Academic Writing: Reflective Learning & Development in Higher Ed

This essay discusses the importance of reflective learning in higher education, emphasizing its role in personal and professional development. It explores the significance of feedback and feed-forward approaches in improving formative and summative work. The essay references reflective models like Gibbs' reflective cycle, highlighting the importance of self-reflection in identifying strengths and weaknesses. It further analyzes the transition from traditional feedback methods to feed-forward strategies, focusing on future-oriented solutions. The essay concludes that both feedback and feed-forward are crucial for enhancing student performance, with feedback addressing immediate issues and feed-forward guiding future improvements. Desklib is a valuable resource for students seeking similar solved assignments and past papers.

Orientation for success
in Higher Education
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Importance of reflective learning and feedback and feed-forward approaches.....................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES:...............................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Reflective learning is defined as the process in which an individual explore their
experiences in order to make the human beings more aware (Gould and Taylor, 2017). It is very
important for every individual that they should learn from their experiences as it helps in
developing critical skills as well as improving future actions. In the personal development,
reflective learning plays a very important role. It involves beliefs, personal experiences,
assumptions, attitudes, values and fears. This report aims to discuss the importance of reflective
learning. It will also discuss reflective approach to feedback and feed-forward which assists in
improving future future formative and summative work. Both feedback and feed forward are
necessary approach as it helps an individual to understand their problems in the learning. They
can improve their learning style and also able to improve skills.
MAIN BODY
Importance of reflective learning and feedback and feed-forward approaches
Reflection is defined as the process in which a person is able to explore and examine
ourselves, our attributes, perspectives, actions and experiences. Reflective learning is focusing
on learning through gaining new insights of practice and self (Hursen and Fasli, 2017). It is
found that reflection is important part of learning in which an individual learn with the assistance
of self reflection. Many students think that how can it possible for an individual to learn from
their experiences which they already gained. This doubt should be clear by teachers so that every
student use reflective learning. In today's environment, it is very important for every individual
that they should try to learn new skills and knowledge in order to grow their career. There are
many ways of learning in which reflective learning method is one of the effective methods as
from this method people can learn from their experiences. It aims to make a person more aware
about their professional knowledge and action. When people start to right reflection of their past
experiences then they will get to know that what are the areas which are their strengths and
weaknesses for them. This can be better understand when people use reflective model. There are
many reflective models found which use by individuals in order to reflect their experiences such
as Gibbs reflective cycle, Kolb reflective cycle, etc. Gibbs reflective cycle is very effective for
individuals in which a person shows reflect their experiences with the assistance of six stages.
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The first stage of Gibbs reflective cycle is concerned with description of the experience in which
an individual needs to describe their experience that what, when and where happened. In the
second stage, an individual needs to describe their feelings that what were the feelings during
their experience (Gillingham, Eggleton and Goodyear-Smith, 2020). The third stage is concerned
with evaluation in which an individual should evaluate the situation that what was bad or good
for them. Fourth stage is concerned with the analysis stage in which a person describe their
analysis from their experience. The last second stage is concerned conclusion in which an
individual is concluding the statement that what was the experience and how it beneficial for
them. In addition to this, it also include weaknesses and strengths found during their experiences.
The last stage is action plan that plays an important role in the process of career development. An
individual formulate a future action plan that how they can improve their weak areas.
It is found that feedback and feed forward both are essential in order to learn by students.
In learning process, both plays a crucial role as students can effectively learn and improve their
past mistakes. Feedback refers to the process in which all learners makes sense of information of
their past performances in order to enhance the quality of work. It is very important for the
teachers that they should provide feedback to the students in order to improve their past mistakes
(Denton, 2018). The nature of feedback is found to be small. It is pervasive in nature that means
it requires to each and every stage and sector. Feedbacks are essential in the effective learning of
individual as they are able to know that what are their mistakes as well as their weaknesses and
strengths. This is the reason that individual needs to take feedback in a serious manner when
their teachers are providing feedbacks. On the other hand, feed-forward is refers to the other
approach of learning which is increasingly popular in the market. In case of me, I got to know
the importance of feedback and feed-forward during lectures. According to the first stage of
Gibbs reflective cycle, my one teacher used feedback and another teacher used feed forward
approach in the learning. I felt that that feed forward is reverse exercise of feedback. It is
focusing on the replacing negative or positive feedbacks with the assistance of future oriented
solutions. That means it is focusing on future instead of past. I evaluate that generally it is
identified that teachers are using feedbacks in the case of students. But I got to know that feed-
forward is very effective as it reduces the possibilities of wrong things in future. That means a
person cannot make any mistakes in the future if they are trained with the assistance of feed-
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forward. In current situations, I analysed that people are now transform their approaches of
learning that means they are shifting from feedbacks to the feed forward especially teachers. I
also analysed that this approach needs to be applicable in reflective learning so that an
individual is able to achieve their goals and objectives effectively. I concluded that teachers are
switching their approach from feedback to feed-forward as it is found to be better approach as
compared to feedback approach. In this duration, I identified some weak areas which needs to be
develop by me in order to grow in the career. That's why I formulates an action plan which
covers the development of necessary skills such as communication, critical thinking skills, time
management skills, decision making skills, listening skills, etc.
It is analysed that feedback and feed forward both are playing a crucial role in the process
of improving formative and summative assessment. Feedback given by teachers helps a students
to use analyse their mistakes and make an action plan in order to develop necessary skills and
knowledge (Gómez-Barreto, Merino-Tejedor and Sánchez-Santamaría, 2020). For example, in
formative assessment, a student get lowest marks in maths and this weakness told by teachers in
order to eliminate the mistakes. In this case, feedback plays a crucial role as it informs students
that what are the mistakes of students which needs to be resolve by students. It is very important
for every individual that they should focus on taking their feedback in a serious manner. It will
assists them to solve the current mistakes of any individual which can easily memorised by
students and they will not perform same type of mistakes again. In the case of feed forward, this
approach is becoming very important as it provides benefits to the students that they will be able
to reduce their mistakes and improve their performances in an effective way (Bruno and
Dell’Aversana, 2018). Feed forward is found to be very important as it assists an individual to
improve their future performance by setting goals and objectives for future purpose. There is one
important difference which found in the process of feedback and feed forward. It is found that
feed forward is focusing on looking ahead to subsequent assessment and also offers guidance to
the students that how they can do better in their further assessments. That means it is very sure a
students can better perform in their summative after using this approach in their formatives. It is
analysed that both feedback and feed forward are important as students can importance their
immediate performance with the help of feedback (Tan, 2021). Whereas students can improve
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their future performance with the assistance of feed forward. This is the reason that now teachers
are using both methods in order to make the performances better of individuals.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above discussion that it is very important for individual that
they should perform reflection in order to get effective learning. It is found that reflective
learning is an important learning which assists an individual to learn from their past experiences.
Every day it is found that the approach of reflective learning is increasing and teachers are trying
to explain the importance of reflective learning to the students. In addition to this, feedback and
feed forward both are playing an important role in the process of reflection. This report analysed
that reflection provide a conclusion statement that what individuals needs to improve as it is
concerned with the feedback. Whereas on the other hand, it is analysed that feed forward is also
playing an important role as it sets the future oriented solutions which reduces the mistakes of an
individual.
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REFERENCES:
Books and Journals
Bruno, A. and Dell’Aversana, G., 2018. Reflective practicum in higher education: the influence
of the learning environment on the quality of learning. Assessment & Evaluation in
Higher Education, 43(3), pp.345-358.
Denton, A.W., 2018. The use of a reflective learning journal in an introductory statistics
course. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 17(1), pp.84-93.
Gillingham, K., Eggleton, K. and Goodyear-Smith, F., 2020. Is reflective learning visible in
online discussion forums for medical students on general practice placements? A
qualitative study. Teaching and learning in medicine, 32(4), pp.434-441.
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.
Gould, N. and Taylor, I., 2017. Reflective learning for social work: research, theory and
practice. Routledge.
Hursen, C. and Fasli, F.G., 2017. Investigating the Efficiency of Scenario Based Learning and
Reflective Learning Approaches in Teacher Education. European Journal of
Contemporary Education, 6(2), pp.264-279.
Tan, S.Y., 2021. Reflective learning? Understanding the student perspective in higher
education. Educational Research, pp.1-15.
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