Lesson 6: Digital critical reflection

Using digital technologies for critical reflection encourages students to personalize their learning and make more connections between their personal experiences and academic learnings. Students are often more accustomed to using online platforms like social media for interpersonal relationships and therefore use digital learning tools in less formal academic or professional ways. This in turn allows students to reflect on their learning in more personal and less rigid ways.

Due to students’ digital familiarity and personalization, asking students to engage in critical reflection online can facilitate a building of community amongst students based on their social presence. This community also becomes more accessible and inclusive as digital tools can work to remedy inaccessibilities present in traditional critical reflection assignments.  

The novelty of being asked to engage in academic reflection through online tools can initially increase student anxiety. However, encouraging experimentation and avenues for student feedback, digital critical reflection can ultimately lead to a more rewarding and memorable learning experience for students.

While students are typically familiar with digital technologies, learning a new digital technology can hinder learning by having a difficult log-in or set up process, little compatibility with personal devices, or operation of the learning tool that exhausts students' resources to navigate. To address this, carefully analyze and pre-test the usability of the online tool.

Access around the use of digital learning tools can include lack of access to personal devices, out-of-pocket expenses, disabilities (physical, learning, and otherwise) that hinder engagement with digital technologies, language barriers, and a lack of digital literacy and familiarity. To address issues of inaccessibility, scaffold the technological complexity of assignments over time and consider starting with small changes such as enabling screen readers and closed captioning, utilizing open-source texts as much as possible, and spending time navigating students through new interfaces. For more accessibility strategies please refer to the additional resources below. 

With digital critical reflection, there may be fewer opportunities for educators to connect with, guide, and course correct students as they work through their reflections. To maintain connection, experts recommend regularly engaging in meaningful and visible ways such as answering questions sent by email on a public question and answer forum, posting quick videos addressing potential misconceptions, engaging in discussions students are having online, and holding regular online office hours.

Students are asked to record videos of themselves and their personal narratives. This can include their reaction and engagement with subject matter, connections between their personal experience and academic knowledge, as well as how they situate themselves in the context of a broader phenomenon. Platforms like YuJa or Zoom can be used to make video recordings.

Interviewing each other or content experts, students are tasked with integrating critical reflection into recorded conversations about relevant subject matter. Students can engage in real-time reflection on concepts and anecdotes from their counterpart.

Using social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, students are asked to publicly reflect on and engage in discussion with broader audiences about concepts, ideas, and perspectives they are currently learning. This can be facilitated by creating a separate account such that students’ personal information is not made public by using their personal accounts.

Similar to using social media platforms, students are tasked with recording their reflections publicly. The benefits of using this particular platform include the availability of longer form entries as well as the digital archiving of student’s learning progress that is available to them even after graduating.

Showcasing their artistic works that represent their learning journeys and progressing engagement over time, students are asked to explain and reflect on this journey as they guide others through their digital exhibit. This assignment could be facilitated with a live audience via Zoom or as a recording via YuJa.