Recording and/or writing? Weighing the benefits of reflective practices

Let’s come right out with it: Reflecting about learning is a commendable practice that should be embedded into any learning experience! For both teachers and students, reflecting is an important practice to make sense of what one has been doing and/or learning. The concept of reflection as an “educative process” dates back to the work of John Dewey (1933), who pointed out that experience alone does not constitute learning; instead, a conscious realization must occur so that an experience can truly become a source of learning. More explicitly, reflective assignments “require students to engage in critical reflection and higher order thinking; they force students to be more open-ended and less prescriptive; and they permit students to be creative and questioning” (Dyment & O’Connell, 2011, p. 92).