Making Reflective learning logs work: Increasing students’ reflective abilities through educational practice

Students often express that they feel stressed and struggle to engage actively in their own learning. Teachers often experience that the students struggle to engage in discussions and knowledge-sharing sessions. Innovation and design are constructive disciplines with which the students often have little or no experience. Students need to develop and mature as active and reflective learners to succeed in the design discipline and as Lifelong learners. Our basic assumption is that students are genuinely interested in being active and reflective learners but feel challenged on how to do so in practice. Therefore, we designed a framework consisting of a reflective learning log template and technical and evaluative criteria to be integrated into a course.

At TAL2022 we would like to share how, after years of mixed success, we have succeeded in encouraging active and reflective learning by introducing technical and evaluative criteria as part of the learning activity.
This includes:
- The Reflection log template which is tailored to include key aspects of the educational programme and course assessment. The students are required to use the reflection log template to inform their reflections on their learning in and across courses.
- Activities to provide knowledge on how to engage in reflective processes and develop reflective writing skills
- Clear evaluation criteria in the form of an assessment rubric
- Individual formative assessment feedback on students’ ability to reflect based on the assessment rubric

Compared to previous years' use of the reflective learning log as a learning activity in the course, the clear framework provided enhanced students' ability to engage in reflective learning processes. The reflective learning log entries revealed a development in reflective writing skills, and the students were able to use the DIEP format to create coherent reflections in in-class knowledge-sharing sessions and discussions. Although some students found it hard and somewhat intrusive to engage in structured reflective processes, the technical and evaluative criteria provided were acknowledged as a support to achieve the learning objectives.

The potential value of keeping a reflective learning log to engage in active learning is unquestionable. However, it does require resources in the form of time and mental effort which must be taken into consideration. The presented example of a reflection log template and associated technical and evaluative criteria can alleviate some of the mental effort required and thereby make reflective learning logs work in practice.