Critical Reflection and Student Learning

Developing the skills to critically reflect upon the big issues facing society is a tool that will set your students apart from the rest. But be warned, critical reflection is not for the faint of heart.


More and more we are asking students to be critical thinkers, whether that is engaging in critical analysis or critical reflection. So how do we equip them for such learning experiences? First, we have to recognise that critical reflection is not something that we can ask for and then not provide the necessary framework that enables the student to respond accordingly to meet the required learning outcomes. Critical reflection is not a neat and tidy exercise in learning. It is often messy, revealing unexpected results that can be confusing and confronting for the inexperienced student learner, let alone the person setting the exercises. We simply don't know where students will go with their reflections. It opens doors to disciplinary areas that the instructor is not necessarily an expert in. Yet critical reflection has continued its popularity as a way to add breadth and depth to learning.

So how does it work?

Source: Shepard University

The diagram above illustrates the cyclic process in which the student engages: action, interpretation, critical reflection. This process is framed by several general questions: 1) What did I learn?; 2) What does this mean to me?; 3) How does this relate to other learning I have engaged in?; 4) What can I do with what I have learned through this experience?

When you begin the process of designing and facilitating critical reflection in your course, you need to think about 5 general steps or guidelines in the process:

1. Identify desired learning outcomes: Set your goals or objectives first, clearly stating your learning outcomes in measurable terms. Spend time making these aspects crystal clear for the students. Think of critical reflection as a faciliator for more complex learning dimensions of advanced understanding, reasoning, questioning knowledge, theories, assumptions and assertions.
2. Assess the level of student skills or competencies: The level of critical reflection needs to be matched to the skills or competencies your students should be demonstrating at this stage of their learning. Setting a too high a degree of difficulty (and converely too low) will undermine the impact of such a learning strategy.
3. Design reflection activities to achieve learning outcomes: This step is all about timing when, where and how the student will engage in the critical reflection, as well as who will faciliate the reflective process and what medium will be used to faciliate it.
4. Engage students in reflection: One of the most important steps is securing a balance between challenging the student and supporting the students, who typically wince at this exercise to start with. You might have to provide a series of prompts to help the students at the initial stages of the process, gradually guiding them to higher levels of complecity in thinking, analysing and reasoning.
   
5. Assess learning through critical reflection (action learning): Checking student learning through formative approaches during these critical reflection exercises will assist you in understanding whether you have pitched these at the right level for your students. You can refine your learning outcomes as students progress through the process, in line with your general objectives. Some questions that might help you at this stage of the process, include: 1) What aspects of the exercises will demonstrate learning levels?; 2) What criteria have you developed to assess student learning?; 3) What assessment strategies will be used?; 4) How will the dimension of intangiblility (as a personal reflection) be factored into the grading of the exercise so it is systematic, fair and impartial?

So often instructors set these exercises and assessments with fairly rigid ideas about what will come back from the students. Remember, critical reflection is messy and unpredictable ... so accommodate this aspect when setting these kinds of exercises for students.