Using Reflective Practice to Support Management Student Learning: Three Brief Assignments

Abstract

Acknowledgements: Helpful comments provided by the MTR editors and reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. AbstractReflective practice supports critical thinking and assessment skills through analyzing one's own life experiences, and the role of reflection in learning has been long recognized. However, drawbacks of many reflective practice assignments are their broad scope and lengthy written requirements. I propose that the reflection process is robust enough to support management student learning through short written tasks as well.Three examples of brief reflective assignments are presented suitable for management educators teaching undergraduate, graduate, or non-credit learners: (1) writing an organizational story; (2) a reflection about learning from adversity; and (3) a goaloriented personal change. Learning outcomes and student responses have been positive, and the assignments have also been an insightful teaching experience for the instructor.

Becoming a guide for pilgrims in a time of secularization

“…The Swiss pilgrimage event of 20 May 2017, and the training experience of the Reformed Church in Z€ urich inspired the author to elaborate the PEARL pedagogical model. The model relies on two main conceptual bases that are (a) the conceptual framework of informal learning on the workplace by Jeong et al (2018), adapted for pilgrim guide training; and (b) the reflective practices designed by Reilly (2017). They are briefly presented in the following sections.…”

“…The pivotal work of Kolb (1984Kolb ( , 2007 is drawn on the experiential learning theory and of Argyris and Sch€ on (1978) on the double loop learning theory, which identified how interactions between individuals and the organizational environment are essential, Reilly (2017)suggests that to foster reflective thinking, reflective practices need to have the objectives of a) connecting concepts with practical experiences; b) reflecting on these experiences to analyze what happened, why and the potential for change and c) developing self-awareness in recognizing the learners' place in the experience.…”

“…Taking into account the multilevel nature of the informal learning conceptual framework (individual, group, organization), we use it in the context of training pilgrimage guides, considered as active agents, in a way that will impact their experience learning to guide pilgrimages and therefore impact the experience of future postmodern pilgrims. We encourage the use of reflective practice assignments, such as the ones developed by Reilly (2017), which we will describe in the next sections.…”

LOOKING BACK IN ORDER TO MOVE AHEAD AS A LEADER: A Personal Journey Line Narrative Exercise

“…The exercise is most appropriate for undergraduate students or graduate students in an organizational behavior (OB) or leadership course. Similar to other reflective exercises with a focus on communicating personal values to others (Reilly, 2018;Tyran, 2017), this exercise asks students to not only solidify their core values in their own minds but to communicate those values, as well as how they came to hold those values. Students are asked to specifically identify three core values and to explain how they came to hold those values by linking them to significant developmental or transformative events or experiences in their lives.…”

Thinking Like a Manager: A Participatory Exercise for Understanding Managerial Roles

“…Using EarWorm as a point of case analysis encourages students to improve their critical thinking skills (Athanassiou et al, 2003). In addition, incorporating related exercises to complete short reflections further fosters engaged learning (Reilly, 2017).…”