This document discusses developing tools to facilitate integrated reflection. It provides an overview of key concepts like e-portfolios, reflection, and reflective practice. It discusses the need for tools that better support reflection, which is recognized as important for learning but tools currently offer little beyond basic journal templates. Opportunities exist to develop new tools using techniques like question generation and answering to better scaffold learning through inquiry and reflection.

1. Developing Tools to Facilitate
Integrated Reflection
Jon Mason
October 18th 2011
jon@intercog.net
1

2. Overview
• Introduction
– focus
– key concepts & definitions
– services context
– the problem
• Theoretical perspectives
– inquiry-based learning
– why-questioning
• Opportunities for tool development 2

3. Focus
Innovation associated with the design and
deployment of e-portfolio systems –
in particular, support for integrated reflection
3

4. A Broad Definition
An e-portfolio is a collection of digital artefacts
and applications that are typically used for
profiling an individual, group, or organisation in
terms of capability or achievement.
e: signifies evidence as much as electronic
Emergent
characteristics
And yes, there are countless other definitions! 4

5. Services Context
• Profiles developed using professional networking
services (LinkedIn, UNYK, Plaxo, …) often contain
core interoperable data
• Interoperability of social networking data widely
interoperable (contacts)
• Professional Associations commonly provide
online services for logging & assessing Continuing
Professional Development (CPD) 5

6. … and
“the essential nature of an e-Portfolio
for learning is not as a repository
but as a place for reflection”
(Batson, 2009)
6

7. Two broad approaches
e-Portfolios can therefore be assembled via:
• Purpose-built e-portfolio systems
(Pebblepad, ePortaro, Mahara, etc)
• Customised aggregations of services &
artefacts
7

8. A simple model
A Place for
Reflective Practice?
Learner / Worker
e-portfolio systems --
applications or
loosely coupled
services
Education
or Training Employer
Organisation
8

9. Employability Skills
9

10. Employability Skills
“skills required not only to gain employment, but
also to progress within an enterprise so as to
achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully
to enterprise strategic directions” (DEST, 2002, p.3)
Communication
Teamwork Skills that contribute
Problem-solving Self-management
Initiative and enterprise Learning
Planning and organising Technology
10

11. ATC21S
• Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills:
“learning to collaborate with others and connect
through technology are essential skills in a
knowledge-based economy” (ATC21S, 2011)
 essential skills also include:
• critical thinking Inquiry, analysis, reflection, …
• ICT literacy
• problem solving
11

12. But what exactly is reflection?
And what is reflective practice?
12

13. Reflection
• An activity that takes place after a learning
activity?
- typical with journal reflections on CPD
• An event in a sequence of activities?
- STARL-P
(Situation, Task, Action, Result/Reflection, and Learning/Planning)
• The activity of connecting a diversity of
artefacts, interactions, and activities is itself a
stimulus for reflection (Cambridge, 2009, p.41) 13

14. Reflection
“a thinking process more than simple
memorization and comprehension, & involves a
variety of cognitive processes, such as
summarization, identifying general principles,
exploring various situations, reconciling options,
monitoring progress, and so on”
(Wang, 2009)
 Also involves inquiry, analysis, synthesis,…
14

15. Reflective Practice
“the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in
a process of continuous learning … [and is] … one
of the defining characteristics of professional
practice” (Schon, 1983: The Reflective Practitioner)
“reflection-in-action”
15

16. Integrated Reflection
“active learning”
(Wang, 2009: e-Portfolios for Integrated Reflection)
 In ICT contexts, takes place in-session
Wang’s “ontological model specifies a generic organisational
structure of eportfolios in the integrated reflection context”.
Reflection features as the dominant ontological category within a
structure that includes learning subject, learning
objectives, learning objects, assessment instruments, &
reflection query 16

17. The Problem
• Reflection is recognised as important for learning
and regarded as essential for effective use of
e-portfolios for learning purposes …
• Yet the ICT tools available to support it appear to
be undeveloped & are little more than templates
for journal writing
17

18. Related Research - AeP
• Recent snapshot of e-portfolio practice within
Australian HE & VET sectors
- HE more concerned with reflection
- VET more concerned with skills & employability
• Research reveals:
- low level of understanding about the actual impact of
ePortfolios on student learning outcomes
- little research undertaken but a common belief “that ePortfolios
contributed to increased awareness of eLearning technologies
and reflective learning, as well as employability skills …”
(Hallam, et al, 2009)
18

19. Related Research – JISC (1)
• Aims to inform H/FE institutions in the UK about
emerging best practice implementing e-portfolios
• Guided by notion of “threshold concepts” from
earlier research
• Confirms diversity of contexts & uses – more
“emergence” than “maturity”
19

20. Related Research – JISC (2)
• 7 core activities in e-portfolio usage:
information capture
information retrieval
planning
reflection
feedback
collaboration
presentation
20

21. Related Research – JISC (3)
5 threshold concepts as indicators of maturity:
• Purpose is aligned to context to maximise benefits
• Learning activity is designed to suit the purpose
• Processes are supported technologically and
pedagogically
• Ownership is student centred
• Transformation (disruption) is planned for
(Joyes et al.,2010,) 21

22. Question & Learning
22

23. Questioning & Learning
• “why” questions prominent during early dvpt of
children & an important foundation for learning
(Dewey, Piaget, Schank)
• “Inquiry-based learning” evolved out of “critical
thinking” movement
• Impasses & conundrums important for learning
• “Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions”
Paul & Elder, (1999). Critical Thinking Handbook
23

24. Inquiry & Learning
“learning begins with questions”
24
The virtuous circle of inquiry
University of Illinois Inquiry Project (2001-2010)

25. Inquiry & Learning
Problem:
The Web’s mainstream tools for discovering and
retrieving relevant information are overwhelmingly
dominated by a search paradigm that is configured
to search for information and facts rather than
explanations.
Why? One answer is that queries instigated by keywords
in most cases will have semantic roots to primitive Q’s:
who, what, when, & where 25

26. Inquiry & Learning
We propose reversing the order of things. What if
… questions were more important than answers?
What if the key to learning were not the
application of techniques but their invention?
What if students were asking questions about
things that really mattered to them?
Thomas & Seely Brown, (2011). A New Culture of Learning
26

27. Question Generation & Answering
Questions can be generated and answered by
automated and semi-automated ICT systems. To
what extent might Question Generation and
Question-Answering techniques assist in building
ICT scaffolding for learners?
• QG – automation of well-formed questions
• Q-A – automation of answering systems
27
http://www.questiongeneration.org/

28. Question Generation & Answering
Most teachers, tutors, and student peers do not ask a
high density of deep questions … so students have a
limited exposure to high-quality inquiry. There are a
few role models in school environments through
which students can learn good question asking and
answering skills vicariously. This situation presents a
golden opportunity for turning to technology to help
fill this gap.
A. Graesser, et al., (2010). What is a Good Question?
28

29. A Frontier for New Tools
• Tools that facilitate the construction of questions from a
body of content
• Tools that extend the discovery & processing of factual
information to facilitate the discovery and production of
explanatory content – in short, tools that support why-
questioning
• Tools that stimulate the construction of rational
argument
• Prompting tools that suggest patterns, dependencies, or
other relationships between discrete chunks of content
• Interface design that explicitly supports the navigation of
e-portfolio content via a questioning methodology 29

30. Reflecting upon Why
• Asking why
• Learning why
• Understanding why
• Knowing why
• Explaining why
30

31. Information & Explanation
The Primitives of
Information Retrieval
• Who
• What
• When The Journalist’s Questions
• Where
• Why
31

32. Information & Explanation
• Who descriptive ‘primitives’ of
• What information retrieval Information
Processing
e.g., DC-Kernel
• When
• Where
conditional, motivational or
• Why explanative ‘primitive’
Knowledge
• How procedural or Construction &
Understanding
• If rule-based ‘primitives’
32

33. Questions
This presentation is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence
33