Several years ago (and at another institution), I attended a meeting where a faculty member was presenting a revised general education curriculum to the Board of Trustees. She described where in the curriculum students would have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and their educational goals. At one point, a Trustee impatiently said, “What’s with all this reflection? Where’s the academic rigor?!”
To equate reflection with a lack of intellectual rigor
is somewhat akin to promoting the unexamined life.
Reflection has long been recognized as critical to the
learning process. Cynthia Roberts writes, “Critical reflection can be used as a
way to integrate theory with practice, can facilitate insights, and stimulate
self-discovery” (117).
From an assessment perspective, giving students
opportunities to reflect is a valid way to assess what they are truly achieving
in our courses. Their reflections also provide us with a way to observe and
possibly measure the transformative power of higher education.
One such example comes from Sharon Kanfoush, Professor
of Geology. At the conclusion of a general education geology class, she asks students
to reflect on what they learned in the course that surprised them. One student wrote
that when he enrolled in the class, he thought it would just be about “rocks
and dirt.” To his surprise, he discovered that “Geology is actually relevant to
our everyday lives” because it teaches us about the threats of global warming
and enhances our understanding of catastrophic events, such as earthquakes and
landslides.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Kaylee Seddio, is
an advocate of student research, which, she says, provides students with the
chance to expand their knowledge of a topic while making connections to content
in other courses. She encourages students to conduct research that has personal
value to them. In doing so, the research itself becomes a type of reflection:
not only do students increase their knowledge of a topic, they also enhance
their knowledge of self.
Reflection is an important component of experiential
education. In PSY 470, Deborah Pollack, Assistant Professor of Psychology, requires
a final paper where students reflect on their internship experiences and articulate
what they learned. In many cases, what they learned changed them. One student credits her internship with
influencing her decision to pursue a graduate degree, something she says she
was previously opposed to doing. Another described how his internship at the
Kelberman Center—“by far the most valuable experience [he had] while studying
at Utica”—helped him recognize how much diversity exists among autistic persons
and changed his stereotypical thinking about autism. The experience further clarified
his educational and career goals and allowed him to “not only grow as a student
but also as a person.”
Measuring transformation may be more difficult than
measuring cognitive growth, but it’s worth the attempt to do so. As Becker
notes, “Cognitive outcomes reflected in knowledge and skills are weaker
indicators of sustainable learning than measures reflecting internal change in
the student” (15).
If we really want to assess whether students are
achieving the promise of higher education, we must consider how the experience
transformed them. By keeping this out of our assessment narratives, we risk
promoting higher education as being solely transactional, its value measured
only by job placement rates and post-graduation salaries.
Works
Cited
Becker, Annette. “Personal Transformation in RNs Who Recently Graduated from an RN to BSN Program.” Journal of Transformative Education, Oct. 2017, pp.1-19.
Roberts, Cynthia. “Developing Future Leaders: The Role of Reflection in the Classroom.” Journal of Leadership Education. Summer 2008, pp. 116- 130.
No comments:
Post a Comment