Reflective Writing

Reflective Writing - Guidance Notes for Students
Pete Watton; Jane Collings; Jenny Moon
April 2001

This pack looks mainly at reflective writing for work-based/experience modules but can be applied across the board. Essentially it is an informative paper with some background theory on reflection and a few exercises with case studies. Overall the pack seems quite useful and manages to provide a good overview of reflection in a way that most students are able to understand. It makes use of material that students may relate to, such as a reference to reflection in Harry Potter:

‘Harry stared at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.

“ What is it?” Harry asked shakily.

“This? It is called a Pensieve,” said Dumbledore. “ I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

“Err,” said Harry who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.

“At these times” said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, “ I use the Penseive. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into a basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.’ ( Rowling 2000)

Learning Forum London and ePortfolio 2009

http://events.eife-l.org/lfl2009

This year's event main theme is "Innovation, Creativity and Accountability." It will be addressed over three days and three conferences:

• ePortfolio 2009 (7th international conference)
• Key Competencies—Skills for Life 2009 (3rd international conference)
• Learning Networks and Communities (4th international conference—previously Learning Regions & Cities)

Essay on the benefits of ePortfolios

Saw this peice on ePortfolios which looks at the way learning takes place and how portfolios are essential to this process:

“In an essay in the current issue of Academic Commons, three researchers write that “ePortfolios may be the most likely vehicle to help us make the transition to an academy of the future that is both relevant and authoritative.”

The article recognises the diversity and flexibility of ePortfolios and lists four main features:

• The ability to incorporate multimedia elements to support learning
• Linking together different areas of their learning in one environment
• Higher levels of engagement and immersion, retention and grades compared to those not using eportfolios
• Tracking progress of students over the duration of the course

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3668/electronic-portfolios-a-path-to-the-future-of-learning

Telling Stories Conference

JISC have announced this years ePortfolio Telling stories conference:

http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=16960

10^th and 11^th June 2009 @ Wolverhampton University.

Last years conference was quite informative which also saw Shane from PebblePad speaking. It'll be interesting to see how the overall ePortfolio usage has progressed since then.

Guidance on reflection

A great informative guidance sheet for students at Hull University (Chris Pinder) on reflection. Although it's geared towards a paper based portfolio the underlying principles are still the same. This may prove useful when developing our own guidance. It's simple and concise:

http://www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice/LearningResources/StudyGuidesPDFs/reflectlr.pdf

Pre-Induction

Last year I was involved with a pre-induction group which looked at preparing students for university life. One of the outputs from the group was Gale's Skills4Uni development kit. Essentially it consisted of a programme of mini tasks/tests, each focusing on different areas of learning such as research, note taking, report writing etc.

The application is made available before the students start university but have accepted their offers. In much the same way as students in Engineering were given an assignment before they started their first term.

I had initial ideas of developing a pre-induction activity for the current first year MBChB cohort which we discussed in the team. We developed an idea of students being prepared for their first personal mentor meeting by doing a pre-induction activity which involved using PebblePad to create a profile of the students intentions, interests in medicine and motivations where. However, due to unforeseen circumstances we were unable to deliver this activity.

I think it would be very beneficial to ensure that this activity is delivered for the new cohort in Autumn.

Reflective learning video

Just found a really good video about reflective learning from a students perspective. It seems quite creative and gets the message across in 3mins! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVte5Iwr28