A New Bachelor Degree Integrated Student Personal Development Holistically. Here's How.

Case Study #1: Program-level Integration

The Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) newest bachelor degree - Environmental and Resource Management - adopted Rflect on a curriculum-wide basis, requiring students to proactively work on their competence development through a reflective learning journey.

Introduction

The leading question when designing a new education program is: what do we want our graduates to be able to do and know? The BFH team defined these as ‘Skills for Change Agents’. While designing the learning of traditional subject-matter areas can be relatively straightforward, tracking the development of transversal skills can be much harder. Together with Rflect, the BFH team designed a process to help students continuously work on their competence development, and track progress related to their ‘Skills for Change Agents’.

This approach - fully integrated in the curriculum and linked to credits - is in its early days but seems very promising, according to the lecturers and students we have interviewed.

For starters, students reported that continuous reflection, and the use of Rflect specifically, helped them become more aware and attentive, in their studies as well as in their personal lives. Lecturers also told us they found it easier to get to know their students and connect with them, understanding their needs and adjusting their teaching approach accordingly.

But don’t just take it from us: check out what program lead Michaela Krummen, and one of her students, Manuel Lanz, had to say about their experience.

The Program Director’s Perspective

Michaela Krummen is a lecturer at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. She co-leads the Environmental and Resource Economics Bachelor Program together with Jérôme Wider.

“This is a new bachelor program and Rflect was part of the curriculum from day one. Other programs don’t have a specific tool for reflection on competence development: students write a report at the end of the year and answer a few reflection questions. That’s it.”

“I think Rflect makes it easier for students to turn reflection into a habit, because they have everything they need in one tool. You have to train to reflect, and the more you do it the easier it gets. That’s what students also tell me. So it makes a huge difference to be doing this every week, and not just at the end of the year: it improves their ability to reflect about many of the things they do here and also beyond their studies.”

“We were able to customise things so as to add additional information connected to questions, like links to outside websites where students can find more about specific topics. This gives them a chance to dive deeper into what they’re interested in. There’s a lot that can be done, and a lot of potential that comes with the use of Rflect.”

“I needed to prepare for a coaching session this morning. With just one click, I was able to access all the reflections and have a great overview of where the students stand, what they’ve been working on, and what they’ve been thinking about in the last few weeks. That’s extremely useful, and a huge improvement compared to how things were before.”

“It’s not just extremely time-saving, it also helps me get to know my students better and faster, also in terms of their personalities, which really helps with the quality of the teaching. You just need to look at how they do their reflection and answer the questions: you have the ones that always make it in three straightforward sentences, and the ones that write pages and pages. Especially for the more personal questions, that’s really telling about the person behind the student.”

“What we hear from a lot of professors that teach courses in multiple programs, is that this is a really good group, very engaged, with a good team spirit. I can’t really say if it’s because of Rflect or just a coincidence, but I can imagine that the reflection has helped. They’re more aware of how they behave and how their behaviours influence others. Especially thinking about the active listening exercises: I’m pretty sure all those things help the group work well together.”

Key Outcomes for Each User Group

What is the hopeful outcome of using Rflect for students, lecturers, and institutions?

Students
“People don’t just learn from experience: people learn from reflecting on their experience. Rflect helps students in the process of gaining valuable soft skills and tracking their progress.”

Lecturers
“By getting to know students better and faster, lecturers immediately notice if someone is struggling or something needs to be adjusted to find a solution together.”

Universities
“I think that offering ongoing reflection through a tool like Rflect helps institutions in their shared goal of helping students build resilience and other skills they’ll need beyond their studies.”

A Student’s Perspective

Manuel Lanz is a student at the University of Bern. He’s enrolled in the first year of the University’s new Bachelor Program in Environmental and Resource Economics.

“I believe Rflect helped me become more aware of where I stand, what I think, and even some of the challenges I’m currently facing. It’s also insightful to see what other people think and where they stand. Sure, it takes time, but it never feels like a chore. It’s definitely worth it, and not just because it’s part of what we get credits for: it’s become quite obvious to everybody that there are a lot of benefits to using Rflect.”

“What I’ve experienced, personally, over the past few weeks already, is that when I’m faced with some kind of challenge or something that’s outside my comfort zone, even beyond my studies, now I try to learn from it and grow in some way. I don’t necessarily apply any specific method that I’ve learnt with Rflect, but I have the urge to reflect on it more than I did before.”

“There’s this one question on Rflect about what could influence my studies next week. I find it particularly helpful because it forces me to pause and look at my calendar. It’s a simple question but it makes a difference. I also work, on top of being a student, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of everything.”

“Since I’m both working and studying, I really don’t have a lot of time for myself. That also means I don’t have many opportunities to think about some of the things I’d like to focus on more. Rflect provides an opportunity to look into some of those things, which I now find myself thinking about more often.”

“Sometimes I actually wish I had more time to work on some of the themes brought up by Rflect. For example, the week about active listening: I wish I could have worked on that topic for two or three weeks rather than one. I know it’s difficult, because there are a lot of other things, with our studies and all… Still, it was really interesting, and all of us can learn a lot from that subject.”

Key Benefits of this Approach

Designing and operating a study program that meets students’ needs and truly prepares them for the 21st century is really difficult. The use case at the Bern University of Applied Sciences shows how integrating personal development into higher education is a pivotal opportunity for fostering reflective, adaptive, and self-aware graduates.

1. Student-led learning
   Help students take ownership of their learning experience by customizing their journey, making them feel less like consumers, prompting a more proactive approach to their studies.

2. Build translational competencies
   Intentionally build translational competencies that go beyond individual courses and measure progress.

3. Scalable student coaching
   Support students through their learning journey, track their engagement in real-time and use human interventions where it is high-impact.

4. Curriculum-integrated
   Give students’ personal development the status it deserves by integrating it in the curriculum.

Even though this program was highly tailored to BFH, the core can easily be replicated and adapted for other programs. If you - or anyone you know - believe your students should have a personal companion for their personal development as part of their studies, please get in touch with us at info@rflect.ch.