Reflective Writing
Online Faculty Development Course
Reflective writing is where students are encouraged to practice metacognition, or awareness of their learning process. As Linda Nilson and Ludwika Goodson explain, reflective writing compels students to "honest introspection and self-assessment, willingness to change strategies, and acceptance of responsibility for one's [own] learning." Reflective writing assignments can ask students to compose a paragraph, a page, or a few short pages of text, depending on the prompt. Students might also compose discussion posts for others to read, or compose audio or video. Obviously, Reflective Writing assignments mesh nicely with the Jesuit IPP.
Here are some examples of reflective writing prompts, that might ask students to compose in response to course content, or a previous project or assignment completed: (These are adapted from Nilson and Goodson, 2018):
What do you not understand clearly? What helped or hindered your understanding?
What comparisons and connections can you draw between this new material and your earlier learning in this course and other courses?
How did what you learned confirm or conflict with your prior beliefs, knowledge, or values?
Describe the process that you followed in doing this assignment, such as the steps you took, the strategies you chose, the problems you had, and the solutions you developed.
What advice would you give to future students in this course about this assignment? What approach should they take? How can they avoid likely problems? What skills should they work on improving?
How does your work on this assignment, or in this week's work, correlate with one or more learning objectives as stated in the weekly module or syllabus? Or a learning goals for the course?
The Patricia K. Cross Academy has several assignments, some of which we've discussed previously, that are essentially reflective writing exercises.