Reflective Writing in a Third-year Biology Capstone Module: Student Perceptions and Considerations for Teaching and Employability

Abstract

Reflective writing is widely used in teacher training and other vocational programmes. Biosciences undergraduates studying a module that included a short placement in a primary or secondary school were asked to use an online digital learning system for their reflective journal. The reflective journal provides a reference source for their assessed academic writing, the ‘Executive summary’, where students are asked to review their experiences in the context of pedagogical theory. In their journal, students reflect on both their learning experiences and personal development, including self-assessing their progress and development in both school-specific and transferable employability skills. Students were asked questions about their experience of writing the journal and we summarised their self-assessed skills levels at different points of the module with the aims of determining what they thought about the reflective writing process, including whether they thought it would be useful for other types of Biosciences modules. Reflective writing can be a new and challenging task, particularly for science undergraduates, but with appropriate training and engagement it can be a rewarding experience. Based on the results presented, we argue that reflective writing and portfolios could be used more widely in Biosciences undergraduate taught programmes to promote deeper learning, increased self-awareness and improved employability skills.