Theorising and Implementing a Model for Teaching and Assessing Reflective Learning in Higher Education

Mary RyanFaculty of Education, QUT

Plenary Address EAC2011, Perth, 17 October

Supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council

Reflective learning is a way to…

•Promote higher-order critical thinking•Consider different possibilities and

actions•Link old ideas with new ones•Stimulate creative solutions•Encourage life-long learning•Draw on evidence to plan future actions•Improve practice•Create cohesiveness across course

Key issues around reflection in higher education

Difficulty of moving students from recount or description to deep, critical reflection

Seen as easy marks How can you assess it? Means different things in different units Smorgasbord approach Difficult to teach Time constraints

Academic Reflection

• Not the same as personal reflection

• Needs to be causal

• Needs to provide evidence and link to theory – higher order thinking

• Needs to plan future action

• Needs to show knowledge of discipline using appropriate expressive resources

Some key findings: needs to be…

• Theorised and systematic (teach all levels)

• Course-wide (but not to saturation point) • Implemented through pedagogy and

assessment, with shared language and requisite trust

• Facilitated by resources• Top down and bottom-up

• Must relate to the pedagogic field rather than a smorgasbord of activities...

Theorising the pedagogic field of higher education

The TARL Model(Teaching & Assessing Reflective Learning)

Teaching Patterns•Teaching Patterns ...

•try to capture important elements of a proven teaching technique.

•are a bit like a cooking recipe, but without prescription.

•are highly structured.

•are abstract so that they cover a wide set of implementations.

•constantly evolve through experience and refinement.

•act as boundary objects to enable rich professional dialogue.

•are the basis for a pattern language when used by a creative teaching community.

Pedagogic Hub

A L

ist o

f Pat

tern

s

A Pattern Language• is a set of interrelated

teaching patterns organised around a community of teachers.

• can be associated with a course or a particular skill or disposition like reflection.

• can be structured to show various relationships between patterns.

http://edpatterns.net

Embedding the model

1. Developmental (course-wide)

2. Shared language – 4Rs

3. Part of assessment

4. Pedagogy as a ‘balancing act’

Publications:• Ryan, Mary (2011). Improving reflective writing in higher

education: A social semiotic perspective. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(1), 99-111.

 • Ryan, Mary (in press 2011). Spaces of possibility in pre-service

teacher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32(6).

• Ryan, Mary & Ryan, Michael (in press). Theorising a Model for Teaching and Assessing Reflective Learning in Higher Education. Higher Education Research & Development.

• Ryan, Mary (in press). Conceptualising and teaching discursive and performative reflection in higher education. Studies in Continuing Education.

Websites and contact details

Main project website:www.drawproject.net

Pedagogic patterns:www.edpatterns.net

Contact:Dr Mary Ryan me.ryan@qut.edu.au