Phase 2 = Profits!

At least I tried.  I really tried.  I read Ed White's "The Scoring of Writing Portfolios: Phase 2" and did my absolute best not to become hyper-critical and attempted to understand his argument.  However, when it was all said and done, all I could think of was this South Park clip (warning: I couldn't find this scene with the language edited out so there is cussing at the end):

You see, throughout this episode, the gnomes fail to ever explain Phase 2 no matter how often they are asked.  Essentially, they just keep insisting that stealing underpants will lead to profits.

In a similar manner, I could not in any way understand (much like Stan) how in the world Ed White's concept would provide any benefits short of expediting scoring processes and producing flashy data.

When it comes to the connection between reflection and assessment, I've come to the conclusion that it is a matter of the difference between proving learning and understanding learning through reflective writing.  These two might  not be as separate as my convenient little binary suggests; however, I do believe they provide some insight into the benefits/drawbacks of reflective writing becoming tethered to assessment.

White's "Phase 2" really seems to be about proving student learning.  Reflection, in this case, is used as evidence that a student has met or not met certain outcomes.  As White notes, "With the focus of the assessment on the degree to which the student's reflective letter demonstrates awareness of and accomplishment of the goals, portfolio reading can proceed relatively quickly and with high levels of agreement" (590).  "Phase 2," thus, seems more intrigued by proving that the students have met certain goals and less interested in understanding the learning process.  This type of thinking seems to be in league with standardized testing in that it focuses primarily on quantifying learning.

In contrast, the Leaker and Ostman piece seemed more focused on understanding learning.  Granted, PLAs are a method of proving learning as to get college credit; however, Leaker and Ostman's use of reflective writing seems more inclined towards helping the assessors and the students to understand their previous learning.  Through understanding what these students have learned in non-academic contexts, it can then be determined whether they have prior experiences that would equate to the learning that would take place in a traditional college classroom.

Reflection, for me, is a rather valuable assessment tool.  It can enable tremendous insight into the learning process, both for students and teachers/administrators.  Thus, I think it has a great deal to offer us in the future, but we must remain vigilant that we are using reflective writing for productive purposes (i.e. understanding student learning to improve teaching practices, having students use reflective writing to gain greater insight into their thinking, etc.) instead of using it as a way to demonstrate whether learning has indeed taken place (especially in the rather empirical way that White outlines, which seems to not mesh well with the genre overall).

As far as transfer is concerned, I think this is a trickier question since, well, transfer seems to be one of the trickiest facets of pedagogy to research.  I think reflection has much to offer transfer; however, I think understanding just how reflection can foster and promote transfer is a slippery line of inquiry.  I'm in agreement with the authors of Writing Across Contexts who seem to desire to replicate their research in a variety of contexts. Replication--in my opinion--will be key to understanding how reflection might promote transfer.  We need to see how such classes, with a heavy emphasis on reflective writing and key terms, work in a variety of contexts.

We appear to have the question of "why use reflective writing?" pretty much figured out in my estimation, yet we still have a long way to go as to the "how?" question.  Replication and collaboration seem to be key here; since reflective writing taps into the concept of metacognition in such a profound way, research in this area will not be easy nor cut-and-dry.  Examining reflective writing across contexts seems to be key.

Reflective writing has a lot to offer us from a pedagogical standpoint and an assessment standpoint.  Yet, my greatest fear is the reduction of such a complex phenomenon.  Our approach to reflective writing needs to be nuanced, much like the practice of reflective writing itself.