Building Reflective Practice into Student Learning
~~~~~!"~~~~~
Georgina Fyfe
School of Biomedical Sciences
Curtin University
Over the last two years I have gradually introduced reflective practice into the
curriculum of two first year service units for Medical Imaging students. I now
provide opportunities at the end of each class for students to assess their learning
and to suggest reasons to explain their assessment ranking. After each lecture,
prac and tutorial students complete a quick assessment. I also ask them to reflect
on their performance in each practical test through the semester, to identify areas
of weakness and suggesting strategies to overcome them. Students who choose to
use this well can accumulate information about factors which influence their
focus, and also have a record of areas of the syllabus which will require more
revision than other areas.
With the students’ permission, I collated summary information from reflection
activities and have asked for feedback in end-of-semester evaluation. I asked the
students at the end of the last semester if they used the reflection opportunities to
help their learning. Some did not find them useful but the majority said they did,
and one unsolicited comment stated:
“..wouldn’t have done reflection if we didn’t have to, but it did help”
One surprising result of the collated information is the number of students who
gave internal rather than external reasons for performance. For example, instead
of blaming the boring lecturer or the difficulty of the subject matter, many
students identified their own lack of focus, tiredness or distraction as key reasons
for lowered learning outcomes.
At the round table I propose to share the strategies I have used for incorporating
reflective practice into student learning, to present summaries of collated student
information, and to facilitate discussion about the effectiveness of these strategies
in helping students to learn.
Introduction and background
Reflection has long been postulated as being useful in the learning process (Batts & Wilkes,
1993). Refection “illuminates what has been experienced” and provides “a basis for future
action” (Raelin, 2001). The literature reports the incorporation of reflective practice involves
students using written or videotaped journals (Hewson, et al 1999). However, I needed to
develop a system to allow quick, immediate, easy and frequent reflection by students in a
form which they could use to quantify their learning experiences.
Developing reflective practice skills in university learners from the outset of their course will
give learners opportunities to hone these skills throughout their learning lives. However,
service units which provide fundamental information at the beginning of an applied course of
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Teaching and Learning Forum 2002: Focusing on the Student
study can rarely afford to allotted time for the maintenance and monitoring of reflective
journals and similar accepted techniques.
Human Biology units in the first year of the Medical Imaging course at Curtin University are
service-taught by the School of Biomedical Sciences to approximately 65 students per year.
The two units cover a syllabus based on systematic functional anatomy, with an emphasis on
musculoskeletal structures in the first semester and organ functions and relationships in thorax
and abdomen in second semester. I have taught these units and worked with Medical Imaging
students for the last 11 years, and this has provided me with opportunities to observe student
learning and try out some ideas for improving learning outcomes with this group of students.
The incorporation of reflective learning opportunities into classwork was prompted by two
observations; attributing their learning to external factors, and deferring learning
Attributing their learning to external factors
It has been my experience that students will often attribute their performance in particular
units to external factors such as; a boring lecturer, uninteresting material, the timing of the
lecture or poor unit organisation. While these may be perfectly valid contributing factors, they
are also factors over which students have little or no control. When students attribute positive
or negative learning experiences to internal factors such as preparation for class, concentration
and focus, late nights or off-task chatting, they have identified something over which they
have control. If we can get students to focus on internal factors about their learning
behaviours, they can develop strategies to deal positively with those behaviours.
Deferring learning
Access to photocopiers and web-based lecture notes gives students opportunities to defer
focussing on material presented in class. They can let their mind wander because they can
download the notes at some later stage. Asking students to evaluate their learning at the end of
a lecture, tute or lab requires them to focus more on the learning they do in class rather than
the study they do at home, which often occurs after a significant time lapse.
I wanted to offer students opportunities to do quick reflections at the end of each class in
order to help them focus on internal factors which they can identify as being positive to their
learning, and to address learning problems or misunderstandings before too much time has
elapsed.
Reflective learning opportunities provided to students
The opportunities provided to students to reflect on their learning occurred formally at the
conclusion of each lecture, practical class and tutorial. They took the form of reflection bars
which students filled in to represent their achieved learning for that class, and prompted them
to think of factors which influenced their achieved learning score. Representations of the
reflection bars are shown below;
Teaching and Learning Forum 2002: Focusing on the Student
Lectures
Learning Rating for this lecture
Low High
Reasons
Tutorials
Personal Grading for this tute sheet
poor v.good
Reasons
Practicals
Practical One Checklist
Things to follow up……
Learning Rating Prac 1
I wasted time I worked well
and didn’t & learned
learn enough heaps
The students are tested on practical material three times in the first semester and twice in the
second. After the first practical test in each semester I asked them to reflect on their
achievement in the test and consider possible contributing factors, both positive and negative.
They first stated their score in the test, and rank it on a scale from higher to lower to indicate
whether their score was as expected. I then asked them to transfer the information from their
practical reflection bars and summarise the reasons they gave. Next, students were asked to
list three main problem areas in their learning which was highlighted by the test, and what
strategies they would employ to overcome these problem areas before the next test. I gathered
these sheets from the students and read them, then talked with individual students about their
problems and strategies. This helped me reflect on how students perceived aspects of the
curriculum. I believe it also as encourages students to articulate and commit to strategies for
improvement.
Evaluation of reflection bars
At the end of semester two I asked students for feedback about their use of the reflection bars
during the semester. Thirty three students returned the evaluation sheets and the information
was collated. Students were asked to mark on a continuum their responses to two questions
for each of the reflection opportunities; lectures, tutes, pracs and prac tests. The first question
asked if they used the reflection bars and the continuum started at “Never used them” and
finished at “Used them all the time”. The second question asked how reflective they were
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Teaching and Learning Forum 2002: Focusing on the Student
when they did use them, and the continuum started at “Was very reflective and considered the
score seriously” and finished at “Just made something up”. Data were generated by measuring
along the continuum and scoring the mark out of 1.00. The evaluation questions were a
balanced mix of positive and negative.
Did they use them?
The data were grouped into ten ranges and frequencies were calculated. These frequencies for
reflective bar use in lectures (L), tutorials (T), practical classes (P) and prac tests (PT) are
summarised in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Use of reflective bars for lectures (L), tutorials (T), practical classes (P) and prac tests (PT)
Reflective bar use
6 L use
5 T use
P use
4
PT use
3
0
0-.1 .11-.2 .21-.3 .31-.4 .41-.5 .51-.6 .61-.7 .71-.8 .81-.9 .91-1.0
score ranges
Were students honest and thoughtful about the reflection bars?
The second question asked how reflective they were when they did use them, and the
continuum started at “Was very reflective and considered the score seriously” and finished at
“Just made something up”. Once again the data were grouped into ten ranges and frequencies
calculated. These frequencies for reflective bar use in lectures (L), tutorials (T), practical
classes (P) and prac tests (PT) are summarised in Figure 2.
Teaching and Learning Forum 2002: Focusing on the Student
Figure 2. Honesty of scores on reflective bars for lectures (L), tutorials (T), practical classes (P) and prac
tests (PT)
Reflective bar score honesty
10
9
8
7
L honesty
6
T honesty
5
P honesty
4
PT honesty
3
2
1
0
0-.1 .11-.2 .21-.3 .31-.4 .41-.5 .51-.6 .61-.7 .71-.8 .81-.9 .91-1.0
score ranges
Did they feel they helped their learning?
At the end of the evaluation sheet, students were asked to respond to a question asking about
the general usefulness of the reflection bars to their learning. In this question, a score of zero
represents “very useful” and a score of one represents “completely useless”. Data were
grouped into ten ranges and frequencies calculated. These are represented in Figure 3.
Figure 3. How useful were the reflection opportunities to your learning?
How useful was reflection to learning?
10
9
8
7
6
5 how useful
4
3
2
1
0
0-.1 .11-.2 .21-.3 .31-.4 .41-.5 .51-.6 .61-.7 .71-.8 .81-.9 .91-1.0
score range (1= completely useless)
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Teaching and Learning Forum 2002: Focusing on the Student
New Semester Resolutions
In addition to the reflection bars, I also asked students at the start of the second semester to
write down their New Semester Resolution based on strategies developed from the previous
semester. These were folded, stapled and collected by me to be held over til the end of the
second semester. Then students reclaimed their resolution and I asked them on the evaluation
sheet to rank how well they had achieved their New Semester Resolution (NSR). A score of
one meant that the resolution has been met completely. The values, in descending order, are
presented in Figure. 4.
Figure 4. How well did you meet your New Semester Resolution (NSR)?
New semester resolution
0.90
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
student
The evaluation sheet gave room for students to give a reason why their NSR had been met to
the degree they had indicated on the reflection bar. Twenty nine students chose to comment
and these comments were grouped into those attributing their score to external factors and
those attributing their score to internal factors. External factors such as family commitments,
time constraints or the demands of other units were given by 34% of the responding students
while the remaining 66% cited more internal reasons such as their motivation, focus or study
skills, their enthusiasm or personal commitment to do well.
Conclusion
The data indicate that students are using the reflection bars to various degrees and not all use
is honest or truly reflective and therefore cannot be of help to student learning. However, my
work shows that it is possible to provide reflection opportunities for students without a large
sacrifice of syllabus time. For many students these opportunities were useful to their learning
and helped them to develop reflective practice skills. Further development of these ideas
would incorporate regular feedback to the class on collated reflection data, and greater
personal discussion with students about their reflective practice.
References
Batts, J.E. & Wilkes, L.M. (1993) Reflective journalling in science learning. In Bain, J. et al (Eds) Promoting
Teaching in Higher Education Griffith University Print.
Raelin, J.A. (2001) Public reflection as the basis of learning, Management Learning, 32(1), 11-30.
Hewson, P.W., Tabachnick, B.R., Zeichner, K.M., Blomker, K.B., Helen Meyer, H., Lemberger, J., Robin
Marion, R., Hyun-Ju Park, Toolin, R. (1999). Educating prospective teachers of biology: introduction and
research methods. Science Education 83(3), 247-273.
