One of the most important requirements of modern higher education is the ability to learn. V.V. Davydov asserted: “The ability to teach oneself means a person’s ability to overcome his own limitations not only in the field of specific school knowledge and skills, but also in any field of activity and human relations, in particular – with himself as a man unskillful and lazy, inattentive or illiterate, but capable of changing, making themselves different. To teach and change oneself, a person must, first, know about his limitations in something, and secondly, be able to overcome it. These component of skills to learn by their nature are reflexive entities” [1, p. 158].
The following reflexive processes are distinguished: self-understanding and understanding of another, self-evaluation and evaluation of another, self-interpretation and interpretation of another [2, p. 62-63].
Reflection is not just the knowledge or understanding by the subject of oneself, but also the elucidation of how others know and understand the “reflector”, his personality traits, emotional responses and cognitive (cognitive) representations. Reflection involves the ability to detect problem situations in their activities that arise when the goals and results of the pedagogical process do not coincide, analyze their causes and search for solutions. There are two approaches to the treatment of reflection: 1) a reflexive analysis of consciousness leading to an explanation of the values of objects and their construction; 2) reflection as an understanding of the interpersonal communication meaning. The following reflexive processes are distinguished: self-understanding and understanding of the other, self-esteem and evaluation of the other, self-interpretation and interpretation of the other [3, p. 62-63].
G.K. Seleuco talks about the reflection of students’ goals and needs, which are related to self-development [4]. The student’s activity is organized as satisfaction not only of the cognitive need, but also of a number of other needs for self-development of the individual: in self-assertion, in self-expression, in security, in self-actualization. The goal and means in the pedagogical process is the dominant self-improvement personality, including the setting for self-education, self-education, self-affirmation, self-determination, self-regulation and self-actualization.
In the opinion of M.A. Vorobyova, the formation of motivation should be carried out on the basis of the totality of the content of the student’s learning and aspirations to overcome difficulties in work, to show perseverance in achieving positive results, despite the situation of failure in any part of the activity [5, p. 183].
The content of the “reflection” concept is considered most often in connection with the study of student learning activities from the point of view of pedagogy. V.V. Davydov calls the reflexion “... the ability of students to identify, analyze and correlate with the situation in their own methods of learning activities, a special ability to assess the possibilities of their actions in terms of plans and programs of the learning activity itself” [6, p. 240]. N.F. Talyzina defines reflexion as “... the ability of a person to realize what he is doing and to argue and justify his activities” [3, p. 39]. In the opinion of V.V. Krayevsky and A.V. Khutorskoy, reflection is one of the principles that determine the student’s educational activity in person-oriented learning. In their interpretation “the reflection is not a recall of the main thing from the lesson or the conclusions formulation, it is an awareness of the activity methods, the discovery of its semantic features, the educational increments identification of the pupil or teacher. The student is aware not only of what has been done, but also of the ways of doing things, how it was done” [7, p. 52].
Purpose of the study
Intellectual reflection is of the greatest importance for the students’ learning activity development. Intellectual reflection changes, therefore, student’s developing psychological entity. The task is to achieve the highest level of intellectual reflection, which manifests itself in the ability to consciously allocate and use strategies for analyzing and managing thinking in solving problem situations [8].
Materials and methods of research
The third year students have studied the discipline “Pedagogy of Dialogue” on the basis of the philological faculty of the “Grodno State University named after Yanka Kupala” in 2015-2016 academic year. The number of students is 85.
The course trains both Belarusian students and foreign students in ratio of approximately five to one. After the completion of the study of the discipline “Pedagogy of Dialogue” students passed the test. The reflection of educational activity was one of the final tasks.
Results of research and their discussion
The students were offered the following types of reflexions in the studying course:
1. Reflection after each covered topic (G.K. Selevko, reflection of students’ goals and needs related to self-development). These reflections can be divided into two types [4]:
1.1. Full-time (during the lesson): а) Fill in the table in which explain what do you liked about studying this topic, what dislike, which seemed particularly interesting. b) Write down the phrases: I especially liked ...; the most interesting was ...; completely unacceptable ...
Capabilities:
– the opportunity to instantly react to all students’ wishes and remarks.
Disadvantages:
– it is difficult for some students to express their opinions aloud;
– there is no way to listen to all students’ the answers.
1.2. Distant (in the Internet):
А. Reflection on the forum: Express your opinion on the topic “We should be close to parents”, arguing their point of view at the forum. Prove your point of view (give at least 3 arguments or questions that will help convince others of your rightness).
Capabilities:
– the option is prolonged in time (students can perform a reflection when it is comfortable for them).
Disadvantages:
– possible distraction for communication in a social network.
B. Reflection using a joint on-line board. Limnu.com – this is one of the resources that allow you quickly create online board.
There is an opportunity to draw, to print, to insert images and to communicate with the students working on the board of the group. The boards are available for editing within 7 days and the number of active boards is limited to 3 in the free version of the program. You can work together with an unlimited number of users in both paid and free versions. Invite others to work together either by email or by sharing a link to the board. Any board in Limnu can be saved as an image [9].
You can invite students to perform the following task-reflection using a joint on-line board: Conduct a reflection of the lesson using the service “Joint board Limnu”. Place on the chalkboard either a phrase or a picture that would characterize your impression of today’s lesson.
Capabilities:
– this variant is prolonged for time (students have 7 days to complete this task); the teacher can save all the completed reflections in the form of drawings for their further analysis; students can express their opinions with the help of not only words but also images.
Disadvantages:
– possible distraction for communication in a social network.
C. Reflection using the virtual Plickers service. The basis is a mobile application, a site and printed cards with QR-codes. One card is given to each student. The card itself is square and has four sides. Each side has its own answer (A, B, C, D), which is indicated on the card itself. The teacher asks the question, the student chooses the correct answer and raises the card with the corresponding side up. The teacher uses the mobile application to scan the responses in real time (the Augmented Reality technology is used for reading). The results are stored in a database and are available both directly in the mobile application and on the site for instant or deferred analysis [10].
Capabilities:
– one mobile phone from a teacher running iOS or Android with the installed Plickers application, students do not need phones;
– very quick survey and instantly graphically presented survey results.
Disadvantages:
– there is no way to evaluate the open type of questions.
2. Final reflection (intellectual reflection). This kind of reflection was offered to students as one of the test assignments after completing the study of the discipline “Pedagogy of Dialogue”. The students were offered the following scheme for writing the final reflection (author A.D. Korol):
1. What did you expect from studying the discipline and what happened? Analyze your preliminary goals and the results actually achieved, their novelty and practical significance for you.
2. What was the most unexpected for you when studying the course “Pedagogy of Dialogue”?
3. You have become acquainted with the technology of heuristic learning. What positions and activities specific to this type of training are closest to you?
4. What did you most succeed in the course of studying the discipline, which tasks or their elements were most successful?
5. In what way do you see your own increment as a student?
6. List in descending order the main problems and difficulties that you experienced while studying the discipline.
7. In the classroom, the work was organized individually and in a group format, and many of the assignments presupposed the communicative activity of each student.
8. What can you say about the purposes, content and organization of the study of this discipline? Formulate proposals for the development of this work: yourself, your colleagues, teachers.
Capabilities:
– students express their opinions in expanded form and in real time.
Disadvantages:
– there is no direct contact with the instructor;
– Based on the results of this type of reflection, the teacher can only draw conclusions for his future work, but not improve the quality of teaching with students who have written a reflection.
The following results were obtained in the analysis of reflections,. These results can act as an “educational product” of students, which corresponds to the methodology of heuristic learning. A total of 83 students took part in the final reflection.
The majority of the students of the course (72 people – 87 %) expected something new from the “Pedagogy of Dialogue” discipline, about half of the entire student sample (40 people – 48 %) either did not even suspect the content of this discipline, or considered it a continuation (or repetition ) of the discipline “Pedagogy”. The objectives of the students were very diverse: starting from the goal “to understand what kind of thing” and ending with the goals related to self-development: “learn to maintain dialogue,” “find oneself,” etc. Almost 80 % of students (65 people) emphasize that discipline surprised them, because they were able to realize their goals, they were able to learn something new. About 70 % of students (56 people) are going to apply this knowledge in practice. All students (83 people) recognized that the course provided an opportunity for professional and personal growth. For 62 (74 %) students, the unusual and new style of learning aimed at building partnerships became quite unexpected, but many students also noted that it was this group work that caused the most difficulties, for example, due to the need to listen to their own opinions group and come to a consensus (30 people – 36 %). The students were surprised by the form of the lectures; earlier in the lectures, students were only attuned to the adoption of information, but in no way to dialogue. It turned out to be unusual for me to formulate my own goals. 64 students (77 %) note the effectiveness of classes in social networks, they were very impressed by the possibility of organizing group discussions at the forum, it was said that “modern teachers underestimate the educational opportunities of social networks.” As part of the work on social networks, the discussion of the question was remembered: “Is the student a seed or a blank leaf?”. The students noted that they had mastered the theoretical foundations of the discipline “Pedagogy of Dialogue”, particularities of working with heuristic (open) assignments. In practice, students have learned to develop heuristic (open) tasks and are going to apply this knowledge in practice. In practical classes, students mastered the development of lessons on the basis of the basic triad of questions “What? How? Why?”.
Conclusions
The formation of a complete personality is impossible without self-reflection and reflection of its activities as practice shows. We can state that there is a connection between educational activity and the reflexive student’s activity. Modern electronic resources give us great opportunities for conducting reflections. The more the student is interested in the discipline and its content, the more he will be motivated to gain knowledge and skills for further professional development.