Debriefing in Experience-based Learning

Article summary

Pearson, Margot, and David Smith. "Debriefing in Experience-based Learning." Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. eds. David Boud, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker. London: Kogan Page, 1985. 69-84.


In this chapter, the authors detail their philosophical and practical approach to debriefing, a formal method of processing experience. It seems to be directed toward workshop leaders who might be called on to lead debriefing sessions. They acknowledge the roots of the term and technique in military practice. Here is the author's simple rationale for debriefing: "Simply to experience, however, is not enough. Often we are so deeply involved in the experience itself that we are unable, or do not have the opportunity, to step back from it and reflect upon what we are doing in a critical way" (69). They contend that debriefing has a "central importance" in experience-based learning.

The authors detail important characteristic of debriefing--things like debriefings are underlain by intent related to learning, that they can come soon after the experience or later, that it means the cessation of the experience, that it often takes and needs as much time or more than the experience itself, that there is formal and informal kinds of debriefing.

Three stages in the debriefing process are identified and discussed:
1) What happened--describe what happened
2) How did the participants feel?--explore personal and interpersonal feelings
3) What does it mean?--involves generalizing from the experience (72-73)

We can see a direct relation of these three phases of debriefing to the three stages of Boud, Keogh, and Walkers Reflective Processes within their model of reflection: 1) Returning to experience, 2) Attending to feelings, 3) Re-evaluating the experience. Interesting.

The authors have an interesting section on "Debriefing, Knowledge and Ways of Knowing." They provide a brief taxonomy of epistemology--of the different ways of knowing. Referring to Habermas, they talk about three ways in which we come to know: 1) empirical observation, 2) conventional knowledge, 3) through language (or dialectic). They go on to describe a fourth way of knowing that they say "concerns knowing about ourselves, our theories and our actions within the context of the wider world." They label this as "critical knowing" and say it depends upon meanings though language, but it is more than interpretive understanding: "Critical knowing is concerned with a critical understandings of the self, the manner in which we act, and the personal theories that inform our actions. ... The result of critical knowing is a more conscious awareness of why certain actions have taken place, the ideological or theoretical basis of the actions and whether there are more appropriate or effective action strategies that might be used" (74, 75). This critical knowing seems to be the goal that Schon seeks for the "reflective practitioner" and could be called practical wisdom or phronesis. The authors discuss that the debriefing process should know what kind of knowledge it is seeking to achieve and adjust its activities to meet that learning goal.

Assessment
I had not thought of the term "debriefing" before, but it fits as another term to describe post-experience processing that Boud labels as reflective by its nature. I can see how his article would be important in Service Learning as well as in critical incident processing such as in nursing education. It also relates to the "constructive reflection" represented in a portfolio letter. It differs because debriefing by its nature is facilitated and social, whereas portfolio letters tend to be assigned (but not facilitated) and private. I believe that Linda Adler-Kassner conducts a reflective debriefing with her teachers after each semester that fits with what this article is about. The article points to the importance of this processing of experience and the importance of careful leadership by the teacher or facilitator.