Thank you, Lewis,
I have read your paper with interest because it so much reflects where I am in my current thinking. In writing about reflective learning and critical thinking, I have found myself challenged both times to consider how to explain these concepts. I came to the conclusion that we cannot always explain everything in language. Lanugage does not always 'go there'. However, as one often hears, 'one can recognise good writing/ a good essay / good reflective writing / good critical thinking when one sees it'. So there is something there that is recognisable even if it is not possible to put it into language.
I think that there are two valuable mechanisms for facilitating learning here - that we are not good at using.... there is showing eg good and poor examples of the matter, the second is encouraging comparison of good an poor or good and not so good in a situation of discussion in which the comparisons are identified - 'what is the difference....'. In this way the tacit ideas dance around in amongst the harder elements of language in the discussion and can be perceived and hopefully captured. I know, Lewis, that you have engaged in an exercise in which I used these methods. I believe that the same kind of method could be used with essay writing . It is written up in 'The use of graduated scenarios to facilitate the learning of complex and difficult-to-describe concepts' Art and Design in HE 8 (1) - not quite yet published.
In addition, I am currently trying to write about the role of story in higher education (hardest task yet!), and I have come to think that one of the reasons why story is so much part of humanity is that a story contains a much greater proportion of 'unspoken' - (OK - or tacit material than) than, say, to an exposition in which the effort is largely to be explicit. By the unspoken content I mean emotion, atmosphere, visualisation, prompts to imagination, prior knowledge and conceptions and so on. This means that a story carries more information than the words that express it - and in a sense, is a more efficient carrier of information.
with good wishes
Jenny
Dr Jenny Moon, Associate Professor, Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University.
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