I often (half) jokingly say I was absent the day they taught us to share in Kindergarten. I tend not to work well in teams because I get frustrated when team members don't pull their weight, and I don't like relying on others to get work done. However, there are huge benefits conducting research in a team, not the least of which is sharing insights and engaging in collaborative reflexive practice.
Barry et al. stood out to me this week. We informally engage in reflexive conversations, sharing insights, assumptions, and thoughts, and these conversations are always informative and generally move the work forward. Making this a formal practice could be extremely beneficial, but the concern that Barry et al. raise about getting team members on board is a real one. We are all so busy already, and I'm not sure how I would engage my team without making it feel like extra work or like an assignment.
That stated, I wrote my first skill builder on using Pinterest for teacher reflections, but I focused my article on researcher reflexivity. That shift was an interesting one to explore, and while I'm not sure I could get my current team to do it, it is something I want to refine to use for a fresh team.
What a great idea! I'm really intrigued with this idea of collaborative reflexivity, particularly as we consider that, as a research team, we each bring presuppositions that shape the research process and the team process. It seems critical, then, that we find meaningful ways to collaboratively engage in reflexivity.
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