2.3 Reflection and learning

The course guide says that H808 aims to support our development in “your capacity to assess and transform your e-learning context, through reflection on your practice.” (Open University, 2008) This indicates that the course places an emphasis on the ’self’ and applying knowledge developed during the course activities to the learner’s own context, thus personalizing their learning experience.

There are two reasons why I would want to reflect on this course. One is that I would want to reflect on my actual participation on it – my involvement with the learning activities, my interactions with other students, how I feel I’m coping, that sort of thing. The other is to reflect on what I am learning in context with my regular professional practice.

Moon (2005) states, “The issue of assessment of reflection needs careful thought. The most important decision is whether or not to assess it… and how you will ensure students engage.” That the course embeds reflection of contextualizing learning activities serves to personalize it and emphasizes ownership. Moon also comments on how reflection enables learners to achieve ownership over knowledge, and the parallels to the capacity of an e-portfolio to deliver ownership of content cements the relationship between the two. She goes on to say, “it is important that [reflection] is signalled possibly in the aim, but particularly in the learning outcomes for the module” (Moon, 2001)

Interestingly, as I write this I have become aware of the reasons why I may reflect, supporting the notion that “ability in reflection often implies ability in metacognition”. (Moon, 2005) The feature of ‘second-order reflection’ is explained in Moon (2001) and has a commonsensical relationship with underpinning theory (Kolb, 1984), where a well-established tradition of reflection is part of professional teaching practice, for example.

So, some key points:
• Reflection can be used to think about a concept, challenge or subject more thoroughly, and therefore learn more about it. (Taking a step back)
• In doing so, it becomes a personal experience. New knowledge is developed and is made unique by the individual experiences brought to existing knowledge.
• Reflection engenders metacognition.
• The underpinning theory of reflection and learning are well-established in existing professional practice.

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Moon, J. (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’ [online], The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (accessed 30 September 2008)

Moon, J. (2005) ‘Guide for busy academics no. 4: learning through reflection’ [online], The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/id69_guide_for_busy_academics_no4_moon (accessed 30 September 2008)

Open University (2008) ‘The e-learning professional, H808 course guide 2008′, Institute of Educational Technology: Postgraduate Available online from the H808 course website (Accessed 1 October 2008)

Acker, S. (2005) ‘Overcoming obstacles to authentic e-portfolio assessment’

Acker, S. (2005) ‘Overcoming obstacles to authentic e-portfolio assessment’ [online], Campus Technology. Available from: http://www.campus-technology.com/news_article.asp?id=10788&typeid=155 (accessed 25 September 2008)

Acker outlines the idea that there are 3Rs to which an e-portfolio can successfully contribute: representation, reflection and revision. The nature of a portfolio is such that representation is intrinsic, and I am beginning to think that reflection is actually the key driver to successful implementation of e-portfolios. In addition, easily editable digital content provides means for frequent revision.

The author also refers to three barriers to institutional uptake: ownership and privacy (IPR), workload issues and what is described as “the ‘inverted value’ of e-portfolios for students.” (That perceived benefits to portfolio use are greater toward end of career) The challenge of workload returns to the need to apply consistent assessment criteria. But perhaps most significantly Acker recognises that “Most students are outcome, rather than process, oriented. They want to graduate, rather than track their academic growth…” Highlighting these challenges, the author reslects that they be tackled at the earliest stage of impliementation, indicating a need for clearly defined protocols for use.

Stefani, L. (2005) ‘PDP/CPD and e-portfolios: rising to the challenge of modelling good practice’

Stefani, L. (2005) ‘PDP/CPD and e-portfolios: rising to the challenge of modelling good practice’ [online], Association for Learning Technology Available from: www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc (accessed 24 September 2008

Stefani comments on the correlation between CPD and PDP and the benefit to embedding CPD into practice as it has been found that embedding PDP enhances the learner experience, quality of learning, efficiency gains, etc. She also reports on these factors being tied into a motivational driver that, for PDP, usually takes the form of assessment.

Stefani clarifies the portfolio type: “In most instances of e-folios for students, the rational [sic] behind the folio is to support and promote ‘reflective learning’.” (p.4) i.e. a reflective or learning portfolio. The Stanford University Learning Laboratory study exemplifies the functions of the portfolio tool as being flexible, organizable, supporting reflection and private as well as being able to house multimedia content. The study at University of Strathclyde presents a similar list but are presented with the learner at the centre – “to support students in reflecting on attainment, attitudes and progress…” However, in neither instance are examples of actual use reported.

Stefani comments on one of the key benefits to using an e-portfolio for teaching staff as being the abilitly to create a ‘point-in-time’ portfolio. The ability to rapidly generate a snapshot of activity for a variety of audiences, and maintain control over that content, is a powerful reward for users.

Batson, T. (2002) The electronic portfolio boom: what’s it all about?

Batson, T. (2002) ‘The electronic portfolio boom: what’s it all about?’ [online], Campus Technology. Available from: http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/39299_1/ (accessed 24 September 2008)

Batson takes a pragmatic view of e-portfolios and the implications of their utilisation in organisations. The challenges raised include those mentioned by other authors (Jafari, 2004) such as sustainability issues for adopting organisations, as well as those of interoperability standards, storage, privacy and access. However, many of these problems have been tackled by current e-portfolio platforms. Another question posed was “how do we alter the curriculum to integrate portfolios?” Batson expands on this challenge stating that the e-portfolio is “not a simple add-on to existing courses; if it is, students may not see the value.”

Some of the key features of a portfolio differ slightly from other perspectives in that Batson includes the word searchable in addition to the reccurrent attributes of transportable and organized. He also highlights the potential of an e-portfolio to an administrative stakeholder group for aggregation of multiple user’s work, for example.