Making connections: Promoting interactive content engagement through a reflective lens

This is authored by Tina-Maree Newlan | PhD Candidate & Lecturer in the School of Psychology

Context – why this mattered

Qualitative research practices often question and reflect on knowledge production and contribution. I feel that there is translational significance between reflective research practices and higher education teaching practices. My presentation discussed a novel, creative and reflective psychology assessment task, introduced for the first time this session. This task was designed to encourage student’s flexibility of mind and support their reflective and critical thinking, in ways that they might not usually expect in the subject I am teaching. Flexibility and reflective engagement have real-world relevance, in clinical spaces, but also in other interpersonal areas. Individuals rarely fit neatly into boxes of expectations and standardisation. I developed a post-assessment survey task, using the Brightspace survey tool, specifically aimed at seeking student feedback.

Human insight – What changed my thinking

I wanted to know whether students felt supported in the way I had approached guiding them with the task and whether the creative, novel task helped them engage more deeply with course content. The intention is to use the survey feedback and reflect on student’s responses, to inform some revision to the task scaffolding and task description for future sessions.

Practice – what I redesigned

Archambault et al. (2022) highlight the interplay of developing a relational online learning space, understanding idiographic needs of students, relevance and accessibility of content and bringing that altogether. Whilst their paper refers to teaching within a school context, I see the same principles of online pedagogy can apply to my university teaching practice. Their emphasis on learner-centredness resonated with me, with relevance to my scaffolding assessment tasks.

I keep a reflective teaching record, which much like a qualitative research journal, involves my reflective engagement with processes and approaches around my teaching. That includes sitting with thinking about what is working and what might not be working and what unique approaches might I introduce to capture students’ attention and engagement.

My Elevate experience

Participating at the SLOWposium afforded me the opportunity to actively think about why or how what I am doing might matter and potential relevance beyond my immediate subject context. It also pushed me outside my comfort zone, to have the confidence to present this, despite feeling unsure of the value of what I had to offer to more experienced staff. I really enjoyed seeing that other, more experienced staff were excited about approaching teaching and reflective practice in innovative ways. 

References

Archambault, L., Leary, H., & Rice, K. (2022). Pillars of online pedagogy: A framework for teaching in online learning environments. Educational psychologist, 57(3), 178-191.

This reflective blog post is part of the Faculty’s Learning and Teaching SLOWposium 2026: Elevate session. Continue the conversation by exploring the reflections of our fellow presenters and discovering new perspectives on learning and teaching. Read the other presenters’ reflections here.

You can download Tina’s presentation slides here