This presentation material was developed for the live session at the Learning Ideas Conference 2021. Cite This Item: Cheong, S. M.-C., & Lang, A. (2021, June). Digital Autobiographical Reflexivity: A Collaborative and Social Learning Design Strategy in UK higher education [paper presentation]. Live session in the Learning Ideas Conference 2021, Columbia University (Online session), New York, United States of America.

1. Welcome to the Session
Digital Autobiographical Reflexivity: A Collaborative and Social
Learning Design Strategy in UK higher education
Stella Mi-cheong Cheong and Adam Peter Lang
(University College London, Institute of Education)
Engage on twitter:
@stellarcheong
@AdamLang78
@IOE_London
Live Tweeting:
#learningideasconf
#autobiographicalreflexivity
#sociallearning
#activeandcompassionatecitizen
“Paying Homage to Hugh Starkey”

2. ADAM IS…
I AM A FORMER HISTORY AND CITIZENSHIP SCHOOL
TEACHER AND SCHOOL LEADER. I WAS FOR OVER
THIRTY YEARS A LONDON SECONDARY TEACHER AND
FOR TWENTY OF THOSE A SECONDARY SCHOOL LEADER
WORKING IN A RANGE OF DIVERSE LONDON SCHOOLS.
YOU CAN NOW FIND ME AT UCL WORKING AS A
DOCTORAL RESEARCH SCHOLAR AND TEACHING ON
CITIZENSHIP PROGRAMMES. I AM ACTIVELY INVOLVED
WITH A NUMBER OF ORGANISATIONS INCLUDING BERA
AND THE DIALOGUE SOCIETY. I AM ALSO AN
EDUCATION LEADERSHIP CONSULTANT ENGAGED WITH
A NUMBER OF NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
PROJECTS. I WRITE AND COMMENTS IN THE MEDIA ON
EDUCATION.

3. 3
SPEAKING
ENGLISH

4. JEREMY
BENTHAM

5. 5
The Great Plague: scenes
in the streets of London,
1665-1666
(Image credit: Getty Images)

6. 6
MY RESEARCH

7. STELLA IS…
I AM A HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION
SCHOLAR, DATA STORYTELLER AND
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIST. I AM
WORKING ON BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH OF
PEACEBUILDING CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN
THE CONTEXT OF KOREAN REUNIFICATION.
MY RESEARCH INTERESTS ARE
PEACEBUILDING CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION,
CIVIC IDENTITIES, DATA ETHICS, DIGITAL
CITIZENSHIP, TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED
PEDAGOGY AND AUTO/BIOGRAPHICAL
RESEARCH

8. 8
• Regime (sovereignty) division- Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Republic of
Korea (South Korea)
• Civic identity division- the citizens of North and
South Korea
• Ideological division- communist North and
capitalist South
(38th Parallel)
DIVISION SYSTEM
Although the Korean War (1950-53) was ended by an armistice agreement, the division system was fortified by the Korean Demilitarized Zone
where the largest number of 1.5 million troops was still deployed on the planet and two Koreas are technically at war for over seventy years

9. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE KOREAN CIVIC
IDENTITIES
• Division system -the
complexities of interrelations
among the world system, the
Cold-War system and North-
South Korean system(Paik, 2011)
• People on both sides develop a
division habitus that sees
Koreans from the other side as
inferior; enemies;
untrustworthy
9
DIVISION HABITUS
(CONFLICT CIVIC IDENTITY)
Civic identity
• A sense of civic self fostered
by interplaying socially
constructed norms and
conditions and individually
internalised values, beliefs,
tastes, dispositions and
experiences
• The outcome of civic habitus
• Civic Habitus based on
democracy and humanitarian
ideals (Hongik-Ingan ideology)
• Cosmopolitan values- peace,
human rights and democracy
(Osler & Starkey, 2005)
(source: author constructed division epistemologies, based on Paik’s (2011, 2013 a, b) identification of division system)
UNITY HABITUS
(PEACE CIVIC IDENTITY)

10. CHINA
NORTH
KOREA
SOUTH
KOREA
THIRD
COUNTRIES
(e.g., Thailand)
ENGLAND
MONGOLIA
10
• Figure 1. Transcriptions of seven biographic narrative interviews
• Figure 2. Screenshots of mobile platform for autobiographical writing, Reprinted with permission from participants
RESEARCH DESIGN
Biographic Narrative Interview
Digital autobiographical writing

11. 11
• Core Components of
Peacebuilding Capacity ⎼
realising, enabling, reflecting,
reconciling, thriving, transforming
and bridge-building capacity
• The Adaptation Strategies ⎼
mobility, self-reflection, resilience
and learning agility
PEACEBUILDING
CAPACITY CREATION
MODEL (PCCM)
Cf. Cheong, S.M.-C (forthcoming, 2021). On Becoming Bridge Citizens: Imagining PeacebuildingCitizenship Education in the context of Korean Reunification
[Unpublished doctoral thesis, University College London].

12. Part I
Understanding Digital
Autobiographical Reflexivity
12
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part II
Telling the stories on citizenship
education
Part III
Group Discussion

13. 13
Part I
Understanding Digital
Autobiographical Reflexivity
Stella Mi-cheong Cheong (UCL-IOE)

14. 14
The Great Plague: scenes
in the streets
of London, 1665-1666
(Image credit: Wellcome Collection)

15. 15
DOING DIGITAL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
Reflexivity?
Cf. Archer, M. S. (2012) The Reflexive Imperative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The use of a critical, self-aware lens
to interrogate both the research
process and our interpretation of
participants' lives in our social
world.

16. 16
• Sociological autobiography
"to tell one's own history within the larger history of one's
one's time"(Merton, 1988:18)
• Private deliberations in a public space (Rainford, 2016)
• Digital life writing operations are beginning to change
how we understand our thinking about security,
citizenship and identity itself (Poletti & Rak, 2014)
• Citizen-curators (O’Neill, 2017: 34)
Digital
Autobiographical
Reflexivity
DOING DIGITAL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH

17. 17
Epistemic
Reflexivity
Retrospective
truth
Authenticity
Multimodal
digital
ensemble
Modal
Affordance Key Features
of Digital
Autobiographic
Approach
DOING DIGITAL AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
RESEARCH

18. 18
Cf. Healey M. (2005) Linking research and teaching to benefit student learning. J Geogr High Educ. 29(2):183-201. doi:10.1080/03098260500130387
RESEARCH-TEACHING NEXUS

19. 19
Digital Reflexive Journaling
DATA COLLECTION
Semi-structured Online Discussion Discussion with a guest lecturer
(Reprinted with permission from participants)

20. 20
We eat differently. We mourn
differently. Many of us think
differently. We love at a distance.
Our eyes have opened to the
things we did not want to see yet
many of us knew.
(Cheong et al., 2021:308)
“ “
Cf. Cheong, S. M.-C., Palacios, R., Beye, K., Lang, A., Saud, N. S., & Tong, Y. (2021). Collective autobiographical reflexivity on active and
compassionate citizenship in the COVID-19 crisis. Perspectives in Education, 39(1), 304-322.
N.A.R.R.A.T.I.V.E

21. 21
SOCIAL
LEARNING
THEORY
“Children’s
internalisation of social
values (Piaget,1952; Vygotsky, 1978)
through observation
and modelling” (Bandura,
1969)
• Sociallearninginvolveslearningbyinteractingwithotherpeople
• Action, reflection, communication and negotiation (Wildemeersch
2007)
• Individual and collective ways of thinking (e.g., empathy and sympathy
among learners) (Wals, 2010)
• Reflexivity as cognitive capacities (e.g., knowledge and past experience (Bastrup-
Birk & Wildemeersch, 2011)
• Enhance democratic participation
its potential for effecting maximal engagement of both individual and citizenry capacities
(Wildemeersch & Vandenabeele, 2007).

22. 22
IMPLEMENTATION TO TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCE
CURRICULUM
Cf. Fung, D. (2017/2020). A connected curriculum for higher education. UCL Press.
Digital models from
research to support
teaching
Students working on
their own citations
Contribute to data
capture and analysis
Creating their digital
presence
Online collaboration
opportunities
Students learning to use
digital design tools
Developing an e-portfolio
as part of a CV
Online collaboration in
workplace projects
Learning analytics provide
feedback to staff and
students
Digital skills applied to
authentic problems

23. 23
Part II
Telling the stories on
citizenship education
Adam Peter Lang (UCL-IOE)

24. 24
VOICES OF THE YOUNG
Retrieve video from https://youtu.be/JHKpkq6FqRw

25. 25
RESEARCH APPROACH
• Conducted research between May and
July 2020
• Citizenship Amid the COVID-19
Turmoil (citizenship, hate speech (Waldron, 2012), economic
and political populism (Zembylas, 2020), decoloniality (Mignolo, 2011)
and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement)
• Six scholars’ autobiographical
narratives (China, South Korea, the Philippines, the United
States, Nepal and the United Kingdom)
• Semi-structured online discussion and
digital reflexive journaling
• Discussion with a guest lecturer
Research Design
“How has the global health
crisis shaped people's civic
identities and how can
citizenship education be
reframed to respond to
these challenges?”

26. 26
KEY WORDS
• Citizenship education
• Active citizenship
• Compassionate citizenship
• Civic identities
• Digital autobiographical reflexivity
• COVID-19 crisis

27. 27
REIMAGINING EDUCATION
• Digital technology- potential to be positive and negative
• Inclusion vs Exclusion
• Structures
• Behaviours
• Cultures
• Protocols

28. 28
IMPLICATIONS
• Pandemic can be revelatory, but can it be transformational
• Curriculum
• Examinations
• Assessment
• Teachers
• Learners

29. 29
• All human beings can be citizens; however, individuals can specifically be active citizens
when they begin to value citizenship (Starkey, 2019)
• Education for action and compassion also entails education with compassion:
citizenship educators must ensure that the students they teach are heard, seen and
empathised as equal citizens
• Education for active and compassionate citizenship can equip young people with the
moral imagination they need to be participatory civic agents and moral agents.
Cf.Tronto, J. C. (2013) Caring democracy: Markets, equality, and justice. NYU Press;
Waghid,Y., & Davids, N. (2012) Reimagining democratic citizenship education:Towards a culture of compassionate responsibility.
Perspectives in education, 30(4): 19–28.
REIMAGINING EDUCATION FOR ACTIVE AND
COMPASSIONATE CITIZENSHIP

30. 30
LEARNING FROM OUR STORIES

31. 31
Part III
Group Discussion
Stella Mi-cheong Cheong & Adam Peter Lang (UCL-IOE)

32. 32
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
• [Q1] Could you share your experience if there is a module in your organisation or
institution that applied autobiographical reflexivity? What was effective and in what ways
did it need to be improved?
• [Q2] How did the pandemic affect teaching and learning in your organisation or
institution?
• [Q3] How much collaborative and social learning strategy is applied to your organisation
or institution? What is the biggest challenge in implementing this?
• [Q4] How will, learning from the pandemic, you and your organisation or institution
change your practices going forward (i.e., Hybrid learning) ?
• [Q5] Compassionate and active citizenship for the future – What are your views?
*Interactive online board for discussion

33. REFERENCE
• Alvesson, M.A. (2018). Reflexive methodology : new vistas for qualitative research. Mats Alvesson, Kaj South Koreaöldberg (Third edition. ed.): Los Angeles :
SAGE.
• Archer, M.S. (2009). Conversations About Reflexivity. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Bandura, A. (1969). Social-learning theory of identificatory processes. Handbook of socialization theory and research, 213, 262.
• Bastrup-Birk, H., & Wildemeersch, D. (2011). Navigating the tides of change: revisiting the notion of reflexivity in the context of social learning for
transboundary collective experimentation. Studies in Continuing Education, 33(3), 219-234.
• Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J.-C., & Passeron, J.-C. (1991). The craft of sociology: Epistemological preliminaries. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
• Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Cheong, S. M.-C., Palacios, R., Beye, K., Lang, A., Saud, N. S., & Tong, Y. (2021). Collective autobiographical reflexivity on active and compassionate citizenship
in the COVID-19 crisis. Perspectives in Education, 39(1), 304-322. https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i1.19
• Conole, G. (2013). Digital identity and presence in the social milieu. Paper presented at the Pelicon conference, 2013, 10–12th April, Plymouth.
• Conole, G. (2014). Learning design: A practical approach. London: Routledge.
• Finlay, L. (2017). Championing “reflexivities”. Qualitative Psychology, 4(2), 120.
• Greene, M. V., & Park, G. (2021). Promoting Reflexivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 5(1), 23-29.
• Rainford, J. (2016). Becoming a doctoral researcher in a digital world: Reflections on the role of Twitter for reflexivity and the internal conversation. E-
Learning and Digital Media, 13(1-2), 99-105.
• Starkey, H. (2019). Learning to Live Together: Children’s Rights, Identities and Citizenship. In K. Edge (Authors), Transnational Perspectives on Democracy,
Citizenship, Human Rights and Peace Education (pp. 179–196). London: Bloomsbury Academic. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350052369.ch-009
• Urban, P. (2020). From diary narrative to the referential Self: how questionnaires and quizzes reshaped online self-writing. Media, Culture & Society, 42(5),
777-788.https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720914033
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society, the development of higher psychological processes .Oxford: Harvard University Press.
• Wankel, L.A. and Blessinger, P. (2012), "New Vistas in Higher Education: An Introduction to Using Social Technologies", Wankel, L.A. and Blessinger,
P. (Ed.) Increasing Student Engagement and Retention Using Social Technologies (Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, Vol. 6 Part B), Emerald
Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 3-16. https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1108/S2044-9968(2012)000006B003
• Wildemeersch, D., T. Jansen, J. Vandenabeele, and M. Jans. 1998. Social learning: A new perspective on learning in participatory systems. Studies in
Continuing Education 20, no. 2: 25165.
• Wildemeersch, D. 2007. Social learning revisited: Lessons learned from North and South. In Social learning: Towards a sustainable world, ed. E.J. Wals, 99-
116. Wageningen Academic Publishers.

34. Thank you for engaging in our session!
Do Stay in touch
Adam Peter Lang, @AdamLang78
Stella Mi-cheong Cheong, @stellarcheong
Live Tweeting:
#LIC2021
#autobiographicalreflexivity
#sociallearning
#activeandcompassionatecitizen