Being a reflective learner involves making your learning a more conscious process. It helps you to become an active learner by asking questions and thinking critically about your own ideas. This can be a private process that you undertake as one of your own personal study strategies, or it may be part of your formal assessment. You may find there are unexpected rewards in consciously reflecting on your learning. The reflective process can help you find out things you had not considered before and you may even find that your academic writing improves.
Benefits of reflecting on your learning:
- Examine what you have learned and how you have learned it.
- Demonstrate how your thinking grows and develops over time.
- Assist with making connections between what you already know and what you are learning.
- Help you learn from mistakes by identifying how you would do things differently next time.
- Encourage you to become a reflective practitioner in your future career.
There are many levels of reflection. As you progress through your studies, you will develop your reflective practice and gradually learn to reflect at a deeper, more critical level. It is a useful to keep in mind that reflecting critically is an extension of critical thinking.
I kept a learning journal throughout my undergraduate degree reflecting on anything encountered during my studies I found particularly thought-provoking. When it came to applying for Honours, I had an extensive list of interesting topics to choose from.
Ari Moore
Senior Writing Mentor
