Blogs in Practice ...

Well the Blogging project is underway. Interesting. Aside from a few technological hiccups getting started with invitations.....people seem to be using the technology to bring peers together to discuss professional practice issues. One thing that seems to be hitting me is to what extent are people working to the minimum standard given that we have set some guidelines. Another question I have is to what extent are people hiding behind hidden windows. The Johari Window is really relevant here in its connection to developing clinical practice. Here are a couple of sites explaining it in more detail for those that are unfamiliar.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/johari/johari_window.html

Luft in the 50s talks about the hidden window and how we often keep things hidden from others in order to 'look good', 'appear in control', 'competent' etc... and in other cases, refrain from sharing insights with others because of 'fears', 'nerves', 'role confusion' and thus leaving them in performance blind spots. To really maximise the utility of using peers to coach us through difficult professional practice issues, we really need to be in the 'open window', according to Luft. This means through self - disclosure, and a bit of humility recognising that we can't possibly know everything, we can actually accelerate our clinical competency. After all, what is factual when it comes to professional practice decisions? So much of this is art, situated in the context that we are experiencing, so is there ever a correct answer or approach. The only way to validate this is by asking others (supervisors usually arent' asked because of evaluation tension), in particular our peers cause they are not in evaluative roles. So I wonder if students really grasp the opportunity they have to Blog. That is, taking all this theory they have learned, and then using a Blog group (community of practice) to help them with the transfer of theory to clinical practice...which is quite different.