By: Brook Sattler, PhD
CPREE multi-campus coordinator

One of our highlights of the year has been the strong CPREE presence at the 2015 ASEE conference, which was held in Seattle from June 14-17. This strong presence included a workshop, a CPREE reception, CELT reception, and three CPREE related papers.

In the well-attended and very successful workshop (actually sold out and over 50 workshop attendees)–“Promoting reflection and reflection activities in engineering education”–the UW CPREE team and colleagues from 7 of the campuses guided workshop participants through a range of activities: exploring the power of reflection in learning; identifying what you might take into account when choosing, designing, and implementing a reflection activity; adapting a reflection activity to different contexts; and developing a plan for adapting a reflection activity.

After the workshop, attendees reflected on their experience in the workshop (yes, a good opportunity to “drink from our own Kool Aid”). Here are a few quotes from workshop attendees:

When reflecting on the prompt “One realization I had is,” some workshop attendees said:

• “Reflection comes in many forms.”
• “Reflection takes time but it is not impossible!”
• “The excitement I have about reflection is shared by far more people than I initially believed.”
• “Reflection is just as ‘technically necessary’ to engineering than most students perceive but they will eventually get it.”

When reflecting on the prompt “Something I’d like to know more about,” some workshop attendees said:

• “How to assess reflection/critical thinking skills against expected or encountered intellectual development.”
• “How to increase the values of reflection activities from students’ perspectives.”
• “Good grading rubrics for reflection activities.”

When reflecting on the prompt “My next step with reflection is,” some workshop attendees said:

• “Redesign some of my class activities. Design a rubric to evaluate the students’ reflections.”
• “Find ways to train myself to make reflection more like a lifestyle and be intentional in finding opportunities to reflect…and share it with others when possible to reflect further.”
• “Integrate new activities that highlight the flexibility of reflection.”

We also had three paper presentations that described our CPREE work :

• Reflecting on Reflection: How Educators Experience the Opportunity to Talk About Supporting Student Reflection
• On an Upward Trend: Reflection in Engineering Education
• Engineering Education Meets Human–Computer Interaction (HCI): Exploring How the Work on “Probes” can Guide the Design of Reflection Activities

There was strong interest across the engineering education community about reflection in general, and the CPREE activities in particular, with many people expressing interest in the field guide entries that will be available on the CPREE website.