The Challenge
Much is often made nowadays of the importance of learners in secondary schools, universities and other adult education situations taking a reflective perspective on both their studies and their wider experiences. Indeed, increasing numbers of courses either require it or identify reflection as a key outcome.
Although we may aim to promote some measure of reflection and various other elements of meta-cognition from children’s earliest days in education, in the UK the ability assumes a special significance in Years Twelve and Thirteen. Not only are students of this age sufficiently intellectually mature to begin to explore their own learning in more abstract terms; those who plan on going to university will soon need to embrace the more autonomous demands and introspection that are characteristic of much education at this level.
Essentially, reflection necessitates that the person adopts a questioning and analytical attitude to their own thoughts, actions and behaviour, with a view to ensuring their continual development. The skills involved are likely to range in scope from broad self-analysis to the construction of meaning from individual personal experiences.
However, reflection does not come easily to many young people, however, and in any programme of education where it is intended to be an important component much depends on the adult’s skill in offering appropriate opportunities and putting in place effective frameworks for facilitating the process. Moreover, so as to ensure students receive proper credit for their reflection, provision needs to be made for them to record their thoughts via, for example, free writing, diary entries or more structured notes in proformas.
Perhaps the most frequently employed method used by teachers to promote reflection is that of inviting their students to react to a series of prompting questions at the end of a project. All too often this fails to achieve an ideal result, with the youngsters typically responding to each question in fragmentary fashion, with no more than a phrase or a short sentence.