The Reflective Thread: From Integration to Assessment

Abstract

The view that reflection can be a tool that helps develop critical thinking and analytical skills is already well-established. But teachers may ask themselves how they can equip students with the skills to move from lower levels to higher levels of reflection (Gibbs, 1988; Hatton & Smith, 1995). One way in which this might be accomplished in and beyond the classroom is by moving from a ‘one-way approach’ to reflection to a circular, more dynamic process of ‘reflexivity’ in which open dialogue and questions can help generate new perspectives and understandings (Bolton, 2009). It is believed that in order to achieve such a shift, certain conditions need to be embedded into syllabus design. The first part of this seminar will outline these conditions before then describing ways in which they might be achieved. The second part of the seminar will look at a specific aspect of the syllabus design – the assessment of reflection. Based on the interviews with 22 CAES teachers and document analyses, the difficulties and challenges in assessing reflection will be highlighted, followed by making practical suggestions for how the assessment can be made valid and reliable.