Making Connections for Mindful Inquiry: Using Reflective Journals to Scaffold an Autobiographical Approach to Learning in Economics

This research develops a narrative of incidents of intentional learning by students studying undergraduate economics as represented in their written reflective journals. The deliberate integration of learner reflection, reflective practice and reflective writing into the pedagogy may facilitate transfer learning (Sousa, 2006). Transfer has been identified as an important factor for how the brain learns. The more connections that learners can make in their learning the more likely it is that the sense and meaning of learning will be appreciated and the more likely it is that new learning will be retained (Sousa, 2006). By supporting an autobiographical approach to learning in economics wherein learners individualise learning, connecting their experiences (past and present, academic and non-academic) a pedagogy that advances self-authorship on the part of the learner is encouraged and facilitated. Self-authorship is a central goal of higher education (Baxter Magolda and King, 2004). Students find associative learning in a manner that supports full transfer quite difficult. It is thus important for educators to bridge students' learning from one learning situation to another (Blanchette and Dunbar, 2002). Reflective journaling is introduced as a performance of understanding to scaffold this learning. Student reflective journaling can establish the sense of new learning for them, connect this learning to their existing learning networks and find the meaning in this learning for them. This research describes the design, enactment and results of the development of reflective journaling as an assessment strategy in an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts module in economics in University College, Cork. An appendix presents The Reflective Prompts Used in the Research. (Contains 2 figures and 2 footnotes.) [For the full proceedings, Research-Teaching Linkages: Practice and Policy. Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (3rd, Dublin, Ireland, November 11-12, 2009), see ED539248.]