Facilitating habitual reflection in students - application to an engineering capstone project

This work-in-progress examines an attempt to develop reflective habits in engineering students, towards engendering life-long reflective practices. The intervention was designed to implement theoretical frameworks of reflection in engineering education and self-regulated learning. The theory of reflection used is based on five elements of reflective activities: the experience, its features, the lens through which reflection is taken, the meaning making, and influence on future action. Self-regulated learning focuses on instilling behaviors and character traits to help students understand themselves as learners, strengthening their abilities to engage in new topics. This study was implemented with four senior civil engineering students throughout a year-long senior capstone project. Reflection was facilitated within the team by applying a consistent reflection framework (rate individual and team progress, identify goals for improvement, identify a plan to meet these goals, assess success in implementing plan from previous week) onto diverse aspects of the design project (individual performance, group meetings, and presentations) with multiple contexts (thoughtful review for individual performance, video review for group meeting and presentation performance). Reflection activities were carried out weekly with advisor notes returned to them prior to the next week's activity. Through repetitive reflection using a consistent framework applied through various contexts the students are trained to implicitly apply reflection in their coursework and, ideally, in their daily lives. This paper documents the successes and challenges of applying this methodology to a year-long senior capstone project with four undergraduate students.