Reflection Journaling and Problem- based Learning Glen O’Grady Centre for Educational Development Republic Polytechnic [email protected].

Reflection Journaling and Problem-

based Learning

Glen O’Grady

Centre for Educational Development

Republic Polytechnic

[email protected]

*

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

[email protected]

What does the learning process consist of?

Four-phase model

Inquiry Inference Analysis Argument

* Kuhn,