Students at SACHA Think Tank ideas launch. Photo credit: Daniel Hooper-Jones and Isaure Echivard, SACHA

Mirrors of growth: The power of reflections in learning

Students at SACHA Think Tank ideas launch. Photo credit: Daniel Hooper-Jones and Isaure Echivard, SACHA
Students at SACHA Think Tank ideas launch. Photo credit: Daniel Hooper-Jones and Isaure Echivard, SACHA

In this blog post, David Wilson, Zoe Lai and Finn Eilenberger, students at The University of Edinburgh highlight the value of reflection and explore practical strategies to integrate reflective practices into classroom settings. David is a third year undergraduate Politics student. Zoe is pursuing her MA degree in Psychology and Business. Finn is a second year Social Policy student. This post belongs to June-July Hot Topic series: Students as Change Agents (SACHA)↗️.


As the semester draws to a close, what do you think you learnt from this school year? Beyond readings and lecture slides that might already be fading from memory, our experiences and growth over the past year also deserve attention.

Reflection emerges as a powerful tool to facilitate this process. It enables us to pause, contemplate, and forge meaningful connections between your experiences and personal development thereby enriching your educational experience.

The Value of Reflection

1. Being more intentional

Intentional reflection cultivates self-awareness, a growth mindset, and the ability to purposefully chart our trajectory through conscious examination of strengths, weaknesses, and progress – enhancing our development within the program while also equipping us with a lifelong skill.

 Zoe: Edinburgh Award↗️ reflections necessitated choosing three personal skills to focus on, making me more mindful of my approach to the SACHA programme. One of my chosen skills was “Accepting Feedback”. With this objective in mind, I took proactive steps to seek feedback from my group mates instead of becoming defensive when faced with constructive criticism or pushback. Thinking of my goal, I actively worked to keep an open mind. It wasn’t easy, but by actively listening and remaining receptive, I made strides in embracing feedback as a valuable tool.

2. Seeing the glass half full

Moreover, reflecting allows us to correct assumptions and shift perspectives on difficult situations. Instead of feeling bad, we can recognise our progress while identifying positive areas for self-improvement. Reframing challenges as opportunities thus cultivates resilience and personal transformation.

David: Maintaining an optimistic mindset and perceiving every experience as a learning opportunity enabled me to confront difficult challenges head-on. In my SACHA group we experienced many challenges, but shifting my perspective helped me to appreciate how these temporary setbacks ultimately contribute to overall personal growth.

 3. Professional communication skills

Job interviews can be challenging, particularly when students are asked to demonstrate times they have worked to develop their professional skills – reflections undoubtedly help students navigate these situations.

Finn: Regular reflection meant that, when asked, I was readily able to come up with a specific example of a time when I identified an issue within myself (superiority bias), and instead of ruthlessly defending my ideas, I proactively worked on techniques to improve myself by taking a conscious step back and actively listened to my teammates’ proposals. This is just one of many instances where regular reflection has helped me to present genuine, thoughtful, and sometimes even novel responses to interview questions, building both my confidence and professional communication skills.

 4. Celebrating personal growth

Finally, beyond improving self-awareness, resilience and communication skills, sometimes it’s nice to take a minute and celebrate personal growth for its own sake. It’s amazing how much progress students make while at university, both within and beyond the SACHA program.

Finn: For me, when I first came to university, my lack of resilience and fear of failure were real impediments in my academic life. But regular reflection has changed my perception of what it means to fail and has helped me see critical, constructive feedback as something valuable to my academic improvement, rather than something to fear, which has improved my life both within and beyond academia. Specifically, reflecting has given me the opportunity to celebrate my hard work and personal growth.

The Dos and Don’ts of Implementing Reflection Into Class Design

Graded vs. non-graded reflection

Zoe: In one of my courses, I had to make a reflective poster regarding how the course had changed my perspective. The assignment came with prescribed sections and guiding questions, making it feel more like a checklist rather than an authentic reflection. I felt pressured to tailor my responses to meet the grading criteria, which accounted for 60% of my grade. This approach made my reflections feel forced, detracting from the genuine self-assessment that reflection should promote.

 While reflections should promote personal growth, Zoe’s experience indicates that heavily graded reflections can often hinder authenticity. Combining reflections with essays, presentations, or debates may be a more effective assessment strategy, comprehensively evaluating learning while preserving the integrity of reflective practices.

 Meaningful reflection

Zoe: In some of our courses, we were encouraged to keep weekly journals to reflect on our learning progress. However, without feedback, it felt pointless, and motivation dwindled. In contrast, the Edinburgh Award felt more engaging. Each input required two peer reviews with teammates which ensured my reflections were thorough. Submitting to the organisers brought additional feedback, which highlighted both my strengths and areas for improvement. This continuous engagement, ending with the achievement of the Edinburgh Award, made the reflection process far more meaningful.

To make reflections more meaningful and effective, peer feedback should be integrated to allow students to set personal growth objectives. Students should rate their progress towards set goals on a 1-5 scale throughout the semester. This approach would foster deeper engagement with the reflective process while providing tangible metrics for personal and academic growth.

Reflective course feedback

David: Course feedback could be utilised as an opportunity for students to reflect on the skills they have developed from the course, similar to the structure of the Edinburgh Award. I found that the Edinburgh Award’s three reflections provided me with great opportunities to assess and reassess my skills over the course of a period of time; this could become a feature of many mid and final course feedback forms.

 David’s suggestions for course feedback would allow students to reflect on their personal skill growth rather than just critiquing the course material. Such self-reflection could become useful personal development logs as well, while encouraging students to prioritise reflection as a skill.


photo of the authorDavid Wilson

David is a Third Year undergraduate Politics student, who is interested in sustainability and environmental communications. Currently, David is putting his passion and skills to use as part of the team at Cambridge Zero, Cambridge Universities bold response to climate change.


photograph of authorZoe Lai

Zoe has just completed her penultimate year of her MA in Psychology and Business at the University of Edinburgh. Her academic interests include moral psychology, with a focus on individual outcomes and moral circle expansion, and marketing, specifically consumer behaviour. Additionally, Zoe is passionate about sustainability. She is interested in the intersection of social psychology and promoting positive change in consumer behaviour, exploring drivers of more sustainable and ethical purchasing decisions. Originally from Hong Kong, Zoe enjoys travelling and exploring new cultures, as well as staying active by going to the gym in her free time.


photo of the authorFinn Eilenberger

Finn Eilenberger is a second year Social Policy student at the University of Edinburgh. Finn completed the SACHA program looking how to improve student engagement in course design in spring 2024 and continues to be interested in how we can utilities alternate pedagogies, such as reflection and experiential learning to better engage students at university.

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