A Step-by-Step Approach: How You Can Integrate Rflect at a Program Level

Case Study #0: DIY Guide for Rflect Integration

Introduction

Integrating personal development into higher education has become a pivotal way for educating reflective, adaptive, and self-aware graduates. Grounded in the Inner Development Goals (IDG) framework, Rflect serves as a transformative tool to embed these practices seamlessly into academic programs. Not on top, but as a core part of the curriculum (for credits).

Getting started with Rflect is straightforward, ensuring educators can design impactful learning activities that align with their program goals and pioneering a shift in education, equipping students with the inner skills necessary for addressing global challenges and thriving in an interconnected world.

If you’d like to know more about how your institution can integrate Rflect in its programs, don’t hesitate to reach out. Here’s a little preview of what that might look like, in three simple steps.

Step 1: Define the purpose of integrating Rflect at program-level (WHY)

Obviously, it all starts with defining why you might want to integrate Rflect into your program. One of our early adopters, Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), identified the following key needs (see full case study here LINK):

1. Support students in building transversal skills;
2. Increase student agency and ownership over their learning process;
3. Support the pedagogical philosophy of challenge-based learning with metareflection and sensemaking;
4. Scalably coach all students through the transformative life experience that is university.

And here are some questions we asked them to help further outline their goals:

1. What are your program-level learning goals and how can we make sure they’re achieved?
2. How do reflection and personal development connect to your pedagogical philosophy?
3. What would you like your students to learn or gain from this experience?

Still looking at this specific case study: the BFH’s URM program had identified the following competencies in a framework called Change Agent Skills.

The URM curriculum is designed to help students foster these core competencies, while using Rflect to facilitate skills acquisition at a meta-level and allow students to become more aware of their strengths, weaknesses, and learning process.

For example, students are encouraged to learn and reflect about empathy as a skill in the context of teamwork, thus becoming more aware of how they interact with classmates and lecturers, prompting them to approach their next group project differently, for the better. They also acquire coaching skills via peer coaching, which deeply impacts how they work with each other.

Step 2: Outline the content of the program (WHAT)

After outlining why it is important to integrate Rflect, BFH needed to define ** ** exactly what they wanted to achieve. Here’s what they reported:

1. Actively build and train competencies from the Skills for Change Agents framework;
2. Measure and track students’ ILOs (Intended Learning Outcomes);
3. Give students a space to reflect on their most pressing concerns and develop solutions;
4. Provide students with a fulfilling experience involving guided reflections, peer-coaching, interactive exercises, assessments, and workshops;

And here are some questions we asked BFH to facilitate them at this pivotal stage:

1. What would you like your students to reflect on?
   • Course content reflections to deepen knowledge & contextualize it;
   • Meta reflections to prompt critical thinking;
   • Inner development reflections to develop IDG competencies;
2. Which features of Rflect can help you achieve those learning goals?
3. At which moment in the program do you think Rflect will have the biggest impact.

Ultimately, Rflect’s scope application within URM involves a mix of meta reflections and exercises centered on Change Agent Skills. Students are provided a variety of tasks based on a single topic every few weeks, and given time to reflect on those from Wednesday to Sunday. Generally speaking, all activities revolve around:

• Overall wellbeing, resilience, and study skills;
• Change Agent skills;
• Learnings from the previous week;
• Learning goals for the coming week;
• Potential disruptions to the following week;

Following their reflection, students are asked to commit to an action, which they will be reminded of via notifications and nudges.

Additionally, students have access to 2-3 peer coaching sessions per semester focusing on a variety of topics such as “non-violent communication” or “the role of a coach”. During these sessions, students come together in groups and work on skills, which also serves as a powerful bonding mechanism.

URM also chose to add two live workshops and one individual coaching session, all guided by the Rflect team, where students further explore and work on developing Change Agent skills. The active listening workshop, for example, was reported to be a highlight for many students who claimed it helped them understand the importance of practicing this core skill.

Step 3: Integrate Rflect in the formal curriculum and assessment (HOW)

Finally, all that is left is to define exactly how to integrate Rflect in the program setup. Based on experience, we strongly recommend making it mandatory for students, who tend to successfully build a habit of inner development when the system is comprised of both the carrot and the stick: the stick being the credits, while the carrot the realization, over time, of how useful reflection really is. At URM, for example, we opted for the following model:

1. On average, 1-1.5 ECTs per semester;
2. Year 1: mandatory two-semester two-credit course to get started;
3. Year 2 & 3: Rflect will be part of selected modules with a similar credit system.

Some questions we asked BFH to help them create the best tailor-made solution:

1. How can we best integrate Rflect in the curriculum for the entire duration of the program?
2. Which parts will be mandatory and which should be optional?
3. What’s the best way to tie Rflect to credits and grades?
4. Who is formally responsible for the course (e.g. teaching)?

As said, URM made Rflect mandatory for their students, who have to fill 80% of the reflections so as to be granted 2 ECTS. On average, it takes anywhere between 1h - 1.5h per week to complete the assignment, which comprises both in-person and remote activities, co-guided by the program director Michaela Krummen and a member of Rflect.

In its core, inner development is a deeply personal process that should not be graded. However, in an education context you have to find a pragmatic middle ground. We are often asked, especially by students, how grading is managed: evaluations are based on the Gibbs Cycle and take into account both the length and quality of written reflections, a process for which we also employ AI tools. We also take into consideration the students’ work during peer-coaching sessions. Ideally we award pass/fail, but otherwise Rflect can also enable grading.

Students can easily keep track of their progress through a dedicated dashboard available in both desktop and mobile view. This helps them stay on top of their tasks and goals. It also allows lecturers to detect early on if a student is in need of additional support.

Rflect’s self-assessment feature allows lecturers and students to track competencies development over time.

The Berner Fachhochschule’s integration of Rflect demonstrates the transformative power of reflection in education, preparing students for challenges both academic and personal. If you’re an educator or institution ready to revolutionize learning through inner development, get in touch with us by reaching out to info@rflect.ch. We’d be more than happy to discuss your needs and set up a free demo account.