Tips & Tricks for Successful Implementation of Reflection Activities in Engineering Education

Integration of Critical Reflection Methodologies into Engineering Service-Learning Projects

“…An interesting debate was discovered around the theme of assessment and reflection: authors in the field disagree as to whether reflection activities and assignments should be assessed at all. Some recommend that professors not collect reflections in order to emphasize the personal nature of reflections [Seattle Central College FG06 and Arizona State University FG10, both as cited in [14]]. Otherwise, students may be distracted from their own thoughts and experiences by teachers' expectations [14].…”

“…Some recommend that professors not collect reflections in order to emphasize the personal nature of reflections [Seattle Central College FG06 and Arizona State University FG10, both as cited in [14]]. Otherwise, students may be distracted from their own thoughts and experiences by teachers' expectations [14]. Others indicate that students were only saying what instructors wanted to hear, a risk which would naturally intensify in proportion to the weight given to the reflections in grading [15].…”

“…Relatedly, Mann et al cite certain authors' consideration of whether assessing reflections may be "counterproductive" in some cases if doing so were to threaten students' experience of "safety" [Pee et al (2002), as cited in [12]] Multiple other authors, however, described methodology and motivation for assessing students, sometimes even including rubrics used [9] [16][O'Brien (2013), as cited in [5]][Bradley (1995), as cited in [5]]. It was suggested that assessing reflections could motivate students to take the assignment seriously [Georgia Tech FG08, as cited in [14]] and that not doing so may have the opposite effect [12], a concern shared by the authors of the present paper. Jolly and Radcliffe [10] even observe that increasing the percentage of the grade assigned to reflection tasks had a "significant effect" on how seriously students approached the task.…”

“…Some authors encouraged assessment for the purpose of helping students learn how to reflect (for example, see [12]). This is of particular importance, since reflection is oftentimes new territory for engineering students [Arizona State University FG08, Bellevue College FG07, Bellevue College FG10, Clarkson University FG01, all as cited in [14]]. Furthermore, there are indications that a key factor in developing reflexive skills is the attitude towards and modeling of these skills by mentors and faculty themselves [10] [12].…”

“…Furthermore, there are indications that a key factor in developing reflexive skills is the attitude towards and modeling of these skills by mentors and faculty themselves [10] [12]. Providing formative assessment on critical reflection tasks seems to present an opportunity to model reflection for students [Georgia Tech FG11, as cited in [14]].…”