What is Reflective Writing?

Both Strange & Hardy-Cox (2016) and Sabri (2011) demonstrated how “the student experience” has transformed into a broad categorical term that has translated into a policy framework that homogenizes and erases the experiences of marginalized students. Due to this transformation, I think the concept of “student experience” has become inadequate for orientating and navigating the student experience when used without third-wave theories of student development (Strange & Hardy-Cox, 2016).  This is emphasized by the shift in how students have become viewed as consumers and as a result, shifted how institutions approach student consultations (Sabri, 2011). While this shift in understanding has assisted institutions in addressing the diverse needs of students, the homogenization of our understanding of “student experience” remains an issue. For example, UK higher education institutions and their preference to use the experiences of privileged students within the quality assurance process – this raises the question of whose voices are valued and understood when we speak about student experiences (Strange & Cox, 2016; Sabri, 2011).   

When thinking of my experiences as a student union leader, advocacy was a key component of my role. To achieve this, ensuring intersectionality and the centering of marginalized communities was utilized in various areas of decision-making. While this may have created tensions with certain groups, the benefits of using an intersectional framework were clear – as most, if not all, campaigns that aim to improve the student experience from the perspective of access and equity aim to address the barriers that prevent marginalized students from navigating the higher education landscape to what we understand as the traditional university student (i.e., white, cis, male, able-bodied). 

The Purpose(s) of Adult Education 

The purpose of adult education, in my view, is to achieve positive social change while also creating safer spaces for learners from marginalized groups, so that they can gain confidence and reach self-actualization. While I believe in the radical/critical view that “sees education as a means for consciousness-raising, empowerment, and social change to rectify the unequal power and injustice experienced by marginalized groups” (Brigham et al., 2021, p.76), I think that “rectifying the unequal power and injustice” also means providing marginalized learners with the tools that they were not given due to existing systems of inequality. I believe that these systems enact violence on the marginalized body that must be addressed to truly have equality of condition in education. My ideas around the purposes of adult education echo the perspective of Myles Horton, who “was committed to achieving social change through radical education and to helping groups organize, gain confidence, and identify sources of power” (Spencer & Lange, 2014, p. 89). I do not believe that social justice is created simply through consciousness-raising in the classroom, but through nurturing a learner’s confidence and self-esteem. I take person-centered, or humanistic, approach, “associated with self-directed learning, self-improvement, [and] the discovery process” (Spencer & Lange, 2014, p.59). Adult education, then, is meant achieve social change through empowering learners who have been otherwise marginalized by the educational system, while also taking care to facilitate the learner’s self-development and accommodating their individual needs. 

While there are weeks where I struggle with the weekly reflections, I try my best to actively engage with the material and reflect on any questions and connections I can see. I consider myself quite shy in group settings, however, I try to participate in class sessions in a meaningful way. Through participating in the various aspects of class I have learned how to apply different frameworks and theories, while also acknowledging my own limitations in my knowledge and how much more I have left to learn – this usually leads to more questions than answers. While this seems counterintuitive, through my experience as a student, this has been a good indicator that I am actively engaging in the material and sandboxing various ideas. Something new I have learned about the student experience is the large disconnect that stems from the complexities and tensions that exist within different actors of PSE (students, family, institutions, communities, and government to name a few), Furthermore, in terms of content, it has been helpful to understand and explore the various theories and frameworks used within student experience which was a huge gap in my understanding and a hurdle I had to jump over when writing my MA thesis.  

The Natural Approach is one of my favourite approaches, which is widely adopted at the beginning to intermediate level of foreign language teaching, especially when learners' communicative needs are stressed. Actually, the goal of the Natural Approach is based on learners’ needs and their particular interests, with the expectation that learners “will be able to function adequately in the target situation.”(Krashen and Terrell, 1983). Educators are expected to help learners imitate the acquisition of first language development in children, so they often provide students with an ‘input flood’ and never force them to speak until they are ready. In addition, in order to meet the requirements, Natural Approach often borrows and adapts techniques from other methods such as ‘demonstrating the meaning through the use of realia, pictures, or pantomime instead of translating into students’ native language’ from the Direct Method; ‘working in a group and sharing information in order to complete a task from Communicative Language Teaching (CLT); ‘providing stressless classroom environment’ from Desuggestopedia, etc.(Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011). I believed that the Natural Approach seemed fit for my mother when she intended to pick up English again, narrowing down her goals to ‘be able to complete daily tasks (e.g. buying supplies, ordering food, booking tickets, …) in an English-speaking country. I then began putting the knowledge into practice by finding authentic teaching materials for her and recommending YouTube teaching channels I appreciate. Everything from my daily life in Toronto can serve as valuable authentic material for her; I send her photos of labels, menus, recipes, and even notices; every week, I practice with her and give her feedback in our video call... I am deeply sorry for that teenage girl, for her impatience that nearly ruined her mother’s motivation, and I am proud of my mother for her courage in learning a foreign language in her fifties. 

Take a Snapshot

Name: Hongyu Chen  Place: Panda Mandarin  Date/Time: Jan 14 12:30 PM – 4:15 PM

The first class was a voyager class for students who were at the beginner level with little knowledge of Mandarin. There were two girls and three boys in the class. The students were 6 - 8 years old, and they all had taken classes last term at Panda Mandarin. The class was a review class in that the teacher led the students to review the textbook from chapter one to chapter three. The teacher mainly used Mandarin during class to communicate with the students. She only used English to explain instructions for the activities or to communicate with the students who had understanding issues.   

The teachers used the audio-lingual, grammar translation, and communicative language teaching methods in this class. For adopting the audio-lingual method, she used flashcards that do not have pinyin as a visual tool to introduce the characters and the numbers. Then, she asked every student to repeat after her. Then, all students repeated the characters one more time with the teacher. While the teacher was adopting the audio-lingual method, it was noticed that students sometimes lost their attention. For instance, they started to look around or roll around on the playmat while repeating the characters with the teacher. However, once the teacher introduced the game activity, students' study interests developed, and they tended to pay more attention. For instance, the teacher used flashcards to play a guessing game with the students. She showed a tiny part of the character, such as a Chinese radical, and the students were required to guess the character and speak up. When they made mistakes, the teacher asked the student to repeat the word after her one more time. With the support of the game activity, the teacher used the audiolingual method more effectively. 

After the teacher used the audiolingual method to introduce the knowledge of chapter two, the corresponding activity adopted the grammar-translation method and became more advanced. For instance, the teacher used English to say the greeting "认识你很高兴" (Nice to meet you). Each student was required to put the flashcards of Chinese characters into the correct order. As students worked on this activity, they responded less to the teacher as they seemed to have more difficulties working on it. In this case, the teacher used body language and hints to support and guide students to complete the activity successfully. 

Lastly, the teacher ended the class with another activity similar to the "hot potato game." The teacher and the students stood in a circle; one person stood in the middle of the circle. Then, the person who stood in the middle would cover his/her eyes and call "停" (stop) anytime. Other people passed around the flash card, and the person who held the flashcard at the "stop" moment needed to say the character on the flash card out loud and went to stand in the middle to be the stop person. Students seemed more engaged and active in speaking Mandarin in this activity. 

After observing this class, adopting the audio-lingual method with the game activities was very effective. Students showed higher learning motivation, participation, and willingness to try to use Mandarin to communicate with others. I would introduce a game activity that adopted the communicative approach. For instance, a role-play activity that contains simple conversations. The script could be designed by using characters from chapters one to three. By doing that, the student may better understand when and how to use these sentences in daily life for communicative purposes.

Leonard, Khurana, A., & Hammond, M. (2021). Bedtime media use and sleep: evidence for bidirectional effects and associations with attention control in adolescents. Sleep Health, 7(4), 491–499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2021.05.003 

Summary and Findings: The authors researched bedtime media use and sleep quantity in almost 400 middle-schoolers. As a secondary focus, they looked into the association between staying up late using devices and attention control evaluated the next day. Access to media use and sleepiness were related to attention control at two different times, six months apart. The researchers asked middle-school children to complete a sleepiness scale to determine the level of students' self-perception of sleepiness. The results showed that adolescents who stay up later using screens reported more daytime sleepiness. The researchers discovered that the sleepiness was not a result of difficulty falling asleep, but the result of going to sleep later at night, therefore they spent significantly less time sleeping. Finally, they mentioned the associations of bedtime, screen time and sleep variables with difficulties in attention control. Participants scored lower in attention control due to falling asleep while being tested. 

Relevance to research topic: This article will be helpful for my introduction. I need information regarding the fact that teenagers are getting less sleep than what is recommended for their age. According to this study, media device usage contributes to sleep deprivation in the age group that I am looking into. The article's secondary outcome of the relationship between the use of devices and next-day sleepiness with attention control is also relevant for the content of my literature review since attention control is part of cognition. Therefore, I may use it as one subheading. 

Source: Carlos Lazos, Mayra (OISE Alum) 

The following is an example of a literature review log. You may find it helpful to keep track of search terms, results, relevant terminology, and other information that you determine as important for your research.