If
you're going to learn properly you have to go beyond what the module
teaches you. You have to do stuff beyond the letter of the learning
outcomes. Reflective work is an area where this is very often the
case. To learn properly, you need to go back over what you have
learned. You need to give it time to germinate. You need to sketch in
mentally where connections are beginning to occur. Many modules do
not build this in specifically, but you need to make it part of your
habits of learning.
Time
is always a problem. No sooner have you finished this chapter than
the module calendar is beckoning you to the next. You can still build
in some time for reflection, and it will repay you many times over.
Often when you start out doing things like this, you wonder where the
time is going to come from. When you have made it a habit, you wonder
how you ever did without it.
Reflection
may be just a fancy word for what you do already. You may sit and
work over notes you have made. You might move bits of paper around on
a table. You might be staring out of a train window pondering the
connection between Plato and the Dalai Lama. A study session might
turn into a prolonged pause as you consider how the subject matter is
changing the way you think. Allowing those moments is important. It
is also important to structure some time in so that turning over and
piecing together what you have done becomes habitual.
You
can structure your reflection according to the study material. Most
of our modules deliver their content in books, and books have
chapters. Different modules organise their material differently, so
you can take a cue from what the module does.
For
instance, on AA100 there are four books each with a number of
chapters. Each chapter has aims at the beginning. I advise my
students to spend some time with the aims before embarking on reading
the chapter. Then, when they have finished reading, I advise going
back to the aims and spending half an hour working on whether and how
far the aims have been fulfilled. I advise keeping a journal and
making some notes in the journal at the end of each chapter.
On
DD102 the chapters do not have aims, and the introductions are not
very useful for the purpose of planning the reading. But the chapters
are divided into sections and each section has an excellent summary
at the end. So I advise my students to read the book backwards – to
start by reading the summary at the end of each section, and then
read the section. When they get to the summary again, I advise a
pause for thought as to whether the section does what the summary
says, and again make some journal notes. Whichever module you are on,
look at the structure of the books and figure out the best way to
read them intelligently, and where the natural pauses for reflection
are.
The
journal is important as a way of collecting and structuring your
thinking. There is endless advice as to how to structure the journal
itself. I do mine in a web page that I keep on my computer. That does
not require any great technical skill – in fact, you'd be surprised
how simple it is. It has the virtue of being able to use links to
connect pieces of the journal, and also of being infinitely
expandable, so I can go back and make more notes on any particular
topic. If you prefer hand writing, then I suggest a loose leaf
folder, and write your journal on one side only of the paper. You can
then use the other side for jottings, tags, connections that you make
later, additions, doodles and so on.
And
on occasion you can take a spare hour or half hour and look back over
your reflections, and be amazed at how far you have come. You will
also see pieces of the jigsaw beginning to relate to each other, and
you will see insights that have been on the edge of your vision come
into focus.
Occasionally
we actually teach reflection. On AA100, for instance, we have two
assignments which could be called reflective. But students often just
treat them as hoops to jump through. That's fair enough, because, to
be honest, we present them as hoops to jump through. I have taught
quite a few modules for the OU now, and only one has systematically
got students to do reflective work. But if you only do what the
modules tell you, you are selling yourself short. The essence of
being a student is that you decide what you are learning and how. And
in particular we revisit things:
"As
a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single
thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical
path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must
think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our
lives." (Henry David Thoreau, in Walking .)
G
K Chesterton wrote a rhyme:
Before
the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The
rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
The
Roman road is the module materials. They take you straight as an
arrow towards the goal of fulfilling all the learning outcomes, boxes
neatly ticked, goals achieved. The English road is the one the
student takes. It gets pulled back to the Roman road sometimes,
usually by assignments, but in between times the module unleashes the
student to do what they will with the material on offer.
This
is not only OK, it is actually the way things should happen. Teaching
should never corrall you onto a straight and narrow path: that way
you never get to see the lush vegetation on either side. Reflection
is one of the ways in which you see all that is going on around, and
you begin to transcend the learning outcomes. You take direction from
the module materials, but you should never be limited by it. At some
point you *must* leave the module material behind if the learning is
to be your own. It is not the OU's knowledge and ideas you want in
your head, it is your own. Reflection is the key that turns knowledge
acquisition into deep learning when you understand differently and
make new realities with your new knowledge. Dewey says, “We state
emphatically that, upon its intellectual side education consist in
the formation of wide-awake, careful, thorough habits of thinking. Of
course intellectual learning includes the amassing and retention of
information. But information is an undigested burden unless it is
understood. It is knowledge only as its material is comprehended. And
understanding, comprehension, means that the various parts of the
information acquired are grasped in their relations to one another –
a result that is attained only when acquisition is accompanied by
constant reflection upon the meaning of what is studied.” (Dewey,
J. (1933) How We Think Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp78-9)
Nietzsche
puts it more poetically. “No one can build you the bridge on which
you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be
countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you
across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There
is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it
lead? Don’t ask, walk!” (See “Nietzsche on How to Find Yourselfand the True Value of Education”.) He is referring to life in
general, but it describes perfectly the act of learning – it is
your road, yours alone, and the act of reflection helps you to find
it.
You
should take the initiative, and build reflective time habitually into
your study routine.
