Framing the Issue (Optional): a Opportunity for Critical Reflection

“Framing the issue” (optional): An opportunity for critical reflection

What is critical reflection?

As with anything, if you are to do it well, you must understand the nature of the task. In the words of Mezirow, who has devoted much of his work to the study of reflective practice,

When adults are said to be reflective, they are being asked to think seriously, or contemplate a thought or action. As adults our learning is the process of making meaning of life experience, which guides subsequent understanding, appreciation, and action.

(“Reflective Practice,” available at:

Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) is a process that is intended to guide you in the reflection of your life’s learning so that you can present that learning to assessors who have the expertise to assess the relevance of your prior learning to the credential that you are seeking at Athabasca University.

One of the cornerstones of the PLAR portfolio should be critical reflection. In order to help you critically reflect on your learning, we have created this opportunity for you. Following through these instructions should help you produce the desired piece of writing for your portfolio. It does not have to be very long, perhaps only 500 – 750 words (two pages, double-spaced, 12 pt font).

This piece should “frame the issue” of your learning

That is, it should extract from all the other pieces of your portfolio the critical importance of your learning – to your understanding of your past, your present, your future, and especially to your quest for credit toward your Athabasca University credential.

This piece will differ from the autobiographical essay/personal narrative in these ways:

It will not tell your life story.
It will not be written chronologically.
It will focus on connecting, analyzing, and interpreting your life’s critical learning incidents.
It will present a high-level, overarching view of your learning.
It will pull together past, present, and future.

What is a critical incident?

Brookfield (1990) describes critical incidents as situations or events that are vividly remembered and hold special significance for the writer. In other words, a critical incident is an important occasion that has created a memorable opportunity for learning. (Hint: Learning about oneself is hard. Learning about oneself is a step away from learning about a fact or a condition. Learning about oneself follows on the analysis of more basic learning. See the example that follows.)

An example of critical incident learning

Christopher was making his first presentation at an international conference. In addition to already being very nervous, he realized that he needed to make last-minute changes to his PowerPoint presentation. He arrived early at the presentation room but another presenter was already there. When he was able to access the presentation computer on the podium, Christopher was embarrassed to have to make the necessary changes. But he did so, and the other presenter proof-read on the big screen for him and helped him identify typos and spelling mistakes.

After the presentation, during questions, Christopher was terrified when some people asked him questions that he did not understand. To buy time, he asked them, in various ways, for clarification. As they talked further, they almost answered their own questions and Christopher was able then to contribute further information from his own knowledge of the topic.

Christopher learned several important lessons from this experience – not concerning his topic, but concerning human nature. He learned that:

Most people are happy to help you out.
He should have faith in his own ability to succeed.
People’s questions are often designed to air their own views, not question yours.
People often have their own answers and will share them if given a chance.

Christopher used his new knowledge in many ways. It propelled him to participate in other challenging professional situations. He became a polished presenter and was always able to draw the audience into his presentation because he opened the floor to allow them opportunities to speak. He never pretended to have all the answers, and built in places to ask questions. His demeanour, in these situations, was unassuming and open. From this precarious start, Christopher went on to develop not only a superb set of communication and interpersonal skills but also a high degree of confidence in his ‘public’ self. In later years, Christopher attributed his ultimate success as a politician to this learning.

How to write your own “framing the issue” piece

Follow these few steps to developing this important part of your portfolio:

1. From your “lifeline” (the diagram of important learning incidents in your life; see the piece on the autobiographical essay), select several meaningful critical incidents that you can further elaborate on.

2. Describe the impact and effect of these incidents on your growth. Keep focussed on the effect of these incidents on your learning and your decision-making. Refer to the effects of these incidents on subsequent life events.

3. Ensure that you make connections between the significant events that you describe. For example, if the first job you ever held, when you were 17, was in a drugstore, and you learned a lot about interpersonal communications from your interactions with others during that time, make sure that you bring that learning forward and refer to the ways that that learning stayed with you or contributed to future learning. Here’s an example:

June, age 24, was enrolled in an education program at university on her way to applying to graduate school to be a counselling psychologist. She wanted to work with children who were experiencing difficulty in their home lives.

One evening, when she and her husband were at his ball practice, he hit a long ball out of the ball diamond and it struck a car’s windshield, shattering it. The driver was not in the car and so they left a note explaining what had happened and giving their contact information for follow-up.

The car owners were very upset and angry (although they had been parked in a no-parking zone, probably because of proximity to the ball diamond) and threatened to sue June’s husband. As both June and her husband were at school, they were relatively poor and the thought of having a legal issue terrified them. June had a summer job working with legal documents at the local university and she began to research this kind of issue. The more she looked into her rights and the situation they were in, the more knowledgeable she became.

Ultimately, June wrote a letter to the car owners, explaining the legal issues around this incident. In the long run, after the incident was satisfactorily resolved, June changed her ambition and decided to become a lawyer. She applied to law school, got accepted, and graduated as a lawyer three years later.

The baseball incident was obviously a critical incident for June. If she were to write about it today, she would discuss the feelings of outrage and helplessness that she felt in light face of thinking about being sued. She would reflect on the strong and not always reasonable emotions that arise in incidents of property damage. Even now, as a practicing lawyer, she tries to put herself in the position of injured clients when they first arrive in her office.

This is a true story!

How the assessors will use your “framing the issue” piece

Your reflection will help assessors understand how you have made meaning out of your past experience. Writing this piece gives you a chance to extract the most meaningful parts of your experience from the wealth of past experiences and to bring them forward in a concise and coherent way. It allows you to set the tone for how you want the assessors to consider you as a learner.

Why is “framing the issue” optional?

This is a difficult piece to write because it requires a lot of thought and organizational ability. It draws from information already presented in other ways in other places in the portfolio. Not everyone will choose to take the time to write such a piece. You will not be penalized for NOT writing it, but writing it can be advantageous, if it is well done. Taking the time to write such a critical reflection can also be useful to you in thinking deeply about your life and about how or why you became the person that you did.

References

Broookfield, S. D. (1990). Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mezirow, Jack (1990). How Critical Reflection Triggers Tranformative Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc.