Reflective Learning and Feedback in Higher Education

This essay discusses the concept of reflective learning and its importance in higher education. It explores the Gibbs model of reflection and the use of reflective feedback and feed forward in improving formative and summative assessments. The essay also highlights the importance of feedback and feed forward in improving teaching effectiveness.

Orientation for
Success in Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals:...............................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
This essay will help the teachers in understanding the concept of the reflective
learning, this essay will give the understanding the concept of reflective learning within
business management discipline (Dahl, Peltier and Schibrowsky, 2018). The reflective
learning is the form of learning in which one can reflects on their learning experiences, this
will help them in developing the critical thinking skills and provide improvement on the
future performance by analysing the past performance or learning. Reflective learning
involves self-analysis, personal experiences, beliefs, etc. The content of the essay includes the
Gibbs, 1988 model of reflection, reflective approach to feedback and feed forward is a
protocol which assist teachers in reflecting of their lesson, teachers are ready to receive
feedbacks that will ultimately improve the formative and summative assessment because if
they receive feedbacks from the students that will help them in making changes in the
teaching styles accordingly. And reflective feedbacks will help teachers in summative
assessment also.
MAIN BODY
Reflective learning is the process of looking back at the performance and then
analyzing it, this can be done by the Gibbs model of reflection. Gibbs's reflective cycle is one
of the most famous cyclical models, this model was given by Professor Graham Gibbs in
1988 (Yuan and Mak, 2018). This model has six stages where every stage helps to reflect on
particular learning. It is a framework that puts focus on repeated learning experiences. The
six steps are:
 Step-1 Description- This is the first stage in the Gibbs model, in this stage, the people
should describe the situation or the experience. The question ‘what happened’ should
be asked in this stage. As I have taken the module in which we learnt that how to
describe the situation in a appropriate manner.
 Step-2 Feelings- In this stage, the people should describe their thoughts and
description feelings about the situation. This stage is meant to explore the thoughts of
the people about the situation (Perusso, Blankesteijn and Leal, 2020). In the module
which I took I learnt that how to describe the feelings about the situation, in this I
asked myself ‘what I was feeling before the situation’.
 Step-3 Evaluation- In this stage, one should evaluate the situation and their
experiences negatively or positively. This stage will help the one in understanding

what worked in favor and what does not. In the module I was taught how to evaluate
the situation, I asked myself what was good and bad about the situation.
 Step-4 Analysis- In this, one should try to think, feel and try to make sense of the
situation and understand and analyze the situation. This stage gives the chance to
think and extract the meaning from the situation. In this I asked myself why did things
go well and badly or could I have responded differently.
 Step-5 Conclusion- In this stage, one should think about what they have learned and
what should have been done differently. This includes the actions that could have
improved the situation (Weng and et.al., 2021). In this I ask myself what can I now do
better and what have I learnt.
 Step-6 Action plan- This is the last stage in the model, in this, one should describe
how one will they do better next time. This is the stage in which one should make
changes and introduce a plan to do things differently in the future. I ask myself how
will I change my actions or improve my skills.
By taking the module I understood the concept of feedback and feed forward, before
this so many peoples did not know the concept of feedback and feed forward. Feedback and
feed forward are very necessary for us. Feedback helps us in focussing on our current
performance and feed forward helps in look ahead to subsequent assessments and tells us
how to do better. The reflective approach can be used in the feedback and feed forward
because it will give guidance to us on how to take feedback and respond to it effectively. The
module helped me in understanding the concept of reflective feedback and feed forward
(Gómez-Barreto, Merino-Tejedor and Sánchez-Santamaría, 2020). The model of reflection
can be chosen for the use of feedback and feed forward. The method I choose is Driscoll’s
what model, this model helped me in understanding the reflection on feedback and feed
forward. This model asks 3 key questions on what i.e., What, So what, Now what. By asking
myself these three questions I can easily analyse and learn from my experience. The first will
help us in describing the situation we were working on, this will give a clear idea of what are
we working on, then we should reflect on the experience by asking ‘so what’ this will help us
in identifying what we learn from the situation and experience. The final stage i.e., ‘now
what’ will help us in thinking about the actions we will take as the result of the reflection, and
will our behaviour change or should remain the same will also tell by this stage. There may
be a change in our behaviour as a result of reflection that we feel will help us in a similar
situation next time. In the module which I took there was a situation which occurred i.e., we

were given the task by the teacher to complete full term assignment in a team,
communication was the key during the assignment but we only had one lecture week, and the
time limit was very less. This can be analysed by Driscoll’s method of reflection. The in this
situation is that our task was to complete the full-term assignment in a group in very less
time, this was group work. Communication was the key as we only had one lecture a week.
So in this situation, teamwork for me does not always work but this time this situation
allowed me to be open-minded towards teamwork I do not like teamwork so much. The now
what in this situation is that this experience allowed me to develop skills as a team, this can
be applied in my studies and will help me in the coming future.
It is identified that feedback and feed forward are found to be very important in the
process of improving the future formative and summative assessments (Bai and et.al., 2020).
I identified and analyse from my own experience as I attended the module sessions where I
got to know about the importance of feedback and feed-forward. I also found that I will be
able to increase the result of formative and feed forward. I didn’t know about the use of feed
forward but now I got to know that what the use. It is also found that feedback and feed
forward is necessary in increasing the effectiveness of teaching. Formative and summative
assessments are important for the students and I found that both are necessary to improve the
students. It can be possible only when an individual is improving the performance so that day
results in the future formative and summative assessment will automatically be improved.
Feedback provides me with the opinion of the teacher about my performance and with the
help of feed-forward, I will be able to deliver the opinion my thoughts on the style of
teaching of other individuals. This is what I learned from the module sessions. For example,
when I got feedback from my teacher then I able to know what my areas of improvement are.
This helps me to work on my improvement areas and I work on that. After that, I did a feed
forward to the teacher that the teaching style should change so that it will help me to work on
the teaching. Feedback and feed forward is necessary it provides the opportunity to teacher as
well as the students. This is the main reason that every individual requires to understand the
importance of feedback and feed-forward. It focuses on improving the teaching environment
and learning style (Renner and et.al., 2020). I found that it not only provide helps to me but
also very helpful for the Teachers as they are able to get understand what are the problems
which we face during the classes.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above discussion that reflection is playing an important
role. Reflection is necessary to use by all the individuals so that they are able to share their
experience in an effective way. It becomes very important to understand that the reflection
model is necessary to use. This essay includes important model types such as Gibb's
reflective cycle. With the use of this model and individual shows their experience with
reflective learning and also shows the importance of feedback and feed-forward. It is
identified that individual needs to understand that feedback and feed-forward will help in
future formative and summative assessment.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bai, Y., and et.al., 2020. Learning from supervisor negative gossip: The reflective learning
process and performance outcome of employee receivers. Human Relations, 73(12),
pp.1689-1717.
Dahl, A.J., Peltier, J.W. and Schibrowsky, J.A., 2018. Critical thinking and reflective learning
in the marketing education literature: A historical perspective and future research
needs. Journal of Marketing Education, 40(2), pp.101-116.
Gómez-Barreto, I.M., Merino-Tejedor, E. and Sánchez-Santamaría, J., 2020. University
students’ perspectives on reflective learning: Psychometric properties of the eight-
cultural-forces scale. Sustainability, 12(2), p.729.
Perusso, A., Blankesteijn, M. and Leal, R., 2020. The contribution of reflective learning to
experiential learning in business education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 45(7), pp.1001-1015.
Renner, B., and et.al., 2020. Computer-supported reflective learning: How apps can foster
reflection at work. Behaviour & Information Technology, 39(2), pp.167-187.
Weng, C., and et.al., 2021. Reflective learning as an important key to the success of an online
course. Behaviour & Information Technology, pp.1-17.
Yuan, R. and Mak, P., 2018. Reflective learning and identity construction in practice,
discourse and activity: Experiences of pre-service language teachers in Hong
Kong. Teaching and Teacher Education, 74, pp.205-214.