Look no further. Most of this blog is nothing more than a ramble. What do the likes of Virginia Woolf, Norman Mailer and Henry Miller call it? 'Stream of consciousness' - a vomit of thoughts. There's rarely flow. I just find an idea is better off it isn't stored in my head.
No word count to stick 2. No critical eye seeking relevance. But this is not a tutor marked assignment. Just as well, 'writing up my reading ... in a descriptive formulaic fashion without exploring the content or the process .. [I] ... am going through' will not get a tick. Creme (2010)
Looking at all I grabbed or mentioned on reflection 10 years ago I can see that I had little intention of following the guidelines. My modus operandi is to get it down however it comes out. Not for me a flow chart of prompts to get me from confused to enlightened in six clear steps or a spin cycle set on 'Cool Wash' to get me round the bend and not quite back where I began.
I'm a Dewey man. I just "turn a subject over in the mind". If I get lucky I even dream about it. These dreams are so vivid that I have been searching through my notes over the last 24 hours determined to find a recording, notes and screengrabs from an EdTec session that I believe I attended online on Tuesday afternoon which doesn't exist. Maybe the dream version will do for something, though getting a screenshot from my mind might prove tricky.
'A reflective thought' is nothing more than an 'active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends' (Dewey 1933: 118). Read that back. An editor would limit this to an 'active, persistent, and careful consideration of something'.
REFERENCES
Creme, Phyllis (2010) 'Should student learning journals be assessed?', Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30:3, 287 - 296
Dewey, J. (1933/1998) How we think (Rev. ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.