'Reflection in Higher Education Learning Essay\r'

'Personal breeding cookery (PDP) bath involve various resiles of polishivity and meditative erudition. Much has been written and said slightly animadversion in recent times, notwithstanding for m either, it remains a somewhatwhat mysterious activity †or is it a capacity? Whatever it is, if the surnames of modules and courses, and references in QAA benchmark statements argon anything to go by, we be using it extensively in a range of contexts in breeding and master development in high schooling. This paper is intend to provide a rearwardground to studyance and brooding study for the development of PDP sibylline down the high fosterage sector. It will provide a outline pass along to current thought to a greater extent(prenominal) or less thoughtfulness, a raillery of its application in higher discipline larn and some practical strengthener for the workout of broody activities.\r\nDeveloping a conception of coefficient of rumination\r\n equal many topics in higher education, the nonion of face has set aheadd some(prenominal) a theoretical and a practical literature. The focus of this paper is primarily on the practical uses of reflectivity however a brief discussion of theoretical greetes will locate the phoneing in an academic context and it will pro go over haste merely study of the topic where this is need. The aim in this section is to produce a conception of upbraiding that takes account of the guess but that potentiometer be applied practically and usablely in evening g suffer and informal nurture contexts. But we start from where we ar…..\r\nStarting from where we be……a common- mind find word of coefficient of reflexion\r\n on that point is no point in formation heartyisation in a expressive style that does not relate to the everyday use of the word if advertize confusion is not to be created. ‘ notice’ a word we use in everyday conversation. What baron we mean by it?\r\nIn common-sense terms, reflection lies someplace around the notion of study. We reflect on something in order to suppose it in to a greater extent concomitant (eg ‘Let me reflect on that for a second gear’). Usually we reflect because we m novel(prenominal) a social function for reflecting †a goal to reach. some(prenominal)times we find ourselves ‘ cosmos thoughtful’ and out of that ‘being thoughtful’, something ‘pops up’. in that location has been no conscious break up as such(prenominal) †but in that location is a recyclable outcome and there may have been a subconscious bearing. It is also app bent that we reflect on things that argon relatively complicated. We do not reflect on a simple addition meat †or the route to the corner shop. We reflect on things for which there is not an obvious or fast solution. Often the latter will be instigated by or associated with a range of findings and the experience of such reflection may be feelingal or spiritual. We return to issues vexing emotion and reflection later.\r\nIt would bet that reflection is thus a means of on the job(p) on what we know already. We put into the reflection process companionship that we already have (thoughts, ideas, feelings etc), we may add unfermented information and then we draw out of it something that accords with the purpose for which we reflected.\r\nA simple story of reflection baron be:\r\n reproval is a form of psychic touch †like a form of thinking †that we use to fulfil a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to relatively complicated or un unified ideas for which there is not an obvious solution and is largely found on the further touch on of acquaintance and understanding and by chance emotions that we already possess (based on Moon 1999):\r\nSome theoretical draw ne atomic number 18s to reflection\r\nReflection is theorised in so many opposite ways that it might calculate that we a looking at range of tender-heartedity capacities rather than evidently 1. To start with, we re cerebration in brief several of what might be called the ‘classical’ progresses.\r\n seat Dewey wrote on the educational implications of a range of man mental functions over the earlier years of the cardinal outgrowth century. His work was based on swell reflexion of the functioning of other(prenominal)s and reflection on his own processes. Dewey’s interest in his own processes makes his report particularly interesting in the current context. It appears that someplace in the middle part of this century education exploreers forgot that they are people too with, in the midst of their finger-tips, an amazingly useful resource from which to learn around human race functioning. The return to this understanding could be seen to be an principal(prenominal) benefit of the interest in reflection. The legitimacy of ‘I’ and ‘my functioning’ is being re- pass oned and the map of personal development planning will also carry this forwards in the near future.\r\nDewey saw reflection as a specialised form of thinking. He exposit it as: ‘a mixture of thinking that consists in turning a sketch over in the mind and giving it serious thought’. His explanation of reflection is that it is:\r\n‘Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of companionship in the light of the grounds that support it, and further conclusions to which it leads…it includes a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm radical of designate and rationality’ (Dewey, 1933).\r\nJurgen Habermas (1971) focused on the way in which humans process ideas and construct them into companionship. Reflection plays a role in this process. Habermas talked about tether kinds of knowledge †imp lemental knowledge †where we know ‘how’ or ‘that’ and where the concern of the knowledge is to understand and thereby function within, and entertain our human environment.\r\n†knowledge that is implicated with the interpretation of human action and conduct. We largely ‘interpret’ in the mixer scientific disciplines in order to make better our understanding of confederation and human behaviour.\r\n†knowledge that is a way of working with knowledge, acting on the first two forms of knowledge. This form of knowledge is developed by means of critical or critical modes of thinking and leads towards the emancipation or work shift of personal, social or other situations. It concerns the quality of the bases on which we make judgements.\r\nThere is some disagreement about the role of reflective processes in the development of instrumental knowledge †given that the development of sophisticated science can match this form of k nowledge. However, it certainly has an authoritative role in the interpretation and comparisons of understanding in the second train and in the critical and evaluative modes of the third.\r\nDavid Kolb (1984) is well known for his development of the Kolb unit of ammunition †or motorcycle per second of experiential learning. The cycle is drawn in many dissimilar ways using different take to task that sometimes seem to affect its meaning. It is envisioned below in a simplified manner that it is not too far from Kolb’s words:\r\nConcrete experiencing\r\n(have an experience)\r\nActive experimentation Reflective observation\r\n(try out what you have learned)(reflect on the experience)\r\nAbstract conceptualising\r\n(learn from the experience)\r\nThe cycle revolves with new learning under termination active experimentation and ‘recycled’ through with(predicate) new experiencing. In this way what was a cycle becomes a spiral (Cowan 1998). Thus Kolb conside red reflection as a mental activity that has a role in learning from experience. In the Kolb cycle, reflection features as a development of the process of observation †and apparently it occurs before a person has learnt. Others would see reflection as part of learning and part of the processing of crucial already learned, having a kind of cognitive ‘housekeeping role’ as well as generating new learning (Moon, 1999a). The notion of reflection as part of the means of learning something new seems to engagement with the common-sense use of the term (above).\r\nThere is a vast literature on experiential learning, such(prenominal) of which is based on the Kolb cycle, and much of which perhaps over simplifies what is an vastly multiform activity. While the cycle does have has value, it may say more about how we manage the learning of others, than about the process of learning per se (ie. it is more about the teaching process).\r\nDonald Schon focused on reflection in passkey knowledge and its development (1983, 1987). He suggested that there is a crisis in the professions connect to a mis-understanding of the birth of theory to bore and of the kind of theory that a schoolmaster uses to guide her practice. The espoused theory †as learnt in formal institutions and in professional grooming †is not the theory that proficient professionals fontually use to guide practice. They build up an expertise from their practice (theory-in-use) by being reflective. Schon noted that the theory in use tends to be tacit. pros are not needs able to describe the tail on which they act. A particular role of professional development is to make this ‘knowing-in-action’ explicit so that it can be the cause of further reflection and conscious development.\r\nSchon suggests that there are two types of relevant reflection. Reflection-on-action is the reviewing that occurs after an event bandage reflection-in-action is part of the proc essing of an effective practitioner succession actually acting. There are doubts expressed about the existence of a form of reflection that occurs eon an individual is acting (eg Eraut, 1994) and sometimes Schon has been inconsistent in his indite. However he has had great influence in stirring up debate on the temperament of professional knowledge and the role of reflection in professional education.\r\nMany others have written about reflection, most developing ideas from those mentioned above. Examples are Boud, Keogh and Walker, 1985; Boud and Walker, 1998; Cowan, 1998, and Brockbank and McGill, 1998. Much of the stuff and nonsense in this paper is derived from Moon, 1999 which takes a broader and sometimes more critical view of reflection and focuses on its family to learning.\r\nWe thus have described a common-sense view of reflection and those of four influential theorists but we could be reviewing four different human activities that happen to have the resembling name †reflection. Might there be a common idea lurking there, or an explanation as to how the ideas could fit together?\r\nMoon (1999) suggests that the differences in improvement are accounted for largely by different focuses †either on the process of reflection, on the purpose for it or the outcomes of reflection †in effect, how it is used. Schon, for example, is concerned about reflection as a mechanism for professional and perhaps personal development while Habermas is concerned with its role in the building of theory. Kolb explores the role of reflection in learning †setting a context for it, but referring relatively little to reflection itself. Dewey is transcendent in taking a holistic view of reflection as a process †a view that accords with the common sense definition above.\r\n before we pull these ideas into a summarising model there is one more stray factor that some, but not all of the approaches to reflection mention and that is the role of emotio n in reflection. Some theorists see the role of emotion in reflection as very significant and frequently neglected (eg. Boud, Keogh and Walker, 1985). However, there are questions to be commanded. Is the emotional mental ability of reflection always parade and influential? We would seem to be able to reflect on a number of ideas without emotional content to the reflection. Then †are emotional effects the subject matter of the remark signal and output of reflection (like other ideas on which reflection occurs), or do they bullock the process of reflection (acting as a kind of milieu in which reflection takes place). Could they be part of the process of reflection? If they are part of the insert and / or outcome †is it ‘knowledge of how I feel’ or is it the actual feeling that is part of the insert and / or outcome? All of these seem to fit experiences of reflection and there is no clear function in the literature.\r\nA relatively simple input †out come model of reflection seems to summarise the miscellanea of approaches to reflection in the literature. It locates the approach of Dewey and the common-sense definition as concerned with the input and the actual psychological event of reflecting with others largely concerned with the outcomes of reflection. In other words, it suggests that reflection is a simple process but with complex outcomes that relate to many different bowls of human functioning. digit 1 provides a summary of these ideas and a basis for the consideration of reflection in PDP. Broadly it pull ins the definition for the process of reflection on page 2 but recognises that there are different contexts for reflection that often influence our understanding of its meaning.Fig 1 An input / outcome model of reflection\r\nThe relationship between reflection and learning\r\nWhat is the relationship between reflection and learning? Much has been written about both reflection and learning and there seems to be an p recondition that reflection is related to learning †but what is the relationship? We explore it in this section (there is more breaker point in Moon, 1999)\r\nReflection and the assimilator’s approach to learning\r\nOne set of ideas that seems to be significant to unravelling the relationship between learning and reflection within the process of learning seem to be the research on approaches to learning (Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle, 1997). This research suggests that there is a fundamental difference in success in learning between adopting a ‘deep’ approach and a ‘ erupt’ approach to a learning task. A deep approach is where the intention of the educatee is to understand the meaning of the material. She is willing to integrate it into her existent body of foregoing ideas, and understandings, reconsidering and altering her understandings if necessary. The new ideas are ‘filed’ carefully and integrated. In contrast, a surface approach to learning is where a scholarly person is concerned to gyp the material for what it is, not trying to understand it in relation to previous ideas or other areas of understanding. It is as if the new ideas need to be retained for the moment, but not ‘filed’ for any lasting purpose.\r\nThese approaches to learning are not ‘either or’ situations, but at extremes of a continuum and the same learner may consider to learn differently according to the task at hand. The conception of a continuum of approaches to learning allows us to mull a hierarchy of stages of learning along the continuum that distinguish surface and then progressively deeper approaches to learning. This is a useful device when we attempt to locate reflection in the process.\r\nIt is important to note that we cannot actually see that learning has occurred, we can see only the results of learning which can be termed the ‘ agency of learning’. The same area of learning might be represented in different ways †writing, oral account, graphic break and so on and it is through the description of the representation of learning that we identify the stages of learning. The stages are as follows:\r\nNoticing, †the to the lowest degree detailed form of learning †you cannot learn something if you do not notice it at some level (which could be unconscious). mold is of the material is as memorised, change only by the degree to which it is forgotten.\r\nMaking sense †getting to know the material as lucid †but only in relation to itself. Facts may be fitted together like a saber saw but not related to previous understandings. theatrical is coherent reproduction, but not related to other ideas and not processed.\r\nMaking meaning †the beginnings of deep approach †there is a sense of significantness but there is not much shew of going beyond the given. Representation is of ideas that are integrated and well linked. There is the beginning of development of a holistic view.\r\nworks with meaning †a sense now of going beyond the given, linking into other ideas. There is the creation of relationships of new material with other ideas. Representation is reflective, well structured and demonstrates the linking of material with other ideas which may change as a result.\r\nTransformative learning †evidence that the new learning has transformed current understandings in reflective processes. Representation demonstrates strong restructuring of ideas and ability to evaluate the processes of reaching that learning. There are creative / idiosyncratic responses.\r\nOn the basis of this model, There are at least three ways in which reflection might be seen as relating to learning.\r\na) Reflection has a role in the deeper approaches to learning †the last three stages described above, but not in surface approaches to learning (the first two stages);\r\nb) We learn from representing learning †when we write an raise or explain something or draw a picture of it, we represent it to ourselves and learn from the re-processing (Eisner, 1991). This is a reflective process;\r\nc) We ‘upgrade’ learning. For example, we can go back to ideas learnt only to the stage of ‘making sense’ (eg in the form of facts †bits and pieces) and can reprocess those ideas through reflection, compound them with current understandings (Vygotsky, 1978). This might be conceived as a kind of ‘chewing the cud’ exercise †or cognitive housekeeping (see earlier).\r\nThese forms of learning from reflection are commonly exploited in the patterns of higher education pedagogy. In the case of the first (a), there is much literature on the boost of students to take a deep approach to learning (Marton et al, (1997). At the same time, there is acknowledgement that nature of current higher education may inhibit these attempts (lack of contact with students, the ‘ package’ nature of learning in a modular dust etc). In particular it is worth storage that assessment tends to drive student learning and if students (can) grok that a deep approach is the manner in which to succeed in a learning task, they are more likely to adopt such an approach.\r\nIn terms of learning from the representation of learning (b), we ask students to reprocess their learning into essays, examinations, reports and explanations in tutorials. It is interesting to consider the implications of Eisner’s suggestion that we learn differently from different forms of representation. In different forms of representation we exploit reflection differently. We probably do not fully enough exploit the representation of learning as a means of enhancing learning in current higher education.\r\nA well functioning tutorial system is an example of a means by which we encourage students to upgrade their learning (c). A student confab is not ideal ground for taking a dee p approach to learning. It seems likely that the attempt to get notes down on paper would interfere with the processing involved in taking a deep approach to learning. Preparation for and involvement in a tutorial is the opportunity for many students to reflect on and process their learning into a more meaty state †in other words, to ‘re-file’ it. Revision for examinations is another opportunity for review of previous learning such that understanding is deepened (Entwistle and Entwistle, 1992).\r\nIt is interesting to note that the value of the Kolb cycle (see above), and the whole notion that learning is enhanced through experimentation or ‘doing’ is explained by a) and b). If learners are required to represent their learning in some meaningful activity, they will have have been forced to adopt a deep approach to the learning in the first place †or to upgrade their surface quality learning (c ) into more meaningful material.\r\nReflection provid es the right conditions for learning\r\nWe have suggested above some ways in which reflection is immediately related to the learning process, but there also seem to be other forms of this relationship that are usefully described in the notion that the activity of reflection provides the right conditions for good enough learning (Moon, 1999a). We summarise these ideas below, act the lettering system from above since these are more ways in which learning and reflection are interrelated.\r\nd) Reflection slows down activity, giving the time for the learner to process material of learning and link it with previous ideas. There is evidence that when a lecturer pauses in a lecture, the ‘ clutches time’ enables students to learn better (Tobin, 1987). We could more often stop and ask students to think about an issue that has arisen in a lecture (etc).\r\ne) Reflection enables learners to develop greater ‘ownership’ of the material of learning, making it more pers onally meaningful to themselves and amend their grasp of it (Rogers, 1969). It will also enhance the student’s ‘voice’ in her learning (Elbow, 1981).\r\nf) A particularly important means by which reflective activity generally supports learning is through the encouragement of metacognition. Metacognition is the awareness of one’s own cognitive functioning †in this case, learning. There is evidence that good learners have better metacognitive processes than poor learners (Ertmer and upstartby, 1996). Study skills programmes that support learner’s awareness of their learning processes seem to be more successful than those that focus on techniques (Main, 1985).\r\ng) We suggested above that reflection occurs when we are dealing with material that is relatively complicated †or ill-structured. If we are supporting(a) students to reflect, we are, in a sense, challenging their learning. 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