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Reflection Journaling and Problembased 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.
II.
III.
The importance of
reflection in learning
How PBL promotes
reflection (RP)
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*
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Increasing one’s knowledge
Learning as memorizing & reproducing
Learning as applying
Learning as understanding
Learning as an interpretive process aimed
at understanding reality
Learning “changing the person”
Willis 1993
“Learning is
about
becoming...”
(Jarvis 1992)
Problem-based Learning
Instruction-based
Problem-based
Teacher Centred
Learner Centred
Syllabus
Subject Z
Subject X
Subject X
Subject X
Teacher
Dissemination
of Knowledge
Instruct, discipline,
assess
Students
The Problem
Team members
(CurriculumIdeas/Concepts)
Student
Construction
of Knowledge
Facilitator
Prior Knowledge
Is PBL a
fad?
How PBL promotes reflection

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Student's
interpretation
of knowledge
Student's
interpretation
of knowledge

Reflection

Students’ processes for
making sense (knowledge
construction)
Problem
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.
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
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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

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Presentations
Self & Peer Evaluation
Reflection journal
Quiz
Classroom Observation
Students get feedback everyday
–
–
–
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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

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Encourage regular reflection
Use of questions to trigger reflection
Use technology
1. Encourage regular reflection:
Student Reflection Journals
Technology
We shape our tools and
afterwards, our tools shape us.
We become what we behold.
Marshall McLuhan
Encourage regular reflection
Table 1. Four levels of reflective thinking (Mezirow, 1997).
Habitual Action The learner engages in activity that is routinely and
Non-reflection
frequently conducted, with little conscious thought.
Reflection
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).
Research on Quality of Student Reflection (Lisa Lim 2006)
Students’ perceptions of their reflective
processes across three years
Encourage regular reflection
O’Grady (2009)
2. Use of Questions to Trigger
Reflection: examples
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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)

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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 CrossSectional 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
* Kuhn,
Analysis
Inference
Argument