Page 69 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)

Reflection / Meta-cognition (1997)
Reflective practitioners want to know the why, how, and motivation behind their behaviors,
decisions, and performances and will take the time needed in order to step back and process these
questions to increase their meta-cognition.
Becoming a reflective practitioner is a challenging growth
process because it requires increased consciousness of
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are typically habitual,
unconscious, or assumed (i.e., requiring no explanation).
It is not easy to determine what experiences or challenges,
contexts (e.g., learning activities, teams, organizations), or
tools (e.g., designed forms, assessment rubrics) will trigger
or lead to growth in reflective practice. Furthermore, if
we are to experience greater or more frequent reflective
insights, we as individuals must challenge both social
norms and institutional roles in order to step outside the
habitual and often pre-programmed roles or expectations
we have as learners, educators, and administrators. One of
the goals of Process Education is for reflection to become
a natural meta-cognitive process that drives not only the
selection of learning experiences but also the assessment
and reflection that make improved quality possible for
individuals, teams, and organizations.
Reflection Time
During Pacific Crest workshops, reflection time was
built into the professional development process from the
beginning. A journal/record was kept for each event that
recorded the learning at end of each activity, at the end
of each day, at the beginning of the next day, and at the
end of the event. Break periods were even called reflection
time as presented in Teach for Learning — A Handbook
for Process Education (Pacific Crest, 1993). Chapter 3
of Learning Through Problem Solving is titled “Journal
Writing” and focuses on improving learning through
writing, "a process of recording observations and insights
in private, proven to be a valuable self-assessment and
learning tool" (Apple, Beyerlein & Schlesinger, 1992).
At the end of each chapter, a "reflections" page prompts
the learner to answer eight key questions to gain more
understanding of themselves. One such prompt reads,
"What personal growth occurred from this lesson? Identify
an activity you will pursue to support this development."
During 1994, recorder and reflector reports were
integrated into the cooperative learning model used
during professional development institutes in order to
aid faculty in reflecting on both the content and process
they were experiencing. This practice was expanded with
an Introduction to Journal Keeping (Kent, 1994) that
included the following reflection tools:
International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1)
A
 Skills for Life
 Daily Team Learning Activity Journal Form
 Daily Learning Journal
 Critical Reading Log
 Vocabulary Log
 Free Writing
 Collection Point
 Outside Activity
 Field Notes
 Weekly Ignorance Log
 Week in Review
 Critical Thinking Questions for Students and Teachers
In the Learning Assessment Journal (Carroll & Apple,
1995) a set of reflection tools was refined and structured to
support a Process Education approach to improving learner
performance in key processes: learning, thinking, problem
solving, communication, assessing and teamwork. Added
to the existing tools were refined versions of the reading
log, and self-assessment form, as well as the weekly
team recorder, and weekly team reflector reports. The
next edition of the Learning Assessment Journal (2nd ed.)
(Carroll & Beyerlein, 1996) again refined existing tools,
upgraded the format of others, and added planner and
spokesperson reports.
Incorporating Reflective Practice in a Course
The value and practice of incorporating reflective practice
into a course was explored in multiple contexts in the article
The Learning Assessment Journal as a Tool for Structured
Reflection in Process Education (Carroll, Beyerlein, Ford &
Apple, 1997) and led to improvements in the 3rd edition of the
Learning Assessment Journal (Carroll & Beyerlein, 1997),
which included space for providing practitioner feedback,
and the addition of log of entries and glossary forms. In the
Learning Assessment Journal (4th ed.) (Apple, 2000) the
forms were upgraded again and an activity assessment form
was added to the array of tools.
The Self-Assessment Learning Journal (Krumsieg &
Miller, 2001) added some guidelines for self-learners with
computers: the Learning Process Methodology, learning
skills, levels of learner performance, the Information
Processing Methodology, the Methodology for Learning
a New Tool, the topics of assessment and evaluation, and
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