Reflection “interludes” – Scaffolding reflective practice and creating mutually involved “trusted circle” events

by Maggie Boswell

Initial hurdles

Reflective practice seemed to be a new and difficult hurdle for some international Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pathway foundation year students. It seemed as if these students felt reflection was something they weren’t used to doing, something they had not encountered in their educational journey. Some openly questioned its quantifiable validity. This raised questions in my own mind.

I wondered, did the pedagogy seem too ethereal, or did it lack the requirement for using solid scientific proof-based calculations that these STEM subject students were accustomed to using and that would activate their “technical mapping” skills (Schön, 2017)? Yet, as I explained to the class, reflective practice is integral to scientific work; indeed reflective practice creates opportunity for improvisation, skills found to be integral to industrial / scientific real world problem-solving practice (Schön, 2017).

 

 

Notwithstanding the overarching argument I presented – that reflective practice empowers individuals – students appeared hesitant, uncertain and doubtful as to their capacity to perform reflection. This seemed true both as part of integrated reflection time at the end of class and as self-study.  It made me wonder whether while at school, some might not have had pedagogically embedded reflective practice with any formalised journaling reflective self-critique experience. Upon reading academic studies suggesting that some students don’t necessarily already have deepened self-regulatory skills (Tan, 2021), and some might not have been schooled to consider that individual achievements are shaped and derived through multi-faceted “internal conversations” (Archer, 2002), I realised maybe I’d been guilty of making assumptions, but that there might be an opportunity for enhanced scaffolding of reflective practice in the classroom.

Offering a learning conduit

Reflective practice acts as a conduit for the manifestation of learning, and I think critical reflective practice opens the gateway to potential radical changes and development of ideas. Nonetheless, amongst some STEM pathway students on the Accelerated Academic Language and Literacy (AALL) unit on the Bristol International Foundation Programme (IFP), I noticed a perceived scepticism and lack of intrinsic motivation towards initial engagement in reflective practice and lack of regular practice as part of self-study thereafter. There was even resistance: “Is this proven?” asked one. “Why don’t we get a midterm-grade?” asked another. In explaining and rationalising the reflective pedagogy, progress was certainly made, and excellent final outcomes achieved, thanks to much encouragement and much scaffolded engagement during the eight months of reflective practice integrated study on the unit.

Even so, I wanted to understand why there was initial reluctance in more depth. I started out with some action research. When asked “In your previous educational institution, did you practice reflection?”, an initial analysis of my small data set found roughly a third of respondents had not previously practiced reflection. This provided a focus with which to undertake a literary immersion and I detected a strong line of reason emerging: students don’t necessarily understand how to reflect or why they are expected to do so (Ryan, 2013; Ryan and Ryan, 2013; Tan, 2021), and aren’t necessarily sufficiently self-motivated to do so, when left to their own devices (Tan, 2021). This seemed to resonate with the data I had captured. So, what is underlying this initial reluctance, lack of engagement and apathy? I wanted to understand more.

Some students might be worried they’re being asked to perform an assumed built-in ability to practice reflection, yet reflective practice may not be an internal attribute which students access easily, and anyway everyone is different and with different inherent educational knowledge systems at play.  Indeed, for some learners, there may not even be a word for reflection in their language, and as such without an accessible label for a concept, misconceptions of what is expected can easily occur (Moon, 2004). So, did this open an opportunity to build in some new reflective practice scaffolding blocks? I began to wonder how we could create an environment which stimulated meaningful engagement with critical reflection, and could the intended learning outcomes clearly indicate this?

With these questions in mind, I read with comfort as study after study began to reinforce the need for meaningful engagement in critical reflection, but that a regular scaffolded approach is central to supporting that engagement. As my analysis continued, interdisciplinary voices paved the way for a deepened understanding of how fostering critical reflective practice can be structured into classroom learning environments.

Build in “interludes”

First there is opportunity to build in short “interludes” (Hibbert, 2013), for developing practice in this skill. Indeed, the literature calls for reflective practice activity to take place in the immediacy following a critical learning incident (Embo, 2014), and via immediate peer feedback (Sinclair, 2018). Perhaps, I thought, a critical learning incident might not be all that clear to a student, but to the educator this could simply be inviting students to participate in active reflective practice immediately following a collaborative activity, where an individual chooses an experience that has caused a change of thinking or way of inquiring. Theoretically, this can be interpreted through the lens of reflection-in-action (Schön, 1984). The point being, that for enhanced engagement in the process, it needs to be meaningful to the individual (Tan, 2021). I could see perhaps that, if there were clearer links to critical reflective practice in the intended learning outcomes, students might be more motivated and engage more meaningfully.

This way of scaffolding and supporting reflective practice further meets the calls for strengthened support emerging in the literature (Embo, 2014: Apraiz and Evans, 2018; Tan, 2021). Arguably, this built-in scaffolding and support could shape and deepen engagement with valuable learning moments which can be analysed during the final summative assessment, the presentation of claim. There might be increased depth, increased independent thought, less reliance on reiterating tutor-feedback, and greater focus on real authentic and meaningful reflection of key critical incidents that evoked learning.

Mutually involved “trusted circle” events

Finally, the literature calls for greater educator participation in the student reflective practice learning process (Hibbert, 2013). The suggestion here is that by diffusing power dynamics, students engage more purposefully and meaningfully and can begin to construct their personal reflective practitioner identity, so necessary in the STEM subject fields. With this in mind, is there an opportunity to integrate educators into the reflective process with students in classroom activities? I have termed this potential a mutually involved “trusted circle” event.  In doing so, students might sense a fostering of lessened power dynamics, stronger rapport and trust-building within that situated learning synopsis. It might then inspire greater learner self-confidence and deepen more meaningful authentic learning outcomes.

In undertaking this small study, my own reflective practice has deepened. I think there’s room to develop the classroom learning opportunities and respond to the student attitudes. It is clear that building trust can inspire confidence, which in turn creates learning opportunity. By speaking more widely with colleagues and sharing these early findings, I hope to contribute to on-going material development.

References

Apraiz, K and Evans, G., “Building a Strong Foundation: Using a Shared Elementary Field Experience for Preservice STEM Educators” (2018). Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019). 18.

Archer, M., 2002. Realism and the problem of agency. Alethia, 5(1), pp.11-20.

Embo, M.P.C., Driessen, E., Valcke, M. and Van Der Vleuten, C.P., 2014. Scaffolding reflective learning in clinical practice: a comparison of two types of reflective activities. Medical teacher, 36(7), pp.602-607.

Hibbert, P., 2013. Approaching reflexivity through reflection: Issues for critical management education. Journal of Management Education, 37(6), pp.803-827.

Moon, J. A. (2004) A handbook of reflective and experiential learning : theory and practice. London: Routledge.

Ryan, M., 2013. The pedagogical balancing act: Teaching reflection in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(2), pp.144-155.

Ryan, M. and Ryan, M., 2013. Theorising a model for teaching and assessing reflective learning in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(2), pp.244-257.

Schön, D.A., 2017. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Routledge.

Sinclair, A. 2018.  How to engage STEM students to develop reflective practice: Lessons from research practice. Advance HE Teaching & Learning Conference 2018. 24 July 2018, University of Sussex [Available from: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/]

Tan, S.Y., 2021. Reflective learning? Understanding the student perspective in higher education. Educational Research, 63(2), pp.229-243.