[Portfolio] Fwd: [EPAC] [Fwd: TP Msg. #981 Learning Through Structured Reflection]
Christopher D. Coppola
chris.coppola at rsmart.com
Tue Nov 10 13:44:24 PST 2009
I'm sure many of you are already on this list but I thought it might
be worthwhile to cross post anyway.
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Helen L. Chen" <hlchen at stanford.edu>
> Date: November 10, 2009 11:11:43 AM MST
> To: epaccoplist at lists.stanford.edu
> Subject: [EPAC] [Fwd: TP Msg. #981 Learning Through Structured
> Reflection]
> Reply-To: hlchen at stanford.edu
>
> For those of you who aren't on the Tomorrow's Professor email list,
> I found this posting quite relevant to my personal thinking about
> the role of reflection in ePortfolios -- this idea of "folio
> thinking" and providing structured opportunities for students to
> reflect.
>
> Best regards,
> Helen
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: TP Msg. #981 Learning Through Structured Reflection
> Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:03:58 -0800
> From: Rick Reis <reis at stanford.edu>
> To: tomorrows-professor at lists.stanford.edu
>
>
>
> Making experiences into objects of reflection means simultaneously
> heightening their impact while attempting to understand them in
> connection with any number of other thing: concepts, issues, or
> experiences arising from other course components; one's past
> academic learning or personal history, one's values, assumptions,
> and convictions; theoretical or other conceptual or analytic lenses,
> and the like. In the process, students observe, analyze, examine,
> and consider their political experiences from multiple points of view.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Folks;
>
> This posting below, by Anne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas
> Ehrlich, and Josh Corngold, looks at how "structured reflection"
> can help students see alternative ways of interpreting a given
> educational experience.
> It is from Chapter 12, Learning Through Structured Reflection, in
> the book, Educating for Democracy : Preparing Undergraduates for
> Responsible Political Engagement, published by Published by Jossey-
> Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741-www.josseybass.com
> . Copyright © The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
> Teaching. 51 Vista Lane, Stanford, CA 94305. All rights reserved.
> Reprinted with permission.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rick Reis
> reis at stanford.edu
> UP NEXT: Mentoring Texas Style
>
> Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
>
> -------------------------------------------- 649 words
> --------------------------------------------
>
> Learning Through Structured Reflection
>
> Reflection is widely considered to be the core of higher education,
> especially liberal education, which was once playfully described as
> teaching students to analyze Freud from a Marxian perspective and
> Marx from a Freudian perspective. Our central question in this
> chapter is how to use structured reflection to help students
> consider their experiences through lenses that bring the political
> dimensions into focus. This kind of reflection plays a pivotal role
> in helping them understand and navigate the real world of political
> possibility, conflict, and uncertainty.
>
> Structured reflection requires students to step back from their
> immediate experience to make sense of it in new ways. The object of
> their reflection could be a newspaper story or scholarly article,
> their observations while working in a government office or private
> nonprofit, some kind of political action, or some combination of
> these and other experiences. Making experiences into objects of
> reflection means simultaneously heightening their impact while
> attempting to understand them in connection with any number of other
> thing: concepts, issues, or experiences arising from other course
> components; one's past academic learning or personal history, one's
> values, assumptions, and convictions; theoretical or other
> conceptual or analytic lenses, and the like. In the process,
> students observe, analyze, examine, and consider their political
> experiences from multiple points of view.
> Of course, one can imagine an almost endless number of frames,
> lenses, or filters through which to reflect on a given experience,
> and the choice of frames helps determine the character of the
> meaning derived from reflection. Different aspects of the experience
> become salient and take shape. Considering the perceptual and
> cognitive power of alternative interpretive schemes underscores how
> important it is for faculty to help students consider their
> political experiences in terms that contribute to the overall
> purposes and goals of the course or program.
> Reflection has the power to reframe experiences and events in new
> terms. As a result, even when some course or program experiences,
> such as working in a direct service environment, are not explicitly
> political in nature, guided reflection can help students recast them
> in political terms by connecting their direct service with relevant
> policy environments or systemic analyses of the needs the
> organization addresses. A Duke University student, for example,
> talked about how structured reflection on her internship at the
> refugee resettlement branch of the Catholic Charities of New Mexico
> led her to study immigration policy and the process of seeking
> refugee status.
> A widespread misconception about structured reflection is that it
> entails simply sharing feelings or voicing opinions. Many people
> mistakenly see reflection as a "feel-good" experience that may be
> useful for building community but does not contribute to
> intellectual development. In fact, poor quality reflective
> activities do sometimes fit this description. In contrast, in well-
> conceived reflective activities, emotional responses and initial
> opinions may serve as starting points but not as ends. High-quality
> reflection calls for well-developed intellectual skill and
> perceptiveness richly grounded in knowledge and expertise. Although
> undergraduate students are not experts in the process of reflection
> any more than they are experts in the subject matter they are
> studying, well-conceived and well-structured assignments can help
> them develop greater expertise in the intellectual processes of
> reflection, analysis, and interpretation as they work toward greater
> subject matter expertise.
> The importance of structured reflection is not simply an article
> of faith. Extensive research on community service learning shows
> that the quantity and quality of reflection is consistently
> associated with both academic and civic learning. Engaging regularly
> in structured reflection leads students to deeper understanding and
> better application of subject matter knowledge and increased
> knowledge of social agencies, increased complexity of problem and
> solution analysis, and greater use of subject matter knowledge in
> analyzing problems (Eyler and Giles, 1999). Reflective practices in
> the classroom have also been shown to help learners connect earlier
> experiences to new content in order to achieve better understanding
> of the new material (Lee and Sabatino, 1998).
>
> References
> Lee, D., and Sabatino, K. "Evaluating Guided Reflections: A U.S.
> Case Study." International Journal of
> Training and Development 1998, 2(3), 162-170.
>
> Eyleer, J., and Giles, D.E. Where's the Learning in Service-
> Learning? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.
>
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