Roundtable: Assessing student learning: Using interdisciplinary synergies to develop good teaching and assessment practice

Sydney Masonic Centre

Tuesday September 4, 2007

Title: Journalism student as reflective practitioner

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Author: Marcus O´Donnell

School of Journalism & Creative Writing, University of Wollongong

Philosophy of Teaching Statements have been used widely in both undergraduate teacher education programs and tertiary teaching staff development programs. This paper looks at the adoption of the “philosophy statement” model in a new undergraduate journalism program. The Philosophy of Journalism Statement will be used as an ongoing assessment device each semester as a way of engaging students in a rolling reflective process. It aims to enable students to: (a) map their progress over the course of a degree program; (b) develop their identity as reflective practitioners; (c) make connections between different subjects particularly theory/practice links; (d) develop creative ways of communicating their values and experiences as journalists and (e) develop professional goals and aspirations. It forms one of the key planks in an overall model of curriculum development that will be briefly described. This “creative curriculum” emphasises multimodal communication, interdisciplinary skills development, authentic tasks, the construction of knowledge artefacts, and reflection-in-action.

This paper will describe the initial deployment of the Philosophy of Journalism Statement and address the development of a framework for assessment. Key questions arising from this project include: How do we assess reflective tasks? How do we assist students to integrate the personal, disciplinary and professional domains in reflective tasks? How do we develop and assess creativity in professional disciplines?

Keywords: reflective practice, philosophies of journalism, reflective assessment; creative curriculum.