Where is reflection in the learning process? (@jackiegerstein)

I found the following post by Jackie Gerstein recently, and wanted to share it with you – “Where is reflection in the learning process?”

Why am I sharing it … because it is the student voice, or lack of it, that I found most interesting. Jackie was getting frustrated at their inability to ‘reflect’ until

“a major AHA struck me … They are products of a standardized system where they were asked to memorize standardized information and spit that information out on standardized tests. When finished with one unit of information, they were asked to quickly move onto the next unit.  They were not given the time, skills, and opportunities to extract personalized meanings from their studies.  Reflection was not part of their curriculum as it cannot be measured nor tested.”

Jackie continues to discuss her work as well as that of Stephen Brookfield and the realisation that, in order to encourage reflection in our students, we (educators and/or facilitators) also need to be able to reflect:

“The only way that educators can teach and promote reflective practice by their students (of all ages) in their own classrooms is to engage in, embrace, and fully understand this process themselves.”

I am also in this process of reflection, needed for my PG Cert last year and for the (ongoing) CMALT application. I do not find it easy, especially when critical reflection is needed on something that occurred a while ago, but it is a worthwhile exercise and it does improve how I view and review my role as a Learning Technologist.

Read Jackie’s work on her User Generated Education blog on Twitter (@jackiegerstein), you’ll be better for it.