Reflective Learning – Where it's at?

It is a little strange to see the enthusiasm for reflective learning at the moment. I first encountered the concept about ten years ago as a means to assess situated/practical learning, a concept which was pretty fringey at the time. Basically, there was a small group of academics who, dissatisified with the lecture/exam didactic form of learning, were looking for ways to assess real knowledge production and work, connected to real projects. After all, there is so much real work to be done in the community, why spend out time building intricately crafted mazes for the students to run through?

Anyway, at the time this was all very alternative and I did hear it referred to as 'beanbag learning' by some supposed colleagues. Me, I come from a policy research and community legal centre background and saw this as a much more natural form of learning than memorising a textbook, which my own degree primarily consisted of.

Reflective learning provides the mechanism by which we can assess this sort of work, a nexus between learner and teacher. Rather than follow a student around, big brother style, and measure the minutiae of their performance, we ask them to report on their own progress and reflect on their abilities. Significantly, it is the reflection that we actually assess, not the performance itself. It is quite possible to make mistakes, demonstrate what you have learned from those mistakes and score well on assignments accordingly. Learning from mistakes – that's something exams aren't great at allowing.

So I'm somewhat surprised to see reflective learning take, if not centre stage, at least a non-peripheral role in universities. In law it is being touted as a method of helping students form an ethical connection to their work, something it is hoped will reduce the incidence of depression, mental illness, drug dependence and suicide which unfortunately harries the legal profession.

Cynically, I guess this might also be a way of getting students out of the classroom and consuming fewer resources of the university, although I don't imagine that this is the case. I'm working on a model which brings outside parties into the university to work with students using university space and resources (it's called Connected Law, I'll post something on it soon).

I'm sure reflective learning, like all trendy ideas, will fall out of favour eventually. We'll see a 'back to basics' backlash. At least it will be an interesting journey along the way.