We Replaced End-of-Semester Reflection Papers With Ongoing Reflection. Here’s What Happened.

Case Study #2: Continuous Reflection at Course-Level

Introduction

In order to combine their theoretical training with practical experience, the Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, requires students to take part in something called the Capstone Project. In short, this one-semester, 8-ECTS course allows students to work on real tasks and challenges, often presented by actual companies and startups they’ll work closely with, to test the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired during their studies. Every semester, about 300 students take the course.

Before Rflect, students were required to complete a 10-15 pages group reflection report at the end of the term, which significantly increased their workload at a time when they needed to focus on their exams. This also meant lecturers found themselves with hundreds of pages to assess during the busiest possible time of the academic year.

With Rflect, this one-off end-of-semester paper has been replaced by a continuous process where students are required to work on their personal development through weekly reflection and other activities on an ongoing basis, right when the action happens.

The Module Supervisor’s Perspective:

Henry Willem Müller is a PhD student at the University of St. Gallen. He’s responsible for the supervision of the Capstone Project.

“Using Rflect frees up a lot of time at the end of the semester, allowing me to focus more on the project reports and helping me assign grades more easily. Now I don’t have the additional reflection papers to read, and Rflect helps us grade the reflections.”

“Because Rflect ensures anonymity, students can be more honest and transparent with us and themselves in their reflection. Before, with the written reports, they were a bit hindered by wanting to present themselves a certain way.”

“It’s also extremely useful to get outside input from professionals who know what a good reflection should be about. We obviously had guidelines in place before, but the questions and considerations provided by the Rflect team have been insightful.”

“I think using Rflect is a more enjoyable experience than writing a reflection report for many of the students. I also think it was difficult, at the end of the semester, to remember everything they’d done and how they’d felt about it. It’s definitely easier to do reflection on a daily or weekly basis.”

Key Outcomes for Each User Group

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

Students
“Students have a higher quality of reflection and learn more about the process and themselves. Most importantly, quality reflection helps them develop self-leadership skills that are essential for their lives and future careers.”

Lecturers
“Lecturers get continuous input from the questions in Rflect. This helps ensure students have a nice experience, and saves a tremendous amount of time at the end of the semester when it comes to assigning grades.”

Universities
“The goal of our institution is to produce a high-quality workforce and the next generation of leaders. Reflection, as an activity, is a lifelong valuable tool that all universities should give their students.”

A Student’s Perspective

Karla Sauter is a student at the University of St. Gallen. She’s in her fifth semester studying Business Administration.

“With Rflect, you have an opportunity to constantly write down your thoughts, which has enormous value, because at the end of the term you can actually look back and compare your thinking at different moments in time. If you’re just writing a paper at the end of the term, you won’t really remember what you were thinking at the beginning of the year. Looking back at things like that is, in its own, a valuable learning experience.“

“I know it’s difficult to motivate students doing things for their own benefit if they feel they’re being forced, which is silly because we all enrolled by our own free will. So, yes, this is something we do for credits, and yes, it is an additional task. However, reflecting back on my studies sometimes make me think about other things that have nothing to do with our project, and I can definitely see how that’s a positive outcome of using Rflect.”

*“The Capstone Project can be a very challenging program. We have tight deadlines and how we do can affect other students in our group, which makes you stress about letting people down. It’s a huge part of the learning experience, the networking and soft skills acquisition. I don’t shy away from challenges, because it really makes me happy to get things done. But it can be difficult at times, and I think Rflect can be a very helpful resource for asking the right questions at the right time*.”

“For students, I believe the hopeful outcome of using Rflect is to finally replace those end-of-term essays with something meaningful, engaging and continuous. The reflection pages in the paper, honestly, everybody just wrote down something based on their memories. Now we can answer questions when things are actually happening and reflect on what things are really like, right now. You think about something and it stays with you. You have the opportunity to actually come up with an authentic answer that critically reflects your state of mind.”

“What institutions gain from this, is they give students a learning experience that helps them become the best versions of themselves. At St. Gallen, we’re taught a broad spectrum of skills: presentation skills, soft skills, quantitative skills… And being able to reflect on yourself is a very big strength. So I believe Rflect really adds to the learning experience that HSG is giving us students.”

Key Benefits of this Approach

Reflection is an effective age-old pedagogical method to foster learning, but it isn’t widely recognized as such nowadays, which we consider to be a missed opportunity for impact. The use case at the University of St. Gallen offers a concrete example of how reflection can contribute to a variety of benefits for students and lecturers alike.

1. Achieve ongoing, more effective personal development;
   Students reflect in real-time, fostering personal growth right when experiences happen.
2. Reduce exam stress;
   Rflect replaces the bulky end-of-term report with weekly reflections, easing workload during exams.
3. Save time;
   Lecturers review manageable weekly inputs instead of hundreds of pages at the end of the term.

Getting started with Rflect is straightforward, and helps ensure educators can design impactful reflection activities that align with their course goals.

If you - or anyone you know - have a reflection paper in place and would like to discuss turning that one-time mandatory assignment into an ongoing reflection process, please get in touch with us at info@rflect.ch.