Reflection and the Development of Learning Skills

Main, Alex. “Reflection and the Development of Learning Skills.” Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. eds. David Boud, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker. London: Kogan Page, 1985. 91-99.

This article is about the role reflection can play in helping students learn to learn. The author is a counselor who helps students with their study skills and learning habits. Many times advice from text books or teachers on how to study or learn have no affect and are not taken by the student. The author implies that deeper techniques need to be employed to affect change. Graham Gibbs (1981) believes students struggle because they “lack any proper reflection on their learning” (92). Engaging students in reflective activities help students generate their own knowledge: “he [Gibbs] is advocating that reflective techniques allow individual development, individual choice and a matching of learning methods and study techniques to individual needs and perceptions” (93). Here is a summary of one such learning exercise detailed in the article:

Exercise on “How do we learn best?”
1. 3 min. write on bad learning experience; 3 min. on good learning experience
2. 10 min. in pairs relating experiences—id main similarities and differences
3. 24 min. in fours id themes
4. 20 min. + plenary share themes, discuss

The author goes on to discuss how counseling techniques of reflective listening (different kind of reflection) help individuals to reflect. The overall goal is to generate a more reflective learner able to make individual choices that fit and are productive for them. There are three key issues in counseling learning: opening up, creating self-concepts, and developing trust in reflection (96-97). The first two of these techniques or issues align with Bouds elements of the reflective process—attending to feelings and re-evaluating experience.

The third element—developing trust in reflection—had an interesting section on student resistance to reflection: “If reflection come slowly to some people because they have little sense of involvement in their own learning, it comes unwillingly to others because they have little belief in its value for them” (97). The author explores some possible causes: introspection is unpleasant, examining learning processes empty and unproductive, or reflection has been done for them (c.f. Interpretive dependence Sheridan Blau). The author offers no ideal way to deal with this common problem. He believes, however, that for these reluctant reflectors providing lots of opportunities to reflect may lead to a chance breakthrough: “By offering students number of opportunities to reflect... I have usually found something that has triggered a rewarding experience. Simply persevering in the setting up of opportunities for reflection has worked” (98). The author closes the article by pointing out that most evaluation activities are opportunities for reflection, especially the use of open-ended questions.

Assessment
I fit this article within the category of “reflective practice.” Instead of developing the reflective practitioner in say business or in writing, we here have discussion of developing the reflective student/learner. The other significant thing about this article is its frank discussion of reluctant reflectors—students who resist or can't reflect. Often this gets blamed on developmental or learning style/personality factors. This author posits other possible reasons that are interesting more from a psychological position, and he holds out the hope that persistent opportunities to reflect often lead to this kind of reluctant reflector to engage in the activity.