Importance of Reflective Learning and Feedback in Higher Education

This report discusses the importance of reflective learning and feedback in higher education. It explains the Gibbs reflective model and its application in feedback. The report also highlights the nature of feedback and feedforward, and how a reflective approach to feedback and feedforward can improve future formative and summative assessments. The subject is relevant to all courses and colleges/universities.

Orientation for
Success in higher
Education

TABLE OF CONTENT
PART 1 - ESSAY ...........................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
Reflection.....................................................................................................................................4
Nature of feedback and feedforward............................................................................................5
A reflective approach to feedback and feedforward can improve and inform future formative
and summative assessments ........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

PART 1 - ESSAY
INTRODUCTION
Reflective learning is basically an education form especially used in higher education
and this practice used by people to reflect upon their experience related to learning and teaching
both. By using this reflective learning method, the people can develop their critical thinking
skills which is beneficial for their professional career. The present report will be based on
importance of reflective learning and approach related to it. With the help of Gibbs reflective
model, the learners can improve on future performance by analysing what they have learned and
what they need to learn more. By taking these model into consideration, the learner can improve
self-esteem and reading abilities which is beneficial for their career. Feedback is all about giving
and receiving performance grade. When a learner receives feedback from its instructor, they get
information about how they are performing currently. The study will highlight description of
reflective model to feedback and feed forward. Furthermore, the report will show the importance
of feedback in improving and informing summative assessments and formative assessments.
Reflection
As we all know that reflection is an important method of learning and teaching activities.
To become aware about own processes of thinking is known as reflection. When student reflect
upon their strengths and weaknesses they are able to make important decisions. With the help of
regular reflection the learners can enhance their learning ability (He, Parkinson and Doyle,
2018). By using reflection they can increase their mindset and encourage themselves to learn
from their own mistakes and make necessary changes. Not only students but teachers also
describe about their learning and follow the process where they give detailed information about
how their learning experience might relate to future learning growth. In short, the people can
easily express their overall feelings, experience and impressions.
Reflective approach to learning
In today's learning world, to be successful it is important for learners to use reflection
which can support their learning during, before and after an experience. In reflection approach,
students look back at previous experience and any past events, any idea and critically evaluate it
(Lappi and Mole, 2018). With this, they can give information about unsuccessful and successful
aspects which can help them to learn from their experiences and enhance their deep learning
process.

Gibbs model of reflection
Gibbs reflective cycle is one of the most famous and popular model used among people
in describe their experiences. This model is established in the year 1988 in order to give structure
to process of learning from previous experience. Basically, this model is helpful to examine the
feelings and allow learners to plan accordingly from things that either went wrong or went well.
The major importance of using this model is : it is the best model used by learners to work
through their own experience (Markkanen and et.al., 2020). For example- if any meeting takes
place between team members on the topic of collaboration and communication, after that teacher
asked them to do group discussion and provide self reflection on it. Every person will provide
reflection by using important 6 stages which includes:
Description- in this student can describe about the situation and whole scenario in detail such as
what happened during the learning session, what was the result of the particular situation, what
did students have to do and many more.
 Feelings- here, they can explore their own thoughts and give details about feelings
during the learning experience.
 Evaluation- they can get the chance of evaluation such as what went good and what went
bad in the classroom.
 Analysis- here, they can analysis experience and explain about why things go well and
why not.
 Conclusion- in this they can conclude their learning and highlight what are the things
they want to improve in the near future.
 Action plan- lastly, they can make action plan which can help them to think about how
they will help themselves to act differently and make improvements in skills and
knowledge.
Nature of feedback and feedforward
feedback is basically provided by the instructor or teacher to their learners about action
and performance done by them. The feedback is the systematic process used in educational field
to evaluate the current performance of students (Lappi and Mole, 2018). By using feedback
method, the learners can improve their learning which is beneficial to achieve goals. In other

words, feedback is given to the learners which provide guidance on how to work effectively and
learn in a better way. In educational field, feedback plays a vital role because it gives an idea to
students about what they are doing in correct manner and what they are not doing properly. It is
the most productive method used by learners and teachers to get accurate about their own work.
Nowadays, teachers communicate with their students so that they can know about their
weaknesses and make necessary changes accordingly to improve skill set (Tawanwongsri and
Phenwan, 2019). A good teacher provide feedback on regular basis, they focus on accurate and
true feedback which enhance the motivation level of students. It must be genuine in a way that a
learner wouldn't feel disappointed and demotivated.
While on the other hand, feedforward is a process of offering guidance to learners on how
to do things better. It is an educational strategy used by educational instructor to provide students
or learners with prior exposure in order to clarify needs, standards and expectations (Adeani,
Febriani and Syafryadin, 2020). The major purpose of feedforward is to go through constructive
and timely feedback so that it can enhance the self directed learning of learners. By using both
feedforward and feedback the people can enhance their skills and ensure that assessment has a
developmental effect on sessions related to learning activities.
Within higher education it is strongly agreed by teachers that feedback is the most
essential part and important way of raising achievement of learners and encourage them towards
their goals related to student learning. By using Gibbs reflective model of reflection, the teachers
can encourage their learners to think critically and systematically about their previous
experiences they had during a particular classroom session or any kind of situation, event or
activity they have faced (Kreiman and Serre, 2020). With the help of Gibbs reflective model of
reflection the teachers can improve students performance on assignments and also engage them
to work effectively this can satisfy the needs of learners while studying on particular topic.
Feedforward strategies is the best way to improve satisfaction level and engagement of students
with feedback methods and applying Gibbs model.
A reflective approach to feedback and feedforward can improve and inform future
formative and summative assessments
As we all know that feedback is a process in which teachers focus on a current
performance of learners while on the other side, feedforward look ahead to use methods like
assessments and guidance on how to do things in a better way. By using reflective approach to

feedback and feedforward process, the teachers can help enhance the learning environment in a
most positive way (Markkanen and et.al., 2020). Combination of both helps ensure that
assessment whether it is summative or formative has a developmental and self-improvement
impact on learning and teaching sessions.
Summative feedback is given by teachers after the completion of assessment in the form
of mark or grade while on the other side formative feedback provided by teachers during the
course of an assessment which provides an idea about the overall capability of students. It is
essential in learning session that feedforward should be used to be clearly identifies so that
learners can easily understand its work (Salathé and et.al., 2018). With the help of formative
assessment, judgements about the learner's quality can be made in the process of learning.
Students can become familiar with the situation and their own learning needs which is associated
with processes of assessment as well ass the criteria of judgement on which teachers provide
marks.
Teachers use this to evaluate the work of students which is beneficial for the learners
progress. This method is implemented prior to summative assessment which allow learners to
obtain feedback on mistakes they have made in order to improve themselves. Hence, it is said
that feedback from formative assessment can help shape responses through a better
understanding of the criteria and values of assessment which helps students to achieve future
career goals. Teachers nowadays, provide feedback with the support of peer evaluation method
within higher education by using summative assessment (Kreiman and Serre, 2020). According
to teachers, producing grades will ultimately contribute to a final marks which is based on
examination pattern. Nowadays, teachers in higher education use various types of examination
pattern such as MCQ, short and long answer and essay based examination pattern. These
methods of examination are generally underpinned by learning approaches such as Gibbs
reflective model with respect to feedback and feedforward.

CONCLUSION
To conclude, reflection process plays a vital role in higher education as can provide
detailed information about experience. By evaluating the report students and teachers both can
develop their knowledge level and skills by reviewing on their effectiveness. Gibbs reflective
model is used by learners and teachers to express their feelings about specific situation, event or
any activity. In addition to this, feed forward is the opposite practice followed in learning as it is
a process of replacing negative review and positive feedback with future oriented solutions to
deal with issues. While on the other side feedback is given to learners to improve their areas of
improvement and enhance strengths by using formative and summative assessments and
feedback. Furthermore, the study has summarized that reflective approach to feedback and
feedforward can improve the future requirements of students, foster bonding by using
assessments method.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adeani, I. S., Febriani, R. B. and Syafryadin, S., 2020. USING GIBBS’REFLECTIVE CYCLE
IN MAKING REFLECTIONS OF LITERARY ANALYSIS. Indonesian EFL
Journal. 6(2). pp.139-148.
He, K. N., Parkinson, L. and Doyle, A. K., 2018. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle.
Kreiman, G. and Serre, T., 2020. Beyond the feedforward sweep: feedback computations in the
visual cortex. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1464(1). pp.222-241.
Lappi, O. and Mole, C., 2018. Visuomotor control, eye movements, and steering: A unified
approach for incorporating feedback, feedforward, and internal models. Psychological
bulletin. 144(10). p.981.
Markkanen, P. and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. 62(1). pp.46-62.
Salathé, Y. and et.al., 2018. Low-latency digital signal processing for feedback and feedforward
in quantum computing and communication. Physical Review Applied. 9(3). p.034011.
Tawanwongsri, W. and Phenwan, T., 2019. Reflective and feedback performances on Thai
medical students’ patient history-taking skills. BMC medical education. 19(1). pp.1-8.