection (or critical thinking)
which move from ‘shallow’to ‘deep’levels of reflection, and are asked in groups
to highlight the differentiating factors in each example. However, it has also been
suggested that there is a danger in being too prescriptive in trying to explain what
is expected from reflective practices. Starting points that are overly specific are
likely to result in students setting off in specific directions, moving in a relatively
straight line, which can trap creativity within a set of unstated boundaries (Freeman,
2006). Boud and Walker (1998) also highlighted the danger of instrumental or rule-
following approaches. This may be because learners may take a strategic approach
and try to produce what they think you want, rather than personally valuable
learning (Moon, 2004).
A project led by the Department of Performing Arts at De Montfort University
(Birkenhead & Stevens, 2002) found that there was considerable interest amongst
staff nationally in improving the effectiveness of students’reflection on practice –
and particularly in understanding how best to engage and support students in
processes they might not immediately understand or welcome. Problems that they
identified included finding time for reflection: ‘If we value reflective skills we have
to allow for their acquisition and development. Pressures on contact time for
practical work mean that some radical decisions may have to be made’(Birkenhead
& Stevens, 2002, p. 9). Their research showed that reflection was most productive
when it was part of teaching activities, rather than being left to student self-man-
aged learning. They also found that students were sensitive to whether staff
modelled reflective practices themselves.
Recent funding cuts in England have exacerbated the pressures on contact hours
and student/staff ratios, leaving even less time for reflection and the increased fee
structure from 2012 may or may not change this situation. At the same time,
increased debt has driven some students (and parents) to be focused on grades
rather than processes of learning, with more concern to meet employers’demands
in a climate of growing graduate unemployment. Personal Development Planning,
with its focus on employability skills, may provide an opportunity to frame
processes of creativity and problem solving, helping arts students to understand the
importance of creative reflection (Whatley, 2011). Another consequence of increas-
ing student fees is that student satisfaction is now very high on the agenda, with
data released to parents and prospective applicants to help them with course
choices. In this resource-hungry environment, blended learning can be a powerful
tool to facilitate self-managed learning and reflection.
What opportunities are presented by digital technologies?
Within the creative arts, where work is often practice based, ephemeral, and the
result of complex collaborative processes, the use of technology as a mechanism to
enhance reflection has been used to good effect. At the University of Leeds’School
of Performance and Cultural Industries, Theatre and Performance students produced
reflective digital stories based on a self-directed performance piece. This encouraged
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the development of skills which can be used in other aspects of their course, such as
the use of juxtaposition, layering and using found sources in new ways (Sandars,
2009, pp. 32–36). A team of researchers at De Montfort University’s Centre for
Excellence in Performance Arts explored uses of technology in dance education and
found that student-centred autonomous learning in dance can be significantly
enhanced by an informed application of technologies (Doughty et al., 2008).
Photography and Media Arts students at the University for the Creative Arts, South-
east England, used mobile networking technologies to explore writing and image-
making in the space of the street, and in the online world of user-generated content
(Brown, 2010). And in a collaboration between Imperial College and University Col-
lege London, students created an online exhibition from artworks they had studied
first-hand in UCL’s art collections. Combining first-hand study of artworks with the
use of digital platforms (Flickr), students developed key skills associated with visual
analysis, critical thinking and archival research (Fredericksen & Grindle, 2010).
Summary
There is a need to find practical techniques for facilitating creative reflection in a
way that students understand what is required; that are manageable within the con-
straints on curriculum content and contact hours; and that contribute to a positive
student experience. Forms of reflection that do not rely purely on text may better
meet the preferences and needs of creative arts students. They may also enable
expression of embodied, tacit knowledge that can provide richer data for critical
reflection on creative practice. Tracey (2007) provided a helpful model of creative
reflection which focuses mainly on ‘expression’, but deliberately avoids emphasis
on explanation or critical reflection. What is needed are pedagogical strategies that
can engage both expression and explanation modes of reflection on creative
practice. In this paper, we explore whether ‘digital reflection’(creative reflection
through the use of digital technologies) can meet that need.
The Digitalis project
Digitalis (http://digitalis.leeds.ac.uk), with the subtitle ‘Using Digital Technologies to
Enhance and Embed Creative Reflection’, is an 18-month, interdisciplinary research
project funded by the University of Leeds Academic Development Fund. The ADF
scheme is a university-wide budget established to enhance teaching and learning at
the University, through innovative and cross-disciplinary projects, benchmarked to
the Learning and Teaching strategy and its priorities. In the case of this project these
priorities were identified as Priority 1 (refining assessment and feedback) and Priority
3 (developing blended learning initiatives). These were reflected in the original pro-
ject aims and outputs, which mapped onto the four phases of the project:
(a) To audit and capture the range of current modules across the faculty which
use digitally enhanced methods of student reflection on learning.
(b) To provide a meeting point for staff and students to exchange best practice
in the use of digital reflection and to identify ways to enhance and extend
that practice.
(c) To develop new, faculty-wide course content and materials to embed creative
models of digital reflection further and to consider other ways in which
existing curriculum/reflective practices might be enhanced.
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(d) To develop a web-based platform for evaluation and dissemination of the
project’sfindings.
The project was conceived as a vehicle both for capturing and communicat-
ing current good practice and for generating new approaches to digital reflection
through parallel strands of creative investigation. These were in a range of crea-
tive domains, each with an academic strand leader: Museum Studies, Dance,
Performance Design, Theatre and Music; a New Media strand was incorporated
towards the end of the project. This focus on the arts was in recognition that
much of the work produced by students in these disciplines is ephemeral and
often complex in terms of the creative processes leading towards production;
they may be collaborative, dispersed, interdisciplinary and extended over time.
Moreover they are highly likely to include working methods that utilise impro-
visation, intuition, hunch and tacit ‘know how’as well as traditional research
skills and evaluation methods. As such, the role of digital media in capturing,
organising and disseminating the process of creative practice has been crucial
but the pedagogical innovations associated with making sense of such practices
are very often restricted to individual, technically literate tutors, solving local
issues on a module-by-module basis. The widespread use of Virtual Learning
Environments (VLEs) in higher education –digital platforms established pre-
cisely to capture, organise and disseminate content –has not radically impacted
on this situation of digital literacy driving pedagogy and there remain barriers
to exploiting the VLE fully which this project has identified and hopes to
address.
In sum, the impact of the project and its research findings from the five parallel
strands is conceived at three different levels: (i) locally within the modules for
which each strand leader is responsible; (ii) at faculty level where the University is
encouraging new module developments across schools and departments; and (iii) as
a staff development initiative where the remit and relevance of the work can be
extended beyond creative arts disciplines.
Research methods/methodology
Methodology
‘Creative reflection’is a concept that we are attempting to interpret and construct
within the social context of creative arts education. We are using action research, a
family of research approaches which have developed simultaneously with a social
constructionist view of knowledge (Gergen & Gergen, 2008). Action research is a
family of practices of living inquiry that aims to link practice and ideas (Reason &
Bradbury, 2008a). With its focus on cycles of action and reflection, it is a method-
ology appropriate to our subject and one which is often used within pedagogical
research (e.g. McKernan, 2008). In terms of the specific mode of action research,
our approach is probably best aligned to that of cooperative inquiry, in which par-
ticipants are both co-researchers and co-subjects, with a common interest or concern
about something that they want to act to change (Reason, 1999). Our cooperative
inquiry group includes five academic colleagues who share an interest in incorporat-
ing digital technologies within their teaching practice as a means of facilitating crea-
tive reflection; a project assistant; and a wider team including participating students
and blended learning support colleagues.
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Methods
A cooperative inquiry loosely follows four phases (based on Reason, 1999):
(i) Planning: participants discuss joint interests and concerns to agree on a focus, a
set of questions, and a set of actions to take to inquire into those questions; (ii)
Doing: the group apply their agreed actions in everyday life, observing and record-
ing outcomes; (iii) Immersion: the co-researchers become fully immersed in their
experience; and (iv) Reflection: co-researchers re-assemble to consider their original
questions in the light of their experience. Based on this, they move back into Phase
1(Planning). We added a ‘collection’stage prior to Reflection, in essence following
a cycle of Plan –Act –Collect –Reflect:
The Planning phase: An initial team meeting, in which the aims of the project
were discussed and ideas for action shared, was followed by individual meetings
with each contributor which were facilitated by the project assistant. The questions
considered in these individual meetings followed a coaching model, i.e. what do
you want to achieve; what happens currently; what are your options for change;
what are you going to do? Written notes were provided to each contributor.
The Action phase: Team meetings during these phases functioned like loosely
structured action learning set meetings (Pedler & Burgoyne, 2008), with the project
contributors sharing experiences and learning, and agreeing their next steps. The
module enhancements were designed and delivered by each contributor, with
training materials such as video tutorials prepared by the project assistant using
Camtasia Studio 7.
The Collection phase: In some cases, interim evaluations were conducted via
informal tutorials, or simple questionnaires. For all modules, at the end of each
module enhancement a focus group was conducted with students (n=4–12) and
the project contributor/tutor. In most cases the focus group was facilitated by the
project assistant, enabling the tutor to participate in the discussion. Focus groups
were audio recorded and transcribed.
The Reflection phase:Areflective interview with each contributor was
conducted by the project assistant, following a simple format (what did you do;
what went well; what didn’t go well; what would you change for next time?). These
were also audiorecorded and transcribed.
Evaluation
For each module, the data were organised into ‘themes’illustrated with direct
quotes, aiming to keep the voice of the student and tutor. These were then consoli-
dated into a single set of themes, again illustrated with quotes, with those that
occurred across more than one strand being highlighted. To retain the richness of
each strand, a case study was written up following the simple reflective structure
used in the contributor interviews. All of the data and subsequent evaluations were
compiled by the project assistant, and then shared with the contributing module
leader for any reflection, contribution or amendment. The learning was also shared
by the contributors with external colleagues via a ‘Digital Reflection’national
conference within small group sessions that enabled discussion and debate, provid-
ing a level of ‘testing’of learning and ideas. Further opportunities for dialogue and
‘testing’were provided by participation in Leeds University’sfirst Student
Education Conference in January 2012.
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Ethical issues
Student groups were introduced to Digitalis, and each student was given a letter
explaining the project and how their work and any contribution they made would
be used. They were asked if they were interested in participating, and those who
were interested signed the letter. Participating students were paid a nominal sum
each to reimburse them for their time attending the focus group. At the beginning
of each focus group, permission was sought from students to use anonymised
quotes in reporting the project.
Research results
Strands
The five strands of activity identified in the context section spanned the range of
possibilities within our two-fold definition of ‘creative reflection’. Some strands
explicitly identified forms of reflection that were in themselves creative products,
for instance digital stories in Performance Design. Others drew on students’own
creative practice as content for the reflection but used more conventional reflective
methods to provide critical distance, for example in Music the use of written reflec-
tions on students’own videoed recitals using the comments box in Leeds Univer-
sity’s version of YouTube (LUtube). Others used the creative practice of established
artists as content for the reflection, operating as critics and curators of a virtual
exhibition –Museum Studies students were invited to use a personal blog to record
the thought and decision processes leading up to this outcome. The span of creative
reflection across the five strands is illustrated in Figure 1.
At the far left of this continuum, students are using digital technology to create
‘parallel’creative documents to their own creative practice, using a palette of com-
positional techniques including image editing, juxtaposition, transition and sound
sourcing to construct both linear and non-linear reflective narratives. At the far
right, students’focus is on creative practice (their own or others) and digital tech-
nology is operating as an organising tool for written reflections, interspersed with
images of the work under scrutiny. The continuum extends either way beyond the
actual work encapsulated in the Digitalis project and no value is being ascribed
here to either mode of creative reflection.
Details of the activities in each strand follow: the focus was on a single module
in each case, led by one of the project team.
Performance Design
Module: Design Presentation, 2010/2011, 14 students, Level 2, Semester 2. Students
on this module develop individual design schemes for a theatre text. Group tutorials
are used to help students reflect on their own and others’work as it develops.
Alongside students developing 3D models and drawings, they are also required to
Figure 1. Span of creative reflection across the five strands.
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address how their ideas might work in performance. This is achieved largely
through use of digital media (typically slide shows of still images and/or video clips
of their models enhanced through simple digital manipulation). In an enhancement
to the teaching of this module as part of the Digitalis project’s aims, the slideshow
software Photo Story 3 was introduced to give students a way of engaging with the
text visually, thinking of it as performance rather than literature.
Dance
Module: Choreography II: Developmental Practice, 2010/2011, 12 students, Level
2, Semester 1. Choreography II is a compulsory module for the second-year stu-
dents on BA Dance, and it is taught over 11 weeks. The major assessment (70%) is
on an individual choreography by each student, with an accompanying reflective
log. The module enhancement for Digitalis was to provide each student with a Flip
camera and tripod to use for the duration of the module, the initial aim being to
encourage them to keep it with them, and to use it to capture thoughts, ideas,
rehearsal material and personal observations. A separate, private blog was set up for
each student on the VLE to be used as a repository for their Flip videos, as well as
for written reflections, other useful data links and personal inspirations.
Music
Module: Instrumental or Vocal Recital, 2010/2011, seven students, MA postgraduate.
The overall aim of the module is the progressive development of instrumental or vocal
technique and performance skills through repertoire studies; the continued develop-
ment of aural awareness, sight-reading and memorising skills as appropriate; and pro-
fessional development of academic writing skills for music performers. The
assessment involves a recital of 40–50 minutes (90%) and programme notes (10%).
In an enhancement to the teaching of this module, in addition to the group blog and
audio recordings which had been part of previous presentations, students were invited
to borrow a Flip camera to record their private or public practice with a view to
uploading these to a private blog space. At the end of Semester 2, students performed
a short piece which was video-recorded and uploaded by the tutor to help them reflect
on the visual aspects of performance. Students were then sent an email with links to
their videos, and invited to comment on their performance using the LUtube
‘comments’function. A list of suggested reflection questions was included.
Theatre and Performance
Module: Performer Training in the 20th and 21st Century, 2010/2011, 27 theatre and
performance students (nine signed up for the Digitalis project), Level 2, Semester 2.
This module is aimed at promoting an in-depth understanding of various performer
training systems and methodologies. It concentrates on the last century and this cen-
tury as this is the key period during which acting and performing became theorised
and systematised. The module is interested in examining how training is passed on
and what factors play a part in this transmission. It outlines in detail how training sys-
tems work and debates the extent to which they adapt to specific cultural contexts and
pressures. The module was enhanced in 2010–2011 by introducing Flip cameras as a
means to document training practice over time. The students were required first to
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embody a key training exercise and then to produce documented evidence of that
embodiment using video as part of their PowerPoint presentations, mid-semester (the
presentations account for 30% of the module assessment, with 70% based on an essay
at the end of the module).
Museum Studies
Module: Leeds Collections in Context, 2010/2011, 17 students, Level 2, Semester 1
and 2. This core module runs over two semesters and is available only for History
of Art with Museum Studies students. The learning objective is for students to be
able to engage with key elements in the ordering, display and interpretation of
objects in the Leeds collections and place them in the broader context of museum
display and the history of the fine and decorative arts. The assessment consists of
one standard (2000–3000 word) essay (Semester 1) and a larger (4000–6000 word)
exhibition project (Semester 2) during which students are required to put together a
‘paper’exhibition using objects from a collection they have studied from Leeds
City museums and galleries. The latter exercise includes the writing of an analytical
narrative exhibition guide and associated catalogue. In an enhancement to the teach-
ing of this module in 2010–2011, students were invited to construct a reflective
learning blog as part of the development of their projects, directing attention to the
significance of non-assessed reflective learning.
In summary, the digital capture technologies utilised were: Flip cameras, audio
recorders, and digital stills cameras. The digital documentation technology was
LUtube (with supporting resources and tutorials posted on the Digitalis website).
And the digital reflection mechanisms were: VLE blogs (using Blackboard), Power-
Point and Photo Story 3. This three-fold distinction is modelled in the section
below and discussed in more detail.
Themes
In order to make sense of the wide range of data captured using the methods
outlined, we organised the findings into common themes: Reflection and Process,
Pedagogy and Assessment, Technical Issues, Student and Tutor Experience, Impact
on Creative Practice.
Reflection and process
Overwhelmingly, the students reported an advantage in being able to ‘look again’at
material which would otherwise have been lost in the usual messiness or intensive-
ness of creative practice. For musicians this was in response to seeing themselves
on video and thus outside of an immersed mode of performance; for dancers this
was being able to track back to previous weeks of Flip footage and see the origin
of creative ideas; for actors it was the benefit of seeing personal development in a
training exercise. Thus, the digital capturing of activity and process acted as a per-
manent and easily retrievable ‘mirror’against which they could benchmark their
own phenomenological impressions of the event. In a sense the digital camera was
acting as a substitute for an audience, encouraging the student to see their or others’
work from an alternative standpoint and in perspective.
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Pedagogy and assessment
The need for an incremental approach to the introduction of technology was raised
by staff and students under this theme. There was suspicion and nervousness from
some students about the add-on aspect of the work, particularly if it was not
assessed. But where the use of technology was clearly intrinsic to the teaching
strategies and/or the assessment of the work, these reservations tended to diminish.
Museum Studies students did not embrace the private blogging opportunities offered
by the module, partly because they viewed it as an additional burden and partly
because they perceived it as alien to the practice of blogging itself, i.e. to have an
audience for one’s writing. Dance students, by contrast, became highly attached to
the Flip cameras and to the Blackboard VLE blog where they were posting video
for later reflective viewing. This might be because the Flips were with the students
for an extended period of time and that incremental tasks were established by the
tutor to encourage take-up and good habits. On the whole, the opportunity to show
rather than explain was welcomed by staff and students alike, particularly when
review of creative practice was part of the assessment.
Technical issues
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, technical issues were of concern to students. There were
problems with file types and compatibility with other software packages (embedding
them in PowerPoint, for instance), whilst some students found the University VLE
restrictive and technically ‘behind’the software they were already using for file
sharing and blogging. Highly developed skills in the use of the chosen technologies
did not always mean an appropriate reflective outcome, however, and there were
examples in both Performance Design and the Theatre and Performance groups of
students concentrating too much on slick production values to the detriment of criti-
cal thinking. That said, students did report a concern that digital literacy would play
an unspoken part in the assessment of a creative piece of reflection and this is
something that needs addressing explicitly in assessment criteria and in group dis-
cussion of work. On the whole, ease of use was considered an important factor for
overcoming the barriers of engagement and where this was lacking, take-up was
less enthusiastic and productive. Sound quality was also a significant problem for
the strands using Flip cameras and particularly for the musicians.
Student and tutor experience
Some students identified embarrassment in hearing their own voices or in seeing
themselves on video. Audience laughter was seen as critical rather than supportive
for actors evidencing their own training processes on video and some Performance
Design students wanted to avoid using their own voice for the commentary in putt-
ing together their digital stories. There were concerns from staff and students about
the time it took to upload materials and subsequent feelings of overload from stu-
dents if they did not ‘take’to the technology or saw the work as additional rather
than formative. Observable student blogs for two tutors were a productive way of
keeping in touch between sessions and of monitoring progress, though this was felt
by a third tutor to be time limited. The sustainability of the strategies was ques-
tioned also; with a project assistant creating bespoke video for support and training,
how would this be achieved without such a resource?
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Impact on creative practice
Impact on creative practice was felt most explicitly in the strands where creative
outcomes were being pursued. Students in Dance unanimously confirmed their
commitment to the Flip camera and articulated how it changed their ultimate
approach to choreographing a new piece. Performance Design students felt that the
task to devise a digital story enhanced their analysis of the play text. Musicians
wanted to see more practice in order to really engage with the analysis but saw the
benefit of writing to generate more critical ideas. Actors recognised and valued the
capacity video gives of recording longitudinal training and of capturing skills devel-
opment. If anything, they wanted longer with the cameras –on the model of the
Choreography students. Museum Studies students saw voice recording and blogging
as an additional burden and did not make the connection between these suggested
working processes and the conventional essay task which concluded the module.
A more incremental introduction to the use of digital reflection technologies, over
the degree as a whole, was recommended.
Model of digital reflection and discussion
Reflection
Moon (2004) made a distinction between learning, and representation of that learn-
ing, suggesting that the representation of learning in itself is a further source of
learning material. As the learner reorganises her presentation of her ideas, ‘she is
sorting out her understanding of those ideas and is learning more since the organi-
sation and clarification of ideas are a process of learning’(p. 14). These re-presenta-
tions of learning represent a process of reflection within a chosen medium, rather
than a ‘direct mirror of what happens in the head’(p. 80). And this process can in
itself result in secondary learning (Moon, 2004). The representation of reflection
will differ depending upon the form in which it is presented –whether in writing,
speech, or drawing.
Learning can occur where there is no new material of learning by externalising
reflection, standing back from the event to re-present reflections on it, and then
looking again at how those initial reflections were represented. All the time, ideas
are being manipulated and reframed to deepen the level of reflection, where ‘depth
in reflection is characterised by increasing ability to frame and reframe internal and
external experience with openness and flexibility’(Moon, 2004, p. 100).
To encourage this framing and reframing, and to draw upon multiple intelli-
gences (Simons & Hicks, 2006) by the use of a broad range of forms of representa-
tion, reflective activities could involve iterative cycles of creative expression and
critical reflection on what has just been produced. Ways of reflecting experience
expressively could include drawing, collage, film editing, voice, and movement.
Subsequent critical reflection on these expressive outputs would ask questions such
as ‘what does it tell us, what meanings are suggested?’This may involve inviting
reactions or feedback. For this, we need a means of representing reflections and
feedback in different media, enabling multiple forms of annotation.
Digital reflection
The question we are exploring within Digitalis is whether digital technologies offer
opportunities to enhance and embed creative reflection (in terms of reflection on
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creative practice, and creative forms of reflection), and whether they could provide
pedagogical tools to facilitate ‘expressive’as well as ‘explanatory’modes of
reflection. We have developed a model of digital reflection to help us frame and test
our ideas (Figure 2).
We have arranged different types of digital technology along a continuum based
on the amount of ‘manipulation’of information that the digital technology requires.
Based on Moon’s suggestion that learning occurs in the presentation, re-presenta-
tion, organisation and framing of reflections, our premise is that digital technologies
that involve a high level of manipulation of information may actively facilitate a
process of reflection –provided that the technology is simple enough not to be a
distraction.
Technologies are organised into three broad categories. At the lower end of the
‘manipulation’spectrum are capture technologies. These are essential to record or
capture the things to be organised and reflected upon, whether that is a photograph,
video or audio recording. We can refer to the thing produced as a digital artefact.
In ‘looking again’at the digital artefact, a process of reflection may occur, but those
reflections cannot be annotated or represented. If the digital artefact stays on the
device it was captured on, and is not processed in any way, then there may be a
record of the thing-that-was-done, but there is no record of reflection. For example,
the choreography students captured information on their Flip camera. They told us
that they frequently watched the videos, or showed them to their dancers on the
camera, but there was no record of the subsequent reflection. In this case, the thing-
being-captured was creative practice –the development of a piece of choreography.
However, capture technologies can also record creative forms of reflection, such as
the embodied exploration of actor training that was documented by the Performer
Training students.
Figure 2. Model of ‘digital reflection’.
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Moving further along the manipulation spectrum are archive or documentation
technologies. These provide options to upload digital artefacts to something, which
may be as simple as a computer hard drive or storage medium. They provide lim-
ited opportunity for organisation, including choosing what to name something,
where to put it, and adding a simple level of description. These may also include
hosted archiving sites such as Flickr or YouTube, which provide more opportunity
for organisation in that longer descriptions, tagging, or comments can be included.
Either way the level of manipulation required or possible is limited. Archive tech-
nologies were used by Choreography and Performance Design students purely as a
means to an end; they uploaded video to a video hosting platform (YouTube or the
Leeds University equivalent, LUtube) but did not annotate it in any way. The Music
students, by contrast, used the LUtube comments function to write reflections on
their video, providing a level of organised reflection on their practice (but not an
‘expressive mode’of reflection).
At the highest level of manipulation are digital reflection mechanisms. These are
digital technologies that enable learners both to ‘look/listen again’to their digital
artefacts and to reflect on them. The reflection mechanism used could prompt
‘expression’, for example by the juxtaposition of image, text and sound; layering of
information; and making visual/auditory connections. This could be done in a play-
ful, improvisatory way as advocated in Tracey’s (2007) model, by putting in play
‘elements in a bricolage which afford insights through deliberate and careful juxta-
position’(Nelson, 2009, p. 121). Or the reflection mechanism could prompt the use
of ‘explanation’, so that the selection of visual material, the ordering and presenta-
tion of it, and any verbal/textual commentary all prompt the process of making
sense of what is being looked at. It should be noted that the medium for ‘making
sense’does not have to be restricted to writing –for example, students may record
their thoughts out loud onto a digital voice recorder or camera.
Digital reflection mechanisms may in themselves sit on a continuum of level of
manipulation –from blogs, which enable input and annotation of multiple media
but have built-in limitations in their linearity; to something like prezi.com
1
which is
literally a blank canvas. There is a dilemma here in that the ‘blank canvas’allows
for maximum facilitation of creative potential, but may also leave students feeling
‘lost’(particularly if they are not confident with the software). This echoes the
dilemma outlined earlier between providing ‘models’of creative reflection (Moon,
2009) against the creation of an open brief (Freeman, 2006). The more ‘structured’
options such as blogs may be easier for students to adopt initially. However, they
may ultimately limit opportunities to deepen reflection through framing and re-fram-
ing, as well as restricting students’personal creativity. This is a pedagogical
dilemma which may be familiar to any tutor within creative arts disciplines.
Looking at how digital reflection mechanisms have been used within Digitalis,
the Choreography students’digital reflection occurred on the VLE blog tool, in
which they had to think what to write about their video, including making links to
other practitioner videos, or relevant texts to explain (and therefore reflect upon)
how they were developing their creative work. One student described how ‘on my
blog it’s amazing how your ideas just go like tssh into different things and you can
put everything with your videos’. Another student commented that without the blog
‘you would have just looked at your camera and then had it on your computer, you
wouldn’t be like a process you wouldn’t be able to write and stuff and it wouldn’t
all be together’. Performance Design students used digital storytelling as an
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expressive reflection mechanism to select and organise images, and overlay spoken
narrative from the performance text. This process of creating a digital story proved
a valuable part of their design process, with one student telling us ‘I felt the process
of using it made me think about my script more.’The ability to layer visual and
auditory enabled them to construct a ‘felt’, emotional response to the text.
It should be pointed out that the model is not intended to represent a three-stage
process. Learners can move straight from capture to digital reflection without going
through a documentation stage, for example –especially with the use of mobile
devices which can capture and then blog something almost at the push of a button.
However, the easier it is, the less reflection may actually occur. For example, one
student told us that in the (long) time it took for her videos to upload, she was busy
writing ideas in her blog. In the same way as a painter is unconsciously developing
ideas while they prime their canvas, perhaps the digital reflector is forming their
ideas in the time that it takes to organise their digital artefacts.
Conclusion
The question that we have posed is whether digital reflection can meet the need for
pedagogical strategies that engage both expression and explanation modes of reflec-
tion on creative practice. To test this, we have developed a model of digital reflec-
tion which arranges types of digital technology along a ‘manipulation’continuum.
Types of technology that are relevant to creative reflection include ‘capture’,
‘documentation’, and ‘reflection’mechanisms that can facilitate both reflection upon
creative practice, and creative forms of reflection.
The Digitalis project has tested a range of these technologies. Benefits are
shown in enhanced reflection and creative process, with the digital capturing of
activity and process creating a ‘mirror’that enables students to ‘look again’. The
opportunity to ‘show’rather than explain is an advantage, in particular having a
record of the creative work in the same place as students’organised reflections.
Benefits in creative practice are observed, most explicitly where creative outcomes
are being pursued. Technical issues are of concern, and need careful thinking
through. Technology needs to be introduced gradually, as an integral part of the
work rather than an ‘add on’. Where incremental tasks are introduced by the tutor,
students are more successful in adopting the technologies. Ease of use and appropri-
ate technology for the type of creative practice are important pre-requisites. High
levels of digital literacy may not automatically mean high levels of reflection
(sometimes the opposite). Some students experience embarrassment when seeing/
hearing themselves, and both students and staff can experience feelings of overload
–particularly if they do not ‘take’to the technology or see it as ‘another thing on
top’. Blogs can provide opportunities for tutors to keep in touch in between
sessions, although time can be a restriction.
In summary, initial indications are that there are benefits to be gained through
digital reflection on creative practice, provided that the concerns identified above
can be addressed.
Note
1. Prezi.com is online cloud-based presentation software based on a zoomable canvas.
Multi-media items can be placed anywhere on the canvas and connections made
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between them. Presentations can be constructed to pan across the canvas in a user-
defined path between items, and to zoom in and out of detail.
Notes on contributors
Carole Kirk is Cultural Industries PhD Scholar within the School of Performance and
Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. A practising artist and skilled learning
facilitator, she managed the Digitalis project, which looked at ways in which digital
technologies can enhance and embed creative reflection. She has an MA in Management
Learning from Lancaster University and is particularly interested in reflection-on-practice,
and creative forms of reflection.
Jonathan Pitches is Professor of Theatre and Performance in the School of Performance and
Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds and is Director of Research for PCI. He was
Project Leader of the Digitalis project at the University of Leeds and has research interests
in digital reflection, documentation and the theory and practice of performer training,
beginning with Russian approaches to actor training and expanding out more recently to the
UK, USA and China. He is the founding co-editor of the Routledge journal, Theatre Dance
and Performance Training. His second edited book, Performance Perspectives (co-edited
with Sita Popat), was published by Palgrave in 2011.
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