Scaffolding Critical Reflection Writing Across Programs Using a Blended Learning Approach

Abstract

Students need to be taught intentionally how to reflect critically. Findings from co-assessments in class revealed that students' reflections were uncritical, disorganized, and unconnected to their lives and studies. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of a critical thinking framework and a critical reflection micromodule taught in a blended mode, towards students' ability to reflect critically. Two groups of freshmen students from varied disciplines participated in the study: Computer Science and Physiotherapy. The students filled in a survey that compared their current thinking process to the critical thinking framework, and their pre-and post-learning reflections were analysed. The findings show that the framework might have raised students' awareness about what reflecting critically means, and the average scores for their postlearning reflections improved. There was no clear indication of differences between these two groups of students. The results from this pilot study are promising and suggest that the teaching of critical reflection can be scaled and taught in an intentional manner.