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Snapshot

Type of Course: Face-to-Face, Hybrid, Online
Type of Activity: Reflection, Individual Activity
LMS Used: Laulima (Sakai at University of Hawai’i)
Tools Used: Lessons, Assignments

Credit
Dr. Alexander Nagurney: Department of Psychology, University of Hawai’i – Hilo.

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To paraphrase philosopher Edmund Burke, learning without reflection is like eating without digestion. You may provide students with more than enough “food for thought,” but without the process of digesting that knowledge, do they leave the classroom fulfilled? Giving students a chance to reflect meaningfully on what they’ve learned not only leads to deeper levels of understanding, but also gives students a chance to connect their newly acquired knowledge to existing knowledge, their personal lives, and the world around them.

Description

Adding opportunities for reflection in any course is simple from a technological point of view. However, ample time should be devoted to designing your students’ experience around points of reflection. For example, consider your own views on reflection and how you’ll communicate the importance of reflection to your students. Will you give students an outline or “talking points” to focus on in their reflections, or leave them to generate a more “free thought” response? Consider whether or not you will grade their reflection posts. If so, what criteria will you use?

Dr. Alexander Nagurney, a friend and colleague at the University of Hawai’i – Hilo, asked for assistance using reflections to make his Health Psychology course more engaging and meaningful for his students. We used L. Dee Fink’s research on significant learning to structure the reflections for this course. Fink’s taxonomy of learning focuses not only on the application of new skills, but also on a student’s ability to integrate new ideas into their lives, their ability to learn new things about themselves, their development of new feelings, interests, and values, and their ability to use their experience to become a better learner. With this in mind, we crafted the following assignment for the students:

This course features reflection assignments which are meant to give you the opportunity to take a moment and reflect on what you’ve learned during the course thus far. I’d like you to take a moment to think beyond the basic facts you’ve picked up from readings and lectures and think about:

how what you’ve learned integrates with concepts you’ve learned in your other courses at the University of Hawai’i.

what you might have learned about yourself in this course.

how what you’ve learned has influenced your feelings, interests, or personal values.

any experiences you’ve had in this course that you feel could lead to you becoming a better learner.

There is no required word count or format for your reflection. I simply ask that you take some time to think about the above bullets and answer honestly each week.

Students submitted their reflections via the Assignments tool and the instructor provided comments and a completion grade for each submission. This not only gave the instructor insight into his students’ grasp of the material, but also serves as a way to build a sense of connection between the instructor and his students.

We surveyed students at the end of the semester to determine their perceptions of the reflection assignments:

Students were also given the chance to enter free text responses regarding their impression of the reflection assignments. The comments were as follows:

these reflection assignment has helped me a lot…

My favorite part about this class was the patient profile and reflections. Mahalo nui loa Professor!

Make us refer back or cite what we learned from the week’s assigned readings in our reflections. But overall, they are the best! Thank you!

This particular assignment was helpful to get me to refocus on the tasks and readings at hand.

I think that this reflection assignments are already improved. These questions are simple yet deep and meaningful, which makes me think about certain things I didn’t notice my whole life. I just hope that it continues with your upcoming classes as well.

Thank you UH for teaching me more of an emphasis how we are all the same and reminding me of the word compassion.

Adding opportunities for reflection to a course is relatively simple, but can bring meaningful improvement for your students. We’d be happy to collaborate with you on methods for adding these beneficial elements to your class.