TY - GEN
T1 - Integrating students' learning experiences through deliberate reflective practice
AU - Walther, Joachim
AU - Kellam, Nadia
AU - Radcliffe, David
AU - Boonchai, Chantinee
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - This paper presents the evaluation of an alternative procedure to facilitate engineering students' reflective learning in the context of situated learning experiences. The procedure takes the format of a focus group with specific triggers to elicit students' accounts of critical learning experiences. This reflection starts from students' concrete, intuitive feelings of consternation when their prior understandings of engineering were challenged by a situation encountered in practice - we call these competence anomalies. The effectiveness of the suggested procedure was evaluated in a survey of 58 engineering students who had participated in trial focus groups. The analysis of the 5 point Likert scale ratings indicated that the majority of students (78.9%) saw significant benefits from their participation. Subsequent questions revealed that the focus groups supported the recall of learning incidents but did not give students enough guidance in interpreting their experiences. For the further development of the tool we thus propose a four step SAID structure (Situation, Affect, Interpretation, Decision). The paper concludes with an outlook on the implementation of this expanded concept as a concurrent reflective tool in an innovative engineering synthesis and design studio series. In this context, the reflection is intended to promote overall integrative learning that encompasses the curriculum, situated learning as well as the students' prior and current life experiences.
AB - This paper presents the evaluation of an alternative procedure to facilitate engineering students' reflective learning in the context of situated learning experiences. The procedure takes the format of a focus group with specific triggers to elicit students' accounts of critical learning experiences. This reflection starts from students' concrete, intuitive feelings of consternation when their prior understandings of engineering were challenged by a situation encountered in practice - we call these competence anomalies. The effectiveness of the suggested procedure was evaluated in a survey of 58 engineering students who had participated in trial focus groups. The analysis of the 5 point Likert scale ratings indicated that the majority of students (78.9%) saw significant benefits from their participation. Subsequent questions revealed that the focus groups supported the recall of learning incidents but did not give students enough guidance in interpreting their experiences. For the further development of the tool we thus propose a four step SAID structure (Situation, Affect, Interpretation, Decision). The paper concludes with an outlook on the implementation of this expanded concept as a concurrent reflective tool in an innovative engineering synthesis and design studio series. In this context, the reflection is intended to promote overall integrative learning that encompasses the curriculum, situated learning as well as the students' prior and current life experiences.
KW - Focus groups
KW - Reflection
KW - Situated learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77951438530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77951438530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2009.5350657
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2009.5350657
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77951438530
SN - 9781424447152
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - 39th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference
T2 - 39th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference: Imagining and Engineering Future CSET Education, FIE 2009
Y2 - 18 October 2009 through 21 October 2009
ER -