Student Reflective Practice: Building Deeper Connections to Concepts

Abstract

Reflective practice is highly regarded in education and other professional fields.  It centers on describing, analyzing, and evaluating our thoughts, assumptions, beliefs, theory base, and actions.  It is thinking about a learning task after you have done it how it applies to the content, and contextualizing it reality.  The benefits of reflective practice for educators are improvement of teaching practice, learning and greater effectiveness as a teacher, and improved problem solving and critical thinking skills.  This article will discuss the similar benefits that high school students can receive from participating in reflective practice.  It will suggest that through means of reflective journals, writing pieces, and portfolios, students improve their understandings of concepts, develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, and build connections to the content.  

Student Reflections: Building Deeper Connections to Concepts

            My classroom is quiet except for the light sounds of keys typing on a keyboard.  There is an occasional slight rustle of papers as students pour through their labs searching for data and information.  I move slowly through the rows of tables, looking over shoulders, commenting quietly on work, and answering a question here and there.  Suddenly Julie calls out, “Oh, I get Ms. Murphy!  I just had an aha moment”.  The other students stop and look up at her.  “What do mean by that?”  I ask.  “This lab makes so much more sense now.  Now I get what it was all about,” Julie responds. “Writing this reflection made me realize why planets go faster when they are closer to the sun.  It all has to do with more gravity!  I mean, I know you told us that before, but I didn’t really get it.”

            Julie and the other students are in my ninth grade Earth Science class.  They are typing structured lab reflections for a laboratory experience they conducted in the earlier period.  Julie is referring to the connections she has just made from the lab data she gathered to the objective and the conceptual knowledge in the exercise.  The “aha moment” is what I am searching for with this activity.  As their teacher, I see it as the proof that the students have a deeper understanding of what they have just learned.  From their reflections, I can see this was not just another lab where students simply follow steps to a procedure and submit it for a grade without truly understanding what they are doing.  By taking the time to reflect on the lab, they are building deeper connections to the concepts.

Reflection

            The term reflection has many different definitions depending on context.  Most commonly, reflection is defined as a thought occurring in consideration or meditation.  When related to learning, Rowntree, (1988), says reflection is studying one's own study methods as seriously as one studies the subject and thinking about a learning task after you have done it.  In any learning situation, he says, you should prepare for it beforehand, participate actively during it, and reflect on it afterwards. Fade states, “Reflection involves describing, analysing and evaluating our thoughts, assumptions, beliefs, theory base, and actions.  It includes looking forward (prospective reflection), looking at what we are doing now (spective reflection), and looking back (retrospective reflection)” (2005, p. 4).

            In the beginning of the school year, when I introduce the topic to my students I describe reflection as an exercise where you stop and think about the assignment you just did, why you did it, what you noticed about it, what you observed about the data you collected, what connections you made, and what you learned from doing it.  Reflective assignments make students think about what he or she is doing and how it applies to the content they are learning, as well as contextualizing it reality.  Reflection is personal and ideas generated will be very individual.  Not every student will notice, observe, or do things in the same way, but reflection provides the opportunity to question what they have learned and how they have come to learn it.

Reflective Practice

Reflective practice is a continuous process that involves the learner considering critical incidents in his or her learning or life experiences.  The concept is generally credited to Donald Schön with the publication of his book, “The Reflective Practitioner” (1983), where he stated that  “reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering one's own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline” (Schön, 1983).  Schön argued that the model of professional training that relied upon filling up students with knowledge then sending them out into the world of practice was inappropriate in a fast-changing world.  A reflective practice model would enable learners and novices within a discipline to compare their own practices with those of experienced practitioners, thus leading to development and improvement (Schön, 1983).

The term reflective practitioners usually refers to adults in a professional field, education, nursing, or legal, whereby they reflect on the strengths, limitations, and areas for growth.  In the education profession, it refers to the process of the educator studying his or her own teaching methods and determining what works best for the students.  Many teachers have gone through a teacher preparation program that centered on and around reflective practice.  It is integral in perfecting our lessons and becoming better educators for the students in our diverse classrooms. 

It was one day during my after school reflection on a particularly tough lesson that I had implemented and then assessed, that I had my own aha moment.  I began to wonder if there would there be benefits if my students engaged in a similar form of reflective practice with their lab experiences and other assignments.  If they took the time to stop and think about the lab, instead of just doing for the sake of doing, would that help them have a better understanding connect the ideas more meaningfully to the objective?  I thought about the idea of my students keeping a class journal, or starting a blog.  I was curious to see that if I did this, would my students be able to take ideas from their labs and connect them to the broader concepts found in the core curriculum content.  It was on this day that I began to create and implement several reflection activities and imbed them throughout my curriculum.

Benefits of Reflective Practice

Many articles, books, and websites publicize the benefits of reflective practice for adult learners, pre-service professionals, and current professionals alike.  In their book, “Reflective Practice in the Lifelong Learning Sector”, Roffey-Barentson and Malthouse (2009) identify benefits of reflective practice for educators.  I mention a few of these here because I believe that students who engage in a similar form of practice can obtain these same benefits.  

Improvement of teaching practice.  The first, and most important, is the improvement of teaching practice.  If educators take the time to reflect on their teaching, think about what worked for students, what limitations that they had, what sort of problems arose and how to change that for the future, their performance improves.  Additionally, their teaching style becomes more grounded.  Personally, I have found that this validates what works best for certain lessons, and the different strategies that I choose to use as I approach my curriculum.

Learning from reflective practice.  Secondly, teachers learn from reflective practice.  Purposeful reflection allows for deeper learning to take place, and it will help teachers make connections between different aspects of their teaching.  This enhances their overall effectiveness as a teacher.  By developing the ability to explore and be curious about our own experience and actions, we suddenly open up the possibilities of purposeful learning�"derived not from books or experts, but from our work and our lives (Amulya, 2003).  In the field of education, many of us learn by experience. However, reflecting on that experience deepens our personal growth and makes us more cognizant of that development.

Enhancing problem solving skills and critical thinking.  Teachers who reflect on their daily lessons will focus on the problems that arose, what went wrong with the lesson, or what could have been done better, or differently.  By analyzing these situations, the ability to problem solve improves.  By reflecting on these problems and contemplating how to correct it for the future, weighing the pros and the cons, decision-making is enhanced, especially if this is practiced over a long period.  Critical thinking is defined differently based on philosophical ideas, but it generally refers to the complex set of cognitive skills employed in problem-solving and intellectual consideration and innovation.  Reflective practice helps educators be aware of and revise what they reflect on to embrace changes in situations.  A useful strategy that assists us in finding solutions that work.  It is very easy for us to be stuck in the routine of day-to-day lessons, and continue to repeat the same ineffective lessons.  Making the time to reflect provides us with the opportunity to critically evaluate our methods and work towards positive changes.

Benefits for Students

             Reflection on what they know and do not know helps students to appreciate that learning is individual, (UKCLE, 2010), and that only they can make the connections to existing knowledge so that they make sense of the content or related assignments for themselves.  Students can benefits in a similar way that educators do from engaging in reflective practice.

Improvement of student practice. When teachers reflect on their teaching, as described above, their practice improves.  So therefore, students can experience this benefit when they reflect on their learning experience, especially in a science laboratory setting.  If they take the time to reflect on their procedures, think about what worked, what limitations that they had, what sort of problems arose and how to change that for the future, their student performance improves. They will obtain more success at these assignments in the future.  This validates what worked for them, what did not work, and the different strategies that they choose to use as they approach their assignment.

Learning from reflective practice.  Reflective learning is defined as a great or deeper degree of processing of material to be learned.  Compared to non-reflective learning, where material is simply taken in with little or no active thinking or understanding, (for example, memorization), reflective learning engages a large amount of the learner’s thinking or cognitive capacities.  It is the engaging in reflection for the explicit goal of producing learning out of the process, and the central tool for deriving knowledge formed through the experience (Herod, 2002).  By having students reflect on their assignments, their lessons, or their lab experiences, they make deeper connections to the concepts that he or she is learning.  It is at this point, where the assignment moves beyond the rote memorization or simple completion, that the students experience that aha moment.

Improved problem solving and critical thinking.  Students can certainly experience the improved problem solving and critical thinking skills that educators receive from reflection on their lessons, units, and curriculum.  The act of reflecting is a higher order process, and by engaging in it, students develop a level of consciousness that they can use to deepen their knowledge of content.  A study conducted by Lerch, Bilics, and Colley (2006) shows that students are able to develop, through reflective thinking, higher order thinking skills and the ability to analyze their own learning and start the metacognitive thinking that is necessary to be effective learners.  If students focus their reflection on analyzing the situations where problems arose, what went wrong or right with the assignment, or what could have been done better, or differently their problem solving ability improves, in much the same way as it does with educators.  

Suggestions for Student Reflection Activities.  Designing a practice of reflection means both clarifying the purposes it needs to serve and identifying opportunities to locate reflection in students work that are realistic and yet occur at the right intervals with sufficient depth to be meaningful.  Maintaining a practice of reflection, however structured, transforms the possibility of learning from work into a reality (Amulya, 2003).  Reflection activities in the classroom can range from daily to weekly, to bi-weekly, or can occur at varying intervals, for example at the conclusion of a unit of study.  The reflection activity can also vary.  The important piece is that the objective of the reflection assignment is clearly stated for the student, and that it occurs at some form of a regular time frame.  The following are suggestions for activities that can be implemented within the curriculum to engage students in reflection.

            Reflective journals or blogs.  Journal entries can be assigned in several formats.  One way is to have free-flowing entries where students can record thoughts, observations, connections, and questions in a journal throughout the lesson or unit of instruction.  This type of journal entry allows for student freedom of expression and should not be graded on accurateness.  The best use of this is to start the journal early in the year, if this will be a yearlong assignment or before the unit of instruction if this will be a unit assignment.  It is helpful to spend some class time explaining the benefits of journals to students such as enhancing observational skills, exploring thoughts, assessing progress and enhancing writing communication skills.  Students should make frequent entries.  Teachers can devise their own procedure for providing feedback, discussing issues presented in the journals, and how to improve student-written entries. 

            The same format can also be implemented in the blog form.  If a teacher has his or her own blog set up for the class, students can be assigned reflection responses in this format rather than hand written entries in a journal.  If it’s possible, borrow the school’s mobile computer lab and build in blog reflections as part of the class time, this way all students can learn how to do, and develop their 21^st century skills.

            Structured reflective writing pieces.  Another form of reflection is a structured writing assignment.  These writing pieces can be used to direct student attention to important concepts, questions, or to connect the learning with the lesson objective or content.  A structured writing piece may require certain prompts to be addressed, but it is a great way to write a laboratory reflection.  Given a few prompts to focus thought, students still have the freedom to reach their own connection, or that aha moment.

Reflective portfolios.  There are several ways to assign a reflective portfolio.  The overall design is for students to assess their growth, progress and increase this or her awareness of how their understandings and connections have developed.  A reflective portfolio can be assigned over the course of a unit of instruction, over a grading quarter of several units, or it can be an end of the course capstone project.  When creating a reflective portfolio, students choose from a range of completed work based on the criteria assigned by the teacher.  This can include homework assignments, lab experiences, test or quizzes, and/or classwork.  After compiling the collection of work that student’s feel highlights their experiences or their learning, they provide an analysis of it in their own words. They should reflect on why they selected the samples they did, focus on the content concepts that the work represents, and how they reached the point of learning.

Conclusion - Improving Student Understandings through Reflective Practice

The ultimate desired outcome of reflective practice is enhanced student learning.  Learning is broadly defined to include student’s capacities to think, their motivations to learn, and their effectiveness in engaging constructively with others and contributing to the world around them, along with the more traditionally defined measures of student learning.  In the push towards measurable forms of accountability, schools must not make the flaw of ignoring the broader and less easily measured array of dispositions, knowledge, and skills required for future life in a complex and diverse world (York-Barr et al., 2006).

For many students, doing swallows up learning.  Even staying aware of what we are doing does not itself create learning.  Learning is a purposeful activity, although not a complicated one.  Recognizing the necessary role of reflection in excavating learning from experience and becoming familiar with the basic elements of a reflective practice will allow students to begin to act on the notion that knowledge is embedded in the experience of their work, and to realize the importance of this knowledge in furthering their studies (Amulya, 2003).

Since the day that I had my own aha moment, I have implemented structured lab reflections, free-flowing journal entries, and a reflective portfolio at the end of every grading quarter. A direct quantitative study on the improvement of student’s understandings and connections is needed to verify its effect; student performance on unit exams and on lab-based experiences has improved.  Students, like Julie, have shared with me that although they have moved on to the next grade, they develop learning habits where they seek that connection to concept in other classes.  They look for that meaning and aha moment that gives them the ownership of the knowledge they have obtained.

References

Amulya, J. (2003). What is reflective practice? Retrieved from Learning for Innovation website:

 

Fade, S. (2005). Learning and assessing through reflection. Retrieved from University of Ulster website:

 

Herod, L. (2002). Adult learning: From theory to practice.  Retrieved from Adult Learning website:

 

Lerch, C., Bilics, A., Colley, B. (2006).  Using reflection to develop higher order processes.  Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association San Francisco, CA. Retrieved from:

 

McAlpine, L. & Weston C. (2000). Reflection: Issues related to improving professors’ teaching and students’ learning.  Instructional Science, 28(5-6), 363�"385.  Retrieved from:

Rowntree, D. (1996). Exploring open and distance learning.  New York, NY: Routledge-Farmer

 

Schon, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.

The UK Centre for Legal Education. (2010). What is reflective practice? Retrieved from the UK Centre for Legal Education website:

 

York-Barr, J., Sommers, W. A., Ghere, G. S., Monti, J. (2006). Reflective practice to improve schools: An action guide for educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

 

 

Author’s Notes

Kathleen R. Murphy is high school science teacher at North Salem High School in Westchester County, NY. She is doctoral student in Instructional Leadership at Western Connecticut State University; in Danbury, CT. Ms. Murphy has been involved in the curriculum writing initiatives for the North Salem Central School District at the high school science level.