Search

Approaching a milestone in his teaching career, the author set out to document his observations on mentoring reflective journal writing with the aims of capturing his own learning journey and providing insights into future practice. Such recollections of teachers’ learning from experience in the higher education context have been subject to relatively little investigation. Some key points emerge: reflective journal writing is considered fundamental to advancing the core principles of the liberal arts tradition, specifically by allowing students to articulate their understanding of the more abstract concepts fundamental to undergraduate learning. Over time, mentoring of journal writing can provide rich individual and collective portraits of learner development. At the heart of this discussion is the belief that the ‘art’ of mentoring good journal writing lies in taking cues from the students, and acknowledging and incorporating their insights and first-hand experience of the process into classroom ...

This paper documents the ongoing development of a framework for reflection for undergraduate learners new to the reflective process. Motivated by the gap between students’ abilities and experience of reflection and the expectations of them at undergraduate level, the author experimented with a variety of approaches over a number of years. After much trial and error, a three-step pyramid method loosely based on Mezirow's three stages of the reflective process has been meeting with some success and is presented here. Findings indicate that recognizing the limitations in novice practitioners ability to reflect effectively, and providing them with a practical framework of initial support can empower them and result in greater expression and confidence in their reflective journal writing.