Facilitating reflective learning in higher education

Although writing groups have a long history in higher education, they have only recently been recognized as a support strategy for doctoral students, particularly those at the dissertation stage. From the perspective of student participants, we investigate motivations for participation in and perceived outcomes of voluntary semi-structured writing groups used to facilitate doctoral degree completion. Group participation resulted in the development of a vibrant intellectual community among students, recent doctoral recipients, and faculty. Commitment to degree completion and student and faculty scholarly productivity soared through the use of this simple but innovative pedagogical strategy.     

Evaluation of reflective practice in teacher education

Teacher education based on ‘reflective practice’ consists of observing, analysing and reflecting on teacher performance in order to improve professional practice. This article presents the results of an evaluation of a programme on mathematics teaching carried out using reflective practice. It was targeted at 284 teachers in various stages of the education system, using an approach that combines quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews and reports) methods. While the study shows that the education programme generates high levels of satisfaction, pedagogical appropriateness and learning, its achievements in effectiveness are moderate. Although, in general, what is learned through teacher education is implemented in the classroom, it is done so in an isolated fashion, in other words, individually and without becoming a part of the culture of the school. The results show little evidence of its impact on student learning. The article offers proposals for improving the education programme, while, at the same time, analysing the usefulness of the approach and evaluation tools employed.     

Professional education,reflective practice and feminism

This paper offers acritical perspectiveon Schon, and on reflective practice as apedagogy, by engaging with themes in feminism. A comparison between consciousness raising and reflective practice gives insights into the pleasures experienced by practitioners. However, it also suggests that reflection-in-action is not the prerogative of professionals. Consciousness raising and feminist reflexivity in research provide positive examples of political engagement and reflexive self-awareness. The scope of reflective practice is limited by the contexts in which it has been adopted. In the UK reflective practice has been implemented in professions with large female workforces: nursing, teaching and social work. The scope for autonomy in these professions is increasingly limited. Reflective practice, therefore, may be becoming avehicle for self-surveillance and orthodoxy. These socio-political considerations provide the basis for more searching epistemological questions about the nature of professional knowledge and the characteristics of all human labour. Both Marxist and feminist traditions suggest that the capacity to reflect is a characteristic of all humans, while some social scientists have suggested that reflexivity is a particular characteristic of modernity. These views challenge the status of reflective practice as the episteme of professional knowledge. Moreover, Schon's methodology is based on a partial and gender-blind view of professionals. The paper concludes that a reinvigorated research agenda, which engages with these broader themes, is necessary.     

Multimodal approaches to reflective teaching and assessment in higher education

Reflection is not a new concept in the teaching of higher education and is often an important component of many disciplinary courses. Despite this, past research shows that while there are examples of rich reflective strategies used in some areas of higher education, most approaches to, and conceptualisations of, reflective learning and assessment have been perfunctory and inconsistent. In many disciplinary areas, reflection is often assessed as a written activity ‘tagged onto’ assessment practices. In creative disciplines, however, reflective practice is an integral and cumulative form of learning and is often expressed in ways other than in the written form. This paper will present three case studies of reflective practice in the area of Creative Industries in higher education – Dance, Fashion and Music. It will discuss the ways in which higher education teachers and students use multimodal approaches to expressing knowledge and reflective practice in such a context. The paper will argue that unless students are encouraged to participate in deep reflective disciplinary discourse via multi-modes then reflection will remain superficial in the higher education context.     

Encouraging teacher development through embedding reflective practice in assessment

Learning to become a teacher is a developmental process, part of which is learning to become a reflective practitioner. The authors have implemented a structured approach to developing the habits of critical reflection, the purpose of which is to guide their university students (who are pre-service teachers) to progress through the stages of teacher development and to facilitate self-motivated professional growth. Their attempts to incorporate into these pre-service teachers' learning the ‘practice’ part of reflective practice have included the development of different kinds of practical and applied tasks. In turn, their attempts to incorporate the ‘reflective’ part of reflective practice have involved the embedding in assessment activities of different scaffolds for metacognitive reflection. Their innovative processes of embedding reflection in assessment have been guided by Dewey's and Schön's views of reflection, their own views of the teacher education process, and Brookfield's conception of ‘critical lenses’ which can be used as a scaffold to structure professional growth and development.     

The development of reflective practice through student journals

This paper explores the design and assessment of reflective journals in a course on spirituality and management in a tertiary institution. The purpose of reflection in education is to develop students’ self‐awareness and inner leadership. Yet, such assessment poses challenges in terms of design, content and grading. This paper explores the literature surrounding these issues, and then describes the introduction of such an approach through a case study. Two types of assessment were developed to assist students to explore self‐awareness. The first was through reflective journal entries completed throughout the course, and the second was a report due at the end of the course, describing the journey of the student’s most significant learning. The paper concludes by assessing the effectiveness of such an approach through qualitative measures. The use of student narratives from their journals, with their consent, illustrates the power of the reflective method.     

Theorising a model for teaching and assessing reflective learning in higher education

The importance of reflection in higher education and across disciplinary fields is widely recognised and it is generally included in university graduate attributes, professional standards and programme objectives. Furthermore, reflection is commonly embedded into assessment requirements in higher education subjects, often without necessary scaffolding or clear expectations for students. Despite the rhetoric around the importance of reflection for ongoing learning, there is scant literature on any systematic, developmental approach to teaching reflective learning across higher education programmes/courses. Given that professional or academic reflection is not intuitive, and requires specific pedagogic intervention to do well, a programme/course-wide approach is essential. This paper draws on current literature to theorise a new, transferable and customisable model for teaching and assessing reflective learning across higher education, which foregrounds and explains the pedagogic field of higher education as a multi-dimensional space. We argue that explicit and strategic pedagogic intervention, supported by dynamic resources, is necessary for successful, broad-scale approaches to reflection in higher education.     

Considering teaching in higher education as a practice

At a time when learning and teaching in higher education have become the focus of increasing attention and high priority is being accorded to the attainment of excellence in teaching there is a growing concern that teaching is being reduced to the acquisition of a set of competencies. This paper will draw on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to explore the nature of a practice and of teaching as a practice, and then draw on a case study of teachers in a higher education institute in Ireland to gain some insights into the realities of practice. While acknowledging that this knowledge is unequivocally contextual, this case study has the potential to contribute to our understanding of teaching by affording insights into how teachers respond to the challenges of practice. The paper will argue that to conceive of teaching as a practice, in the manner in which practice is explained and elaborated by MacIntyre, moves us beyond a narrow and mechanistic view of teaching built around the adoption of effective strategies to one that is broader in scope and takes into account notions of internal standards of excellence, complexity and integrity.     

高职高等数学教学改革的研究与实践

文章针对高职院校高等数学的教学实际并结合"互联网+"的理念,探索"互联网+高等数学"教学模式,为高职高等数学教学改革提出个人的想法并进行初步实践。     

美国高等学校提高本科教学质量的七条对策

为了提高本科教学质量,美国高校在上个世纪80年代后期经过深入研究后提出了七条对策。这七条对策包括鼓励师生互动,鼓励学生之间相互合作,鼓励学生主动学习,对学生的学习给予及时反馈,合理安排学习时间,对学生给予较高的期望,尊重学生之间的差异及其不同的学习方式等。十年来,这些措施在美国大学普遍应用且成效显著,对我国高校的本科教学不无启示作用。     

Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education

Reflection has become an integral part of teacher education, yet its elusive boundaries make it difficult to define and teach. Examining the various facets of reflection with respect to teaching clarifies the concept, making it more accessible to pre-service teachers learning to reflect on their practice. This article explores those facets and provides a typology designed to guide teacher educators in teaching reflection to pre-service teachers.     

Developing reflective cyber communities in the blogosphere: a case study in Taiwan higher education

The purpose of this study is to highlight the possibilities and challenges that underlie efforts to integrate blogs into teacher-education programs in Taiwan higher education. The participants were 12 pre-service teachers undertaking Master's level study in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. The outcomes of the blogging project were highlighted in terms of pre-teachers' professional development on the blogs, their difficulties encountered, problem-solving strategies employed, and the students' perception of blogging. The results suggested that blogging could encourage pre-service teachers to actively and reflectively engage in knowledge sharing, knowledge transformation, and knowledge generation. Blogging also encouraged the development of numerous strategies to cope with difficulties encountered in the blogging process. Overall, pre-service teachers held positive attitudes toward blogging as a support for their professional development and were conscious of audience considerations, and so tended to select and respond to blog content deemed interesting and useful to their audience.     

Becoming an agricultural advisor – the rationale,the plan and the implementation of a model of reflective practice in extension higher education

Purpose: This paper argues the rationale for a model of reflective practice in the formation of young agricultural advisors and to use this model to inform a wider discussion on the importance of the different levels of reflection in agricultural extension higher education.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a model of four reflective practice modules conceived as successive building blocks in the professional development of a reflective agricultural advisor and examines the model through the lens of theory and the lens of experience of the first cohort of students to complete the programme.

Findings: Experiential learning with structured critical reflection is shown to support the integration of knowledge gained into new professional identities as agricultural advisors.

Practical Implications: Curricula for higher education in agricultural extension need to be revitalised and refreshed to address the mismatch between the emphasis on the social dimensions of extension in the literature and the general lack of attention to this in the education and formation of agricultural advisors.

Theoretical Implications: The paper presents a model of reflective practice that draws on experiences in other professions that could be applied to early career and continuing professional development for agricultural advisors.

Originality/Value: By presenting a model for reflective practice, the author intends to stimulate a wider discussion on the importance of the different levels of reflection in agricultural extension higher education.