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Mary Pat Wenderoth: Promoting student reflection to deepen learning and self-awareness

When students reflect on their academic learning and its relationship to their personal and professional goals, they gain a deeper understanding of the course material, as well as a better sense of who they are and where they鈥檙e going.^1,2,3 They also gain a valuable skill. Employers want to hire people who are self-aware, who know what they know and what they don鈥檛; and graduate admissions committees notice candidates who can share a clear narrative linking their experiences to their future ambitions. Reflection exercises can also benefit faculty. For example, they can use student feedback to fine-tune their teaching. Reflection techniques such as those used by Mary Pat Wenderoth can be integrated into courses in any discipline, providing major benefits for students without major investments of faculty time.

Students in Mary Pat Wenderoth鈥檚 large introductory biology classes write paragraphs each week to help them integrate and remember the concepts they鈥檝e studied. 鈥淭o maximize their learning, students need factual knowledge, which we give plenty of, but they also need conceptual frameworks to put the knowledge into,鈥� says Wenderoth. Reflection can help students build those conceptual frameworks, but 鈥渕ost undergraduates don鈥檛 do a lot of reflection. They鈥檙e glad to get their work done on time, take their test, and get on to the next class or assignment.鈥�

Wenderoth builds reflection into her class by having students write paragraphs on the week鈥檚 material. 鈥淭his gives students an opportunity to write and reflect and it gives me an opportunity to see what they鈥檙e actually thinking,鈥� she says. She has also structured reflection so it is useful to the students without requiring a large time commitment on anyone鈥檚 part. Here are her basic principles:

Make reflection part of the class routine: Students write paragraphs every week. Wenderoth poses questions on Monday; student paragraphs are due Friday.

Ask questions that let students discuss what鈥檚 important to them while achieving learning goals: Wenderoth asks open-ended questions that help students link facts to a conceptual framework. Examples include: 鈥淗ow does the material you鈥檙e learning in class relate to your everyday life?鈥� and, 鈥淲hat topic this week was the hardest for you, something that you鈥檝e thought about and still can鈥檛 quite figure out?鈥�

Motivate students through class credit, but keep evaluation simple: Writing assignments are part of the final grade (about ten percent). Increasing length doesn鈥檛 improve a student鈥檚 grade; in fact, Wenderoth requires that submissions be limited to one paragraph. Grades are credit/no credit, based on 鈥済ood faith effort鈥� to complete the assignment. The class management software Wenderoth uses groups the paragraphs so she can 鈥渟kim and scroll鈥� through them efficiently and quickly.

Give regular feedback: Every Monday, Wenderoth gives feedback to the class as a whole鈥攁 few minutes at the beginning of class. She may report that a number of students were having difficulty with a particular concept, and then review it. 鈥淚 have to show them that I鈥檝e actually sat and read their paragraphs,鈥� she says. 鈥淥nce or twice I didn鈥檛 do that and I saw the quality of their paragraphs go down.鈥�

Collect student feedback on the exercise: Wenderoth鈥檚 students report that writing reflection paragraphs helps their learning. One wrote, 鈥淪ome weeks, no matter how much I thought I was paying attention in class, it would be Thursday night, time to start the paragraph, and I鈥檇 be thinking 鈥楬uh? What did I learn this week? Oh yeah鈥�.鈥� which got me to examine what was going on in class and my learning process before the weekend completely wiped everything away.鈥�

Resources: Wenderoth learned about low-stakes writing from John Webster, Associate Professor of English at 黑料吃瓜网 Seattle, and the resources site, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program, which he directs. Her teaching methods are featured in by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); a is available. Wenderoth has also co-authored a book that shows the value of student reflection on exam performance: Clarissa Dirks, Mary Pat Wenderoth, and Michelle Withers, (New York: W. H. Freeman & Company, 2014). More details on Wenderoth鈥檚 procedures are available in the video 鈥�.鈥�

¹ Beyer, Catherine Hoffman, Gerald Gillmore, and Andrew Fisher. Inside the Undergraduate Experience: The 黑料吃瓜网鈥檚 Study of Undergraduate Learning. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.
²Atman, Cynthia J., Sheri D. Sheppard, Jennifer Turns, Robin S. Adams, Lorraine N. Fleming, Reed Stevens, Ruth A. Streveler, Karl A. Smith, Ronald L. Miller, Larry J. Leifer, Ken Yasuhara, and Dennis Lund. Enabling Engineering Student Success: The Final Report for the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010. .
³Thompson, Leanne J., Gordon Clark, Marion Walker, and J. Duncan Whyatt. 鈥溾�業t鈥檚 Just Like an Extra String to Your Bow鈥�: Exploring Higher Education Students鈥� Perceptions and Experiences of Extracurricular Activity and Employability.鈥� Active Learning in Higher Education 14, no. 2 (July 2013): 135鈥�147. doi:10.1177/1469787413481129.

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