Turning a facilitator's critical incident into student learning

Abstract

Self-study of teaching using critical reflection is fairly new. This article relates how a facilitator's own critical incident, which happened in a class of social work students in a Norwegian university college, was used at a later date to introduce critical reflection to the same class and how that promoted learning for both students and facilitator.

The critical incident is presented and reflected upon, and how it was introduced to the students is described. The article also contains a reflection on the facilitator's teaching approach in relation to experiential learning, social constructionism, empowerment and the structural context.

The author concludes that the articulation through critical reflection helped link espoused theories on education and theories-in-use and increased professional growth compared with slow-mode development by intuition.

Keywords:

• facilitator
• education
• social work
• critical incident
• critical reflection
• self-disclosure
• self study