Teaching Reflective Learning in Higher Education : A Systematic Approach Using Pedagogic Patterns

This book is about understanding the nature and application of reflection in higher education. It provides a theoretical model to guide the implementation of reflective learning and reflective practice across multiple disciplines and international contexts in higher education. The book presents research into the ways in which reflection is both considered and implemented in different ways across different professional disciplines, while maintaining a common purpose to transform and improve learning and/or practice. Readers will find this book innovative and new in three key ways. First, in its holistic theorisation of reflection within the pedagogic field of higher education; Secondly, in conceptualising reflection in different modes to achieve specific purposes in different disciplines; and finally, in providing conceptual guidance for embedding reflective learning and reflective practice in a systematic way across whole programmes, faculties or institutions in higher education. The book considers important contextual factors that influence the teaching of forms and methods of reflection. It provides a functional analysis of multiple modes of reflection, including written, oral, visual, auditory, and embodied forms. Empirical chapters analyse the application of these modes across disciplines and at different stages of a programme. The theoretical model accounts for students’ stage of development in the disciplinary field, along with progressive and cyclical levels of higher order thinking, and learning and professional practice that are expected within different disciplines and professional fields. The book provides: • A conceptual model for the application of reflection across disciplines in a variety of contexts. • Empirical examples of different modes and pedagogic patterns for reflection. • Guidance and support for embedding systemic pedagogical and curriculum change.

Introduction: Reflective and Reflexive Approaches in Higher Education : A Warrant for Lifelong Learning?

In our complex and incongruous world, where variety produces more variety, and there is no blueprint for dealing with unprecedented change, it is imperative that individuals develop reflexive approaches to life and learning. Higher education has a role to play in guiding students to be self-analysts, with the ability to examine and mediate self and context for improved outcomes. This chapter elucidates the catchphrase of lifelong learning and its enactment in higher education. Theories of reflexivity and personal epistemology are utilised to provide the conceptual tools to understand the ways in which individuals manage competing influences and deliberate about action in their learning journey. The case is made for the integral role of higher education teachers in developing students’ capacities for reflective thinking and reflexive approaches to learning as a life project.

Teaching and Assessing Reflective Writing in a Large Undergraduate Core Substantive Law Unit

The focus of higher education has shifted towards building students’ skills and self-awareness for future employment, in addition to developing substantive discipline knowledge. This means that there is an increasing need for embedding approaches to teaching and learning which provide a context for skills development and opportunities for students to prepare for the transition from legal education to professional practice. This chapter reports on a large (500-600 students) core undergraduate Equity law unit in an Australian University. ePortfolio has been embedded in Equity as a means of enabling students to document their reflections on their skill development in that unit. Students are taught, practice and are assessed on their teamwork and letter writing skills in the context of writing a letter of advice to a fictional client in response to a real world problem. Following submission of the team letter, students are asked to reflect on their skill development and document their reflections in ePortfolio. A scaffolded approach to teaching reflective writing is adopted using a blended model of delivery which combines face to face lectures and online resources, including an online module, facts sheets designed to guide students through the process of reflection by following the TARL model of reflection, and exemplars of reflective writing. Although students have engaged in the process of reflective writing in Equity for some years, in semester one 2011 assessment criteria were developed and the ePortfolio reflections were summatively assessed for the first time. The model of teaching and assessing reflective practice was evaluated in a range of ways by seeking feedback from students and academic staff responsible for implementing the model and asking them to reflect on their experiences. This chapter describes why skill development and reflective writing were embedded in the undergraduate law unit Equity; identify the teaching and learning approaches which were implemented to teach reflective writing to online and internal Equity students; explain the assessment processes; analyse the empirical evidence from evaluations; document the lessons learnt and discuss planned future improvements to the teaching and assessment strategies.

Sustainable Pedagogical Change for Embedding Reflective Learning Across Higher Education Programs

For pedagogical change to be sustained over time, and over the span of higher education courses, it needs to be framed widely, rather than ‘tacked on’. The framing includes curriculum reform and resource provision alongside staff pedagogical development. This is especially true for initiatives (such as reflective writing and assessment) that target broad-based, high-level skills and dispositions. For various reasons, such initiatives can easily become lost because of the discipline-specific focus of a syllabus outweighs the initiative, or because lack of resources compromises a desired approach. Course improvement in higher education contexts is typically difficult and episodic. In such circumstances, we argue that a strategic and trustworthy approach is necessary where practitioner-lead pedagogic development is fostered through trust and communication and is purposefully embedded within key dimensions of curriculum integration and resource provision. This chapter describes an approach to pedagogical change where curriculum, pedagogy and resources are simultaneously and collaboratively orchestrated to provide an effective framework for sustainable and effective change. A robust conceptual model is proposed to guide the implementation of such change.

Reawakening reflective capacity in the psychotherapy of schizophrenia : a case study

Disturbed sense of self has long been identified as a common experience among people suffering with schizophrenia. More recently, metacognitive deficits have been found to be a stable and independent feature of schizophrenia that contributes to disturbed self-experience and impedes recovery. Individual psychotherapy designed to target poor metacognition has been shown to promote a more coherent sense of self and enhanced recovery in people with schizophrenia. We provide a report of a 2-year individual psychotherapy with a patient suffering with chronic schizophrenia. Progress was assessed over the course of treatment using the Metacognition Assessment Scale and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. The patient experienced improved metacognitive capacity and reduced symptom severity over the course of therapy. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.

Analysing reflective text for learning analytics : an approach using anomaly recontextualisation

Reflective writing is an important learning task to help foster reflective practice, but even when assessed it is rarely analysed or critically reviewed due to its subjective and affective nature. We propose a process for capturing subjective and affective analytics based on the identification and recontextualisation of anomalous features within reflective text. We evaluate 2 human supervised trials of the process, and so demonstrate the potential for an automated Anomaly Recontextualisation process for Learning Analytics.

How does the use of a reflective journal enhance students’ critical thinking about complexity?

Introduction to Youth Services is a second year Social Work and Human Services unit. In this unit a reflective writing task was introduced to assess students’ reflections on an ongoing tutorial discussion to which they contributed. The discussion was based on a fictional young person each tutorial group ‘worked with’ across eight weeks of a semester. In developing the process and the criteria for the reflective journal, the ideas raised by the Teaching and Assessing Reflective Learning (TARL) in Higher Education project (see Chap. 2) were utilised, scaffolding the work with resources and submission of a draft. The students were also invited to choose the form of reflective process they used, it could be a written journal but did not need to be. The evidence exemplified that a reflective journal is an effective tool for students to record their developing understanding regarding the concept that issues people experience are complex and compounding. Importantly, it was also a useful vehicle for students to begin to consider the impacts of their own and others’ values and beliefs on their response to the issues raised within the case discussion. The reflective journal also helped participants to consider how this learning contributes to the ongoing development of their professional practice framework.

Enhanced student learning in accounting utilising web-based technology, peer-review feedback and reflective practices: A learning community approach to assessment

Higher education is becoming a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy. Maintaining the competitive edge has seen an increase in public accountability of higher education institutions through the mechanism of ranking universities based on the quality of their teaching and learning outcomes. As a result, assessment processes are under scrutiny, creating tensions between standardisation and measurability and the development of creative and reflective learners. These tensions are further highlighted in the context of large undergraduate subjects, learner diversity and time-poor academics and students. Research suggests that high level and complex learning is best developed when assessment, combined with effective feedback practices, involves students as partners in these processes. This article reports on a four-phase, cross-institution and cross-discipline project designed to embed peer-review processes as part of the assessment in two large, undergraduate accounting classes. Using a social constructivist view of learning, which emphasises the role of both teacher and learner in the development of complex cognitive understandings, we undertook an iterative process of peer review. Successive phases built upon students’ feedback and achievements and input from language/learning and curriculum experts to improve the teaching and learning outcomes.

Wikis for women's health: Social constructivist analysis of the effectiveness of online collaborative spaces for reflective learning

Public Health undergraduate students studying the unit Women’s Health undertook a teaching and learning exercise which required them to learn to create and use a wiki website for reflective learning purposes. The Women’s Health wiki provided an online shared, collaborative, and creative space wherein the students’ perceptions of women's health issues could be discussed, reflected upon, and debated. We analysed the content developed on the Women’s Health wiki using a social constructivist theoretical framework and provided a theoretical model for how the wiki worked to aid reflective and critical thinking, as well as developing technological and communicative skills amongst students.

Team building activities in dance and discoveries from reflective essays

The purpose of this study was to determine if using team building activities within a university Latin dance course enhances cohesion. Students (N=30) completed the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985), which measures group integration (individuals’ perceptions of the closeness, similarity, and bonding within the group as a whole) and individual attractions to the group in terms of both task and social cohesion. Students also completed an evaluation of the team building activities and wrote reflective essays about their experiences in the course. The course consisted of twenty 90-minute classes. In the third class students were provided an information sheet describing the research. In the fourth class the students completed a demographics questionnaire and the GEQ. The students completed the GEQ again during the ninth class. In classes 10 to 14 team building activities took up roughly the first third of each class. The students completed the GEQ again in classes 15 and 20. In class 16 the students completed the evaluation. The reflective essays were submitted two weeks after the last class. There were no significant differences across time in social cohesion. Group integration task, however, was significantly higher at times 3 and 4 compared to time 1. Students agreed that the team-building activities helped to bond class members, and felt it was valuable for these activities to be included in the unit in the future. The reflective essays indicated the students felt the team building activities improved social factors, and interpersonal, dance, and personal mental skills.

Narrative as a tool for critical reflective practice in the creative industries

This paper explores the efficacy of narrative in reflective practice across a range of creative disciplines. As practitioners within the creative industries the authors internalise experience and re-contextualise it as stories, designs, music videos, fiction and non-fiction films and dance. They are uniquely placed to examine narrative in critical reflection through the prism of their creative practice and in so doing offer insights into reconceptualising professional practice. The authors demonstrate how engagement with and reflection on and in their stories enables wider reflection. Their purpose in reflection is not just to learn from mistakes but to develop an epistemology of practice that enables them to apply rigorous academic inquiry to articulate their tacit professional knowledge and establish new methods for dealing with uncertainty in creative practice research.

Reflective perspectives: Negotiations at and within the borders of cultural difference: A post-qualitative inquiry of cultural hybridity within third space enunciations

This research explores the in-between space of intercultural collaboration between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia. Using critical and third space theories and a post-qualitative inquiry, I examine negotiations of cultural difference through articulated moments of intercultural collaboration in order to inform intercultural pedagogical practices. This research also explores how ideology, imbued through discourse, has the power to enforce or challenge cultural and social domination. This in turn creates cultural hegemony, a process whereby a particular social and cultural group has the power to influence the thoughts, expectations and behaviours of a particular society.

The creative suburb: A study in creative reflective practice

As long as population growth continues, policies for urban consolidation closer to city centres fail, and there is land available, Australians will continue to build in new Greenfield suburbs. However, the 50-year legacy of the homogeneous one-size-fits-all approach to suburbia beyond the sticks and sometimes hours away from where one can find a job, is proving unsustainable, the commute alone a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. The ‘creative suburb’ was inspired by the possibility to create new, innovative and entrepreneurial suburbs, places which are more self-sufficient and self-contained than the ‘product’ perpetuated down under even today. The ‘creative suburb’ draws on significant primary research with suburban home-based creative industries workers, vernacular architecture, and town planning in the Toowoomba region, in the state of Queensland, Australia, as inspiration for a series of new building and urban designs available for innovators operating in new suburban greenfield situations in Queensland and possibly further a field. This paper considers the role ‘creative reflective practice’ played in the process of developing the building and urban designs presented in a book and showcased in a building as creative outputs of this practice-led and property development industry embedded inquiry.

The Coming of Post-reflexive Society: Commodification and Language in Digital Capitalism

Language is a unique aspect of human communication because it can be used to discuss itself in its own terms. For this reason, human societies potentially have superior capacities of co-ordination, reflexive self-correction, and innovation than other animal, physical or cybernetic systems. However, this analysis also reveals that language is interconnected with the economically and technologically mediated social sphere and hence is vulnerable to abstraction, objectification, reification, and therefore ideology – all of which are antithetical to its reflexive function, whilst paradoxically being a fundamental part of it. In particular, in capitalism, language is increasingly commodified within the social domains created and affected by ubiquitous communication technologies. The advent of the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ implicates exchangeable forms of thought (language) as the fundamental commodities of this emerging system. The historical point at which a ‘knowledge economy’ emerges, then, is the critical point at which thought itself becomes a commodified ‘thing’, and language becomes its “objective” means of exchange. However, the processes by which such commodification and objectification occurs obscures the unique social relations within which these language commodities are produced. The latest economic phase of capitalism – the knowledge economy – and the obfuscating trajectory which accompanies it, we argue, is destroying the reflexive capacity of language particularly through the process of commodification. This can be seen in that the language practices that have emerged in conjunction with digital technologies are increasingly non-reflexive and therefore less capable of self-critical, conscious change.