Reflection

The principle of Reflection involves program directors, trainers, and instructor-trainees in a reflexive process of feedback and assessment. Critical reflection is necessary to creating successful programs and to developing one's own knowledge and skills. Trainees particularly need opportunities for reflecting on, questioning, and synthesizing the feedback they receive from those who are training and mentoring them. Our experiences suggest that both the external feedback and the internal response to such feedback, which includes guided self-assessment, "is vital in the online teaching venue, not least because individuals are making sense, first hand, of the distinctive nature of online learning" (Hewett and Ehmann 20-21; see also Blair and Monske 447-8).

Evaluation, or assessment, provides participants with an opportunity for critical reflection about the online writing program, its training methods and processes, and about individual trainees and instructors. Such reflection empowers trainees as vital to the program's investigation and a broader discussion about the nature of online teaching. Ultimately, reflection is crucial to improving practice.

Characteristics of an online training program that engages the principle of Reflection may include:

• Regular and consistent opportunities for performance assessment. We have observed that trainees request regular and consistent feedback on their performance; their needs probably are related to the differences inherent in teaching online from the more familiar traditional instruction venues.  Typical of adult learners, instructor-trainees tend to seek feedback that tells them how they are doing when they practice online encounters with simulated students. Desiring to solidify helpful practices, they are particularly interested in identifying strategies that seem to work and that may not work as well in a variety of student writing situations.  Regular performance assessment opportunities include feedback after each simulated exercise, as well as summative feedback after a training cycle. Consistency of assessment tends to be aided by pairing a trainer and trainee throughout the entire training cycle whenever possible, although at times, individuals might desire a broader range of feedback from other trainers and instructors, or even from the program director.
  
• Clearly stated programmatic goals. Part and parcel of engaging the principle of Reflection is the setting of goals or objectives. Such goal setting needs to occur first at the programmatic level, and it should consider the reasons for the online instruction. What does the institution want or need to accomplish through the online writing program? What does the program director want to accomplish, and how do these goals meet the needs of the host institution? Program directors can use known educational taxonomies to ground their stated objectives for both internal and external review. Finally, it is important that these goals be stated and presented clearly to the trainers and trainees. As professionals and as adult learners, it is helpful for participants to understand how their understanding of online instruction and the practices they develop speak to their employers' overall educational and institutional goals.
  
• Clearly stated goals and outcomes for trainees. Specific to trainers and instructor-trainees, goals and outcomes need to be identified and presented in clear ways throughout the training process. In this sense, reflection takes us back to the "hit-or-miss" scenario in which learners are not certain what they've done well and what they've failed to do, and in which the trainers, observers, are uncertain how to guide their trainees to success. Of course, outcomes are not inflexible, and they should be expected to shift in a training program that engages the principle of Investigation.
  
• A variety of assessment methodologies. We have observed that along with setting objectives for trainers and trainees, they need a variety of methods for evaluation. As the principle of Individualization suggests, some assessment methodologies will work better than others for visual or textual learners, or for those who are more inwardly than outwardly motivated. Some approaches that promote critical reflection are:
  • meta-cognitive activities for trainees;
  • open-ended commentary on trainee work;
  • a rubric that assesses teacher-student interactions from qualitative and quantitative perspectives; and,
  • when available, student feedback. (Hewett and Ehmann, 24)
    
• Opportunities for professional development.  Finally, we learned that engaging the principle of Reflection fully requires that we make professional development opportunities available.  Professional development invests in our team, our colleagues, and the profession as a whole, "increasing their skills and knowledge, allowing staff to try new and varied work opportunities, enabling career advancement within the organization rather than to outside organizations, and conveying to staff that they are valued" (Renwick 5).  Thus, we suggest that online writing program directors examine their programs for ways that online faculty can use abilities and develop their skills in leadership, research, writing, or other positions that benefit the program as a whole.