Essay On Reflective Learning

The reflective learning is all about evaluating and monitoring the capability, knowledge, and performance during the process of learning, it helps in improving the outcome of the learning process. The Gibbs model of Reflection will be used in the paper, to understand the importance of reflection, and also to analyse how the feedback and feedforward can be used for more enhancement in the life of the professionals. The feedback and the feedforward provided will help any professionals to become better in performing asks in workplace. The feedbacks and the guidance will help in enhancing careers in future. The formative and the summative assessment through the help of feedback and feedforward can be done through the help of self-assessment, as it will help in figuring out which learning technique might be useful to deal with the gap in knowledge and which one will not. It also helps in understanding oneself in a better way, the strength and weakness especially, so that the metacognitive skills can be developed accordingly. It helps an individual develop the feeling of autonomy and control. This would also increase engagement in the team and increase working efficiency. This paper intends to discuss about reflective learning and reflective approach to feedback and feedforward improve future formative and summative assessment.

 

The reflective learning is all about evaluating and monitoring the capability, knowledge, and performance during the process of learning, it helps in improving the outcome of the learning process (Colomer et al., 2018). For instance, a person applying for a test in the job for promotion or a student applying for a test, in both the cases the they need to engage themselves in the reflective learning and ask themselves questions about the understanding of the topics required for the test, and based on that they can understand in which aspect they need to focus more on. The reflective learning helps an employee or a student in a variety of way, as it helps them evaluate their situation, by understanding the gap in the knowledge and the areas that they need to work upon (Bai et al., 2020). It also helps the individual to figure out which learning technique might be useful to deal with the gap in knowledge and which one will not. It also helps in understanding oneself in a better way, the strength and weakness especially, so that the metacognitive skills can be developed accordingly. It helps an individual develop the feeling of autonomy and control. It motivates and also improves the learning outcome. Various researches have stated that reflective learning helps in improving the learning and the personal growth (Fondahn et al., 2021). For instance, motivating students to reflect upon what they have learned creates a positive impact on the outcomes of learning, not only that it also helps in developing the critical thinking skills, and also helps in organizing the thoughts. The theoretical and practical knowledge can be easily linked with the help of reflective learning. The instructors are also benefited because of the from the reflective learning that their students indulge in. For instance, the students can generate feedback for the instructors, later on the instructors can ponder over it and use it to enhance their teaching, for instance, where more explanation is required, what better teaching tools can be used for better explanation. Reflective learning is beneficial in various fields of training, education, work programs apart individuals figuring out which learning technique might be useful to deal with the gap in knowledge and which one will not (Griggs et al., 2018). It also helps in understanding oneself in a better way, the strength and weakness especially, so that the metacognitive skills can be developed accordingly. It helps an individual develop the feeling of autonomy and control. It motivates and also improves the learning outcome (Lindh, and Thorgren, 2016).

 

There are many reflective models that can be used for reflective learning, the one selected for this paper is the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, it was developed by Graham Gibb’s in order to organize learning from the experiences. This is an approach to evaluate the experience gained, improvements needed to be made, and helping to develop plan so that the desired outcome can be achieved (Adeani, Febriani, and Syafryadin, 2020). This model consists of six stages-

 

In the first place the person describes the situation, or the tries to understand the knowledge gained, after the knowledge is gained the person describes about the thoughts and feelings of the knowledge gained, whether it is useful or not, then evaluation is done whether the experience and the knowledge gained will prove to be positive and negative, then analysing the situation (Paterson, and Chapman, 2013) is important where that will help the person with the fact that what he should do next, second last, the person finally decides what they have done and how they could have done things in a different way. Lastly, action plan is important as what needs to done, if in the near future those things can be done differently, for a better outcome (Griggs et al., 2018).

 

The feedback is the response in relation to the behaviour and performance of a student or an employee. The feedback can be in the form of written, verbal, or through the gestures. The motive of feedback in the evaluation and the process of learning is to improve the performance of individual, as well as improve the working process of an employee in an organization. Not only that the process is a two-way process, feedback from the student and the employee also helps the manager in an organization and the instructors to mend their ways so that they delivery of information’s also becomes effective (Ling, and Soon, 2019). Feedback and the process associated with it should have to be positive, or may be neutral, the experience of learning for the student. Negative feedbacks always act as a discouragement to the efforts made by the employees and the students. The feedback needs to be presented in such a manner that a person feels demotivated (Sarkany, and Deitte, 2017). The approach of the feedforward is used throughout the guidance and the policy in learning and documents. Feedbacks mainly deals with the performance of the people, and it’s also justifying the grade that has been awarded (Dochy et al., 2021). Whereas in the feedforward is all about guidance and action plan, so that the performance of an individual can be enhanced. Both feedback and the feedforward help in ensuring positive impact on learning. In feedforwards not only the information is assessed, but it also helps in understanding what needs to be done if the student or the employees faces same situation in future. Application of the work is necessary for better outcome and that could be achieved only through feedforward (Kelly et al., 2022).

 

Suppose, in an organization an employee in a team always face issue with everybody, everybody complains that whatever he speaks and delivers in the team is not clear, not transparent, when this scenario was first told to the manager by the others, first thing the manager did is to ask for detail description of the kind of experience the others faced because of the employee, what are the thoughts and feeling of the other team members are also been collected, later on the manager can evaluate and analysing the situation whether this was good or a bad experience for the entire team, then finally a feedback is provided to the employee on a personal basis on his inability to communicate effectively within the team, in feedforward the last part of the Gibbs model is applicable that is action plan. Feedforward as already mentioned is guidance, and over here the manager can share some tips and suggestions on how to communicate effectively.

 

The understanding of the feedforward and the formative assessment and learning process is important and is related to each other. For instance, feedback and the process associated with it should have to be positive, or may be neutral, the experience of learning for the student/employees. Negative feedbacks always act as a discouragement to the efforts made by the employees and the students. The feedback needs to be presented in such a manner that a person feels demotivated (Dolin et al., 2018). The approach of the feedforward is used throughout the guidance and the policy in learning and documents. Feedbacks mainly deals with the performance of the people, and it’s also justifying the grade that has been awarded. Whereas in the feedforward is all about guidance and action plan, so that the performance of an individual can be enhanced. Feedback and feedforward are applicable in in both summative and formative assessment. In formative assessment, the manager or the instructor can provide feedback and feedforward (guidance) based on the short-term performance whereas in summative assessment the feedback and the feedforward will be helpful in understanding about what can be done if the same situation occurs in the future (Bhat, and Bhat, 2019).

 

The feedback and the feedforward provided will help any professionals to become better in performing asks in workplace. The feedbacks and the guidance will help in enhancing careers in future. The formative and the summative assessment through the help of feedback and feedforward can be done through the help of self-assessment, as it will help in figuring out which learning technique might be useful to deal with the gap in knowledge and which one will not. It also helps in understanding oneself in a better way, the strength and weakness especially, so that the metacognitive skills can be developed accordingly. It helps an individual develop the feeling of autonomy and control (Ling, and Soon,  2019). This would also increase engagement in the team and increase working efficiency. Thus, it can be said that feedback and feedforward can be helpful in guiding personals on the current state, and in the future as well.

 

Thus, this paper can be concluded by saying that the reflective learning is all about evaluating and monitoring the capability, knowledge, and performance during the process of learning, it helps in improving the outcome of the learning process. There are various models used in reflection, but in this paper Gibbs Model of reflection is used. The feedbacks and the guidance will help in enhancing careers in future. The formative and the summative assessment through the help of feedback and feedforward can be done through the help of self-assessment. This would also increase engagement in the team and increase working efficiency and it can be said that feedback and feedforward can be helpful in guiding personals on the current state, and in the future as well.

 

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