Building Reflection and Accountability into the Learning Process

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Disclaimer: (please read)

In the spirit of transparency, I need to disclose the following: I do have a paid working relationship with getAbstract and two of my books are featured in the getAbstract product, however, all thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own and are not directed by getAbstact in any way. Also, this article was written exclusively by a human with narrative input from AI. AI only created the one image at beginning of article. All mistakes, inaccuracies, and leaps of logic were made by me.

Introduction

Reflection is an often-overlooked tool in learning. In fact, I often say that there is no learning without reflection, only experience. I am not alone in this thought about the value of reflection in both academic and work-based learning.

Ruth Helyer in her paper, “Learning through reflection: the critical role of reflection in work-based learning (WBL) wrote that, “people instinctively reflect on events, perhaps to better understand what has happened and make sense of it; the idea of learning from the past, especially trying not to repeat mistakes is well established.”? (Helyer, 2015).

Scholar’s Misrah Mohamed, Radzuwan Ab Rashid, and Marwan Harb Alqaryouti write that researchers in the field of reflective practice have taken different approaches to examine the phenomenon, but all of these approaches consist of four main components in common: (i) reflecting; (ii) planning for future action; (iii) acting; and (iv) evaluating the outcomes.

Designing Learning Events

When designing our learning events and programs we need to carefully construct those events and programs to actively involve reflection. While most everyone knows and acknowledges the value of reflection for learning, I find that rarely do our designs of instruction include built-in opportunities to guide the learner to reflect or even ask them to hold themselves accountable for the learning.

Especially in corporate settings where “time is [seemingly] money” the goal tends to be to rush the learner through content rather than provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their own practice, their own approaches to working, or, even, the learning experience they just completed (or are in the process of completing.)

So, I was delighted and pleasantly surprised to recently find something from, what I thought, was an unlikely source (seriously, they summarize books).

Interesting Concept

I was recently introduced to a microlearning tool called “Actionables” from getAbstract. They wanted me to check them out. Since I already had books summarized by getAbstract and had a working relationship with them, I wanted to see what this was all about. The two books are "Gamification of Learning and Instruction", and "Microlearning: Short and Sweet" both are summarized by getAbstract (however, they need to get caught up on my other books if you ask me??)

Until they told me about this product, I had no idea that they also created eLearning. ?And, not only do they create eLearning but they create it in a sequence that totally resonated with me. ?The company has a three-tiered learning process that is broken down as follows:

• First, in about a 15 minutes learning segment, you are given highlights and important elements of the concept you are learning. They call this “Know.” Let’s say the subject is “Learning How to Delegate.” (which I really need to learn.) There is a brief introduction, a video, questions to help foster reflection, prompts to ask you what you would do, and a section titled take-aways which can also be downloaded as a PDF (some still like the good old-fashioned paper). Then, once you completed that 15-minute lesson (and only after you completed that lesson), you go onto the next section called “Do.”
• ?In the “Do” section they hold your feet to the fire as they say, and, is important. We’ve all been to a really great training class but we don’t give ourselves any action items or don’t hold our selves accountable and we forget to implement what we’ve learned. Here the “Do” section asks you to commit to doing what you’ve learned. There is even a little motto that says, “Remember: knowledge is nothing without action.”? You get a short video giving specific instructions on how to put your new-found knowledge into action and then you get asked a simple but powerful question. “Are you ready to commit? Yes or No.” You must indicate which you choose. A great psychological tool which I’ve used myself to help students and others to really commit to making the behavior change (it doesn’t always work but it’s better than not asking for a commitment and the likelihood of success is much higher because you are asking for a commitment.)
• The final section is “Reflect” and you already know how important I think reflection is from a learning perspective. Here, they want you to come back to the “Actionable” and share with peers what you’ve done. Then you are asked questions about how easy it was to implement and what you would do to have better results in the future. This is really well designed to have you commit to action and to reflect on your own work-place learning.
• This three-tiered learning process is also designed for enabling ROI measurement. Which is interesting. getAbstract calls it the "Knowledge Application Rate." It looks at all the learners who complete step one (KNOW) and step two (DO) of an Actionable, and observes how many of them reflected on the experience by submitting the reflection form. By measuring who is reflecting and sharing, you can begin to determine where and by whom the knowledge is being applied.

Conclusion

Seriously, I think getAbstract snuck into my subconscious like Leonardo DiCaprio Inception-style and stole my design for effective instruction (or maybe they just read the microlearning book).

If you design instruction, you might want to jump into my head and steal this idea as well. Creating learning that makes an impact requires engaging the learners in reflection. Next time you create some eLearning, don’t forget to add a dash of reflection.

??

References:

Helyer, R. ?(2015), "Learning through reflection: the critical role of reflection in work-based learning (WBL)",?Journal of Work-Applied Management , Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 15-27.?https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-10-2015-003

?Mohamed M, Rashid RA and Alqaryouti MH (2022) Conceptualizing the complexity of reflective practice in education. Front. Psychol. 13:1008234. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1008234

?About Karl

Karl Kapp, Ed.D. has been a Professor of Instructional Technology for over 26 years at Bloomsburg?University (now Commonwealth University). In that time, he's written books, created LinkedIn Learning courses, published peer reviewed articles, wrote successful grants, held numerous corporate advisory events and positions, been a TEDx speaker, and has taught countless professionals watching them go on to great, inspirational careers.