Pushing the Boundaries of Reflection: The Answer’s on a Postcard

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Front Cover of Exchanges, The Interdisciplinary Research Journal

Article by Change Makers students published in University of Warwick journal, Exchanges.

Four Horizons Change Makers alumni have had their article, 'Pushing the Boundaries of Reflection: The Answer’s on a Postcard' published in a Warwick journal this month.

The article, written with Change Makers teaching fellows Dr Mark Pope and Dr Elizabeth Hauke, presents the 2019-20 student correspondence project Dear Change Maker. Dr Pope paired undergraduate students across Change Makers modules and gave them a blank postcard each week. The students’ brief was open - to reflect on their educational experience surrounding the modules with textual and visual representations. 

Hand-illustrated postcards being posted into 4 different red pillar boxes

The students used the project to draw attention to how approaches to reflective practice could be added to with a new method. The postcard, a medium popular in a bygone era, offers insight. The method encouraged reflection and created divergent modes of expression, starting with a completely blank postcard, the sender was free to add text and image(s) on the different sides. This generated a multi-modal activity that benefited from the potential of arts-based research, combined with an interactive peer-to-peer dialogue.

The project and its outputs have resonated with researchers, colleagues, partners and alumni and Dear Change Maker has been the subject of several conference presentations and seminars. The article in Exchanges represents the first academic publishing for each of the Change Makers alumni.

Read Exchanges (Spring 2024)

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Ms Cleo Bowen

Ms Cleo Bowen
Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication