reflection journaling and problem- based learning glen o’grady centre for educational development...
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Reflection Journaling and Problem-
based Learning
Glen O’Grady
Centre for Educational Development
Republic Polytechnic
*
Turn to your neighbour and share a reflection about this conference
So how did your neighbour chose to reflect:• Recall something that was said at the conference• How they feel about the conference• The task of having to reflect• Something about themselves • Choose not to share
I. The importance of reflection in learning
II. How PBL promotes reflection (RP)
III. Strategies for enabling deeper reflection
Importance of Reflection
• Means for turning experience into learning (Dewey 1916, 1920)
• Meta-cognition, accessing our thinking or "thinking about "thinking“ (Winn 1996).
• Looking to our experiences, connecting with our feelings, and attending to our theories in use. It entails building new understandings to inform our actions in the situation that is unfolding (Schon 1983).
• Reflection is the basis of Reflexion – purposeful action (Darling 1998: 3-4)
Importance of Reflection
Returning to experience - recalling or detailing salient events.
Attending to (or connecting with) feelings - this has two aspects: using helpful feelings and removing or containing obstructive ones.
Evaluating experience - this involves re-examining experience in the light of one's intent and existing knowledge etc. It also involves integrating this new knowledge into one's conceptual framework.
(Boud, 1985)
Importance of Reflection*
Substitute Sociology for your own discipline*
“A Reflexive Sociology is and would need to be a radical sociology. Radical, because it would recognize that knowledge of the world cannot be advanced apart from the sociologist's knowledge of himself and his position in the social world, or apart from his efforts to change these. Radical, because it seeks to transform as well as to know the alien world inside him. Radical, because it would accept the fact that the roots of sociology pass through the sociologist as a total man, and that the question he must confront, therefore, is not merely how to work, but how to live... The historical mission of a Reflexive Sociology is to transcend sociology as it now exists. In deepening our understanding of our own sociological selves and of our position in the world, we can, I believe, simultaneously help to produce a new breed of sociologists who can also better understand other men and their social worlds. A Reflexive Sociology means that we sociologists must - at the very least - acquire the ingrained habit of viewing our own beliefs as we now view those held by others." Harold Garfinkel has also approached this idea in an interesting manner with his contention that sociologists are like goldfish swimming in a bowl, confidently analyzing other goldfish, without having ever stopped to recognize the bowl and the water they have in common with the fish they study.
Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1970).
Conceptions of Learning*Conceptions of Learning*
A. Increasing one’s knowledge
B. Learning as memorizing & reproducing
C. Learning as applying
D. Learning as understanding
E. Learning as an interpretive process aimed at understanding reality
F. Learning “changing the person”
Willis 1993
“Learning is about
becoming...”
(Jarvis 1992)
Problem-based Learning
Prior Knowledge
Subject X
Subject X
Subject X
Subject Z
Syllabus
Instruction-based
Teacher Centred
Problem-based
Learner Centred
Teacher Student
Students
Instruct, discipline, assess
Team members
Facilitator
The Problem
(Curriculum-Ideas/Concepts)
Dissemination of Knowledge
Construction of Knowledge
Is PBL a fad?
Students’ processes for making sense (knowledge
construction)
Student's interpretation of knowledge
Student's interpretation of knowledge
Learning entails understanding knowledge (as experts know it),
To help students better understand pedagogy must focus on HOW understanding is constructed (make sense).
Making sense as a process is bringing to bear all that we are.
Learning how to learn is developed thru practice (with problems) & reflection.
Reflection
How PBL promotes reflection
Problem
Epistemology of PBL
Knowledge is not derived from an objective reality (where ideas/ facts just need to be “found” and “applied”)
Because knowledge is constructed
it can and must be critiqued and contested
Learning is when there is a personal and inter-subjective connected sense of knowing
PBL is a Reflective Pedagogy
The Teacher Facilitator Engages in the problem as a
learner
Admits to the precariousness of the discipline (since it is constructed) and welcomes the scrutiny of knowledge
Forgoes the privileged position of the person in control
Helps students to reflect upon how they know
Republic Polytechnic (RP-PBL)
One Day One Problem Approach
Class of 25, 5 teams of 5 Students define the problem and identify learning issues Students find information and discuss Facilitator checks on their progress Focus on learning difficulties & developing learning strategies Develop response based upon a shared team understanding Students prepare and present their solutions/explanations They observe how others have solved the problem Facilitators probes and critique and give additional information
where necessary Students reflect upon their learning
RP-PBL: Assessment
Presentations Self & Peer Evaluation Reflection journal Quiz Classroom Observation Students get feedback everyday
– Verbal feedback in class – Daily grade derived holistically– Written feedback
Students every month sit an understanding test
Module grade (combination daily grades and understanding tests).
Student Reflection Journals
Strategies for facilitating deeper reflection
Encourage regular reflection Use of questions to trigger reflection Use technology
1. Encourage regular reflection: Student Reflection Journals
Students Comments
Technology
We shape our tools and afterwards, our tools shape us.
We become what we behold.
Marshall McLuhan
Table 1. Four levels of reflective thinking (Mezirow, 1997).
Reflection
Habitual Action The learner engages in activity that is routinely and frequently conducted, with little conscious thought.
Understanding The learner acts to comprehend and apply knowledge within contextual constraints, and without recognizing personal significance.
Reflection The learner assesses the problem-solving process and uses this to make decisions about what is the best way to approach the problem, but without re-assessing assumptions on which beliefs are based.
Critical Reflection
The learner evaluates ideas and actions in light of the assumptions which underlie them (i.e., the reasons for, and implications of, them).
Non-reflection
Research on Quality of Student Reflection (Lisa Lim 2006)
Encourage regular reflection
Students’ perceptions of their reflective processes across three years
Year 3Year 2Year 1Year 0
cohort of student
17.00
16.00
15.00
14.00
13.00
12.00
11.00
Mean
Critical Reflection
Reflection
Understanding
Habitual Action
Encourage regular reflection
O’Grady (2009)
2. Use of Questions to Trigger Reflection: examples
What strategies have I used to help me learn? How well did I communicate with my team? What obstacles did I encounter today and how did I manage these
obstacles? How do I feel about my team mates? How could I have improved my team’s performance today? What insights did I gain about myself ? How do I feel about what I have learned and why? What prior knowledge did I apply to help me understand today's problem? I was confident / not confident today because…? What did I learn today about others that allows me to better understand
myself? Which feedback have I received that has had the most impact upon me
and why?
Effect of using Questions to Trigger Reflection*
Activity: Watch the video
(Link)
Attention and inattentional blindness (lesson: we get what we ask for)
Using technology in facilitating reflection
Use Technology
• Students are using technology to reflect (blogs & wikis).
• technology can also can be use it to capture and organise information (processes students employ for learning, & learning artifacts)
Using technology in facilitating reflection
*
What happens when you give back this information to students?
Can it facilitate better reflection and reflexivity, one that helps us to breakdown blindness & bias?
What about facilitators?
Can they use the information to better understand students learning?
Reflection: Your own reflection
References
Boud, D. et al (eds.) (1985) Reflection. Turning experience into learning, London: Kogan
Darling, I., (1998) Action evaluation and action theory: An assessment of the process and its connection to conflict resolution. pp 1-6. The on-line conference on "The reflective practitioner." Dedicated to Donald Schön on ACTLIST. 1st of March to 3rd of April.
Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 edn.), New York: Free Press.
Gouldner, Alvin, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1970).
Jarvis, P. (1992) Paradoxes of Learning. London: Jossey Bass.
Lim. Lisa-Angelique, (2007) Students’ Reflective Thinking in a Problem-Based Learning Environment: A Cross-Sectional Study. CDTL, National University of Singapore.
Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. How professionals think in action, London: Temple Smith
Winn, W. & Snyder D. (1996). Cognitive perspectives in pyschology. In D.H. Jonassen, ed. Handbook of research for educational communications and technology, 112-142. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan
www.myrp.sg/ced/ns/research_paper.asp
What does the learning process consist of?
Four-phase model
Inquiry Inference Analysis Argument
* Kuhn,