Reflection as an Educational Tool

Higher education needs a radical change. The increasing skill gap, uncertainty about the future of work, and ease with which most information can now be accessed outside of a classroom are a few of many reasons why university models are growing increasingly outdated. Children entering school today will end up in jobs that do not even exist yet.

When technology is advancing much faster than we can adapt, it is nearly impossible to prepare students for an uncertain future with last century’s formats and approaches to education. Siloed, top-down knowledge and leadership structures are obsolete and not appropriate for a generation looking for meaning and fulfillment in their profession. The millennial generation, which is the largest group within the workforce, has dramatically different expectation for their careers and the way educational institutions should be preparing them. Eighty four percent of millennials believe that making a positive difference is more important than professional recognition, while 64% would prefer to make $40,000 a year on a job they love, than $100,000 on something they find boring. These two stats, alone, emphasize how important it is for educational institutions to guide students in both their personal and professional development.

The Gallup-Purdue research project found that only 50% of recent graduates strongly agree that their money was worth it for their bachelor degree. Too many college students are wasting time, money and opportunities to find their passion and pursue their dreams. For what is the purpose of having a degree and knowledge that has no market value and does not contribute much to individuals’ professional development?

How many students are taking classes because of personal interests and alignment with their values and ambitions? Most of the time it’s ‘I’m taking these classes because this is what I need to graduate.’ Too many students have no idea why they are learning what they are learning, how they can apply that knowledge in real life situations and how everything they learn and experience is interconnected in a personal journey.

I remember talking with a friend who is pursuing banking, and he had recently gotten an offer from a top-tier bank. He said to me, “we [him and other friends working in similar jobs] are not happy right now.” They didn’t feel meaningfully engaged or that they were pursuing areas of interest.

The problem is that it was much easier to follow the path that ensured them six-figure salaries and a sure-thing job in a world that values that. The other approach is admitting to not knowing and dealing with the ambiguity and the potential fear of not getting a job at all. When there is no active guidance to push students towards their passions, this is made even more challenging.

It is also backed up by another Gallup study about work. Worldwide, 85% of employees feel “emotionally disconnected from their workplaces,” and that number is 70% in the US. Plus, from personal experience as university students, we witness a huge proportion of our peers following career paths that they do not enjoy.

In the short term, it helps graduates get jobs and makes their families feel a bit better about the insurmountable tuition costs, but it is the reason so many adults are unhappy with their work.

Despite these issues, students continue flocking to universities and spending 4 years (or more) of their life learning things that many will not even find very worthwhile afterward. It is a bit paradoxical. Although, it makes sense that college continues to be so prevalent.

Going to university is ingrained in our culture. Kids are taught, growing up, that they should go to college. For many, it is a worthwhile pursuit. It pushes children to work hard and put at least some level of effort into their learning. With a changing world, though, the value of the degree is decreasing. Yet, that does not change the fact that there were roughly 20 million students enrolled in college in the US alone in the past year.

While the future of universities is unclear and alternative models are on the rise, there is still a tremendous impact to be had on current college students. With the systems that are in place and taking into account the ‘given’ fact of so many enrollments now and for the short-term years ahead, there are ways to make subtle changes on a university level that can better prepare students without tearing the whole system to pieces — a task that might be needed for universities to remain relevant 20 years from now.

A place where we have found significant value is personal reflection, which is highly underestimated in higher education. Despite different systems, teaching approaches and career services, funnily (or sadly) enough, many students seem to go through the same issue: not finding their passions.

Regular self-reflection practice could be beneficial in this sense. It can guide students to understand themselves and what they want much earlier in life, and, hence, make more confident decisions when it comes to their professional careers.

Luckily, universities have the means to design such a solution that will help students engage in personal reflection and develop a more intrinsic learning motivation.

The current advisor picture

Most institutions have advisors or educational coaches who have the role of a guide in student development. Most advisors have a real opportunity to engage with students on a more personal level. However, the semester meetings tend to be operational rather than reflective.

At my school, there are 7,500 undergrad students, and each of us has to meet with our advisor at least once a semester. They are supposed to meet with us to go over classes.

For myself and many of my peers, those conversations consist of a short (maybe 5 minutes) update of my life, asking what classes I want to take, telling me what I’d need to graduate given my major and maybe one suggestion of a popular class.

Not once have I been asked “what did you learn in your classes last semester?” or “why do you think you want to major in Finance?” or “what do you want to work on, personally-goal-wise, this upcoming semester the most?”

The situation is not that different in Europe. In the Netherlands for instance, we have Personal Development classes where we have to reflect on our strengths and what we want to do after graduation. However, it is not a consistent process of reflecting throughout the whole study period. These advisors change every year, which damages the trust relationship between the student and the advisor, and most meetings end up being focused on what the student needs to do in order to graduate.

Although this isn’t the case for every student, many advising conversations go this way. When the school doesn’t give advisors many stringent requirements and almost every advisor has 10+ advisees in addition teaching classes and doing research, it is difficult to find the bandwidth to be very supportive.

All that said, there is a tremendous opportunity for advisors to push students and to use data to help students find their passions and areas of interest. They meet each semester, and those conversations (and potential follow-ups) could go in any direction.

Below is a proposed solution based on our experiences that we believe could make advising meetings significantly more valuable and useful.

The solution

Phase 1: Advisors should ask their students more internal-looking questions each session, like the following:

• What are your goals for this semester? — make the student writes them down
• (Maybe it’s to improve social skills, maybe it’s to learn more about interests, maybe pick up more tangible skills, etc)
• As a follow up: What are you going to do to get to those goals?

When we begin thinking about our goals and what we want to accomplish, it forces us to evaluate how we are spending our time and make adjustments to work towards our aims.

• Why are you deciding to take these classes?
• Especially at the beginning of a college career, advisors should be rigorous about a student’s chosen major and if the student doesn’t know, push them to take a wide range of classes

College is a massive time (and in many cases financial) investment. Subsequently, the classes that we take (which are a big part of the experience) should be maximized in value. Advisors should try to push students to explore their interests and take advantage of what comes with being on a campus with so many unique areas to explore and professors to help support.

Make the student do some sort of semester reflection at the beginning and end of each semester that they share with a counselor (and parents if they want)

Looking back over longer periods of time can be helpful in realizing how you did compared to your initial goals. It helps connect the dots between what you have learned so far, and align these insights with the next steps in personal and professional development.

Instead of giving the student straight answers, ask WHY as many times as possible

These meetings are important in helping the student with his/her self-discovery; therefore it is essential for each of them to reflect on why they feel one way or another.

Phase 2: Leverage tech and begin using big data

Data can be kept to monitor the impact of advisors as well as student progress. We use data for so many areas of our society right now, why not do the same thing with student progress and steps in college?

A well-oiled data machine on students could eventually have a huge impact. Advisors could see trends of students that come in with X interests and have Y experiences and how likely they are to choose a certain major and what types of jobs they end up in, subsequently. Advisors could make recommendations to future students for classes to pursue based on trends and could push students into certain courses depending on their takeaways.

• Initial ideas that could be of value to keep track of:
• Initial ‘areas of interest’ (law, medicine, cities, electricity, etc) and how they change over time
• Semester grades in each class
• Rating their classes in a more robust and helpful way so that future students know what they’d get themselves into with any given class
• Rating how much they learned vs. expected to learn and how much they grew personally vs. their expectations?
• Keeping track of summer plans over time
• Keeping track of how many times they change majors, areas of study, and why
• Include an option for monthly reflection: what was the goal initially? What went well? What didn’t go so well? What are the goals for the next month?

What are the bottlenecks?

Does the student want this in the first place?

This proposal assumes that students need and want such a solution. When they are already dissatisfied with their education and feel overwhelmed by deadlines and assignments, following advising sessions (especially when they become compulsory) might become another burden. Most students are very short-term focused: ‘I need to do this to pass.’ Therefore, if there is no initiative from the student, these advising sessions can shift towards activities that are assessment weighted. Creating an incentive by assigning a grade or something else for high-level participation will nudge students into being more immersed.

Are advisors willing to take on this new ‘coaching’ role?

Melinda Karp, a research affiliate who has her eyes on the college advising landscape mentions that ‘If someone falls off track because they are hungry, that’s a totally different situation than if they hate their major.” Are the current advisors equipped to take a more holistic look at every student’s situation and help him/her address both academic and non-academic issues? Such an initiative puts extra responsibility on the advisors’ shoulders, and they need to be passionate enough to commit to such a long-term exploration process.

Taking a step back, we’d believe advisors will be willing. Many people get into education with hopes of empowering and supporting students to be stronger, better and more capable. Supporting advisors with a sturdier and more effective toolkit could very likely get them excited.

Looking ahead

We urgently need a new way of structuring and organizing knowledge and learning. One in which students feel safe to experiment with their interests, find their passion and become comfortable with uncertainty.

Having an excellent advisor-coaching system in place is a great start, considering changing the current educational structure is nearly impossible. Colleges need to act: tech is advancing much faster than we can adapt. The growth and increase in popularity of alternative education models and the digital revolution are making universities obsolete.

Therefore, colleges need to start experimenting with tools and models that fit the current trends and the profile of the contemporary student. Too many educational programs and institutions are designed for a specific static era, instead of being evolutionary. Luckily this has an opportunity to change. Tech cannot replace human relationships, which is why the role of the advisor is so important in guiding students. Tech can, however, help keep track of the whole learning process and allow for scalability. If we can experiment and test this solution with a few advisors and students, get feedback and iterate, we can digitalize the reflection practice, allowing the student to keep track of the journey and connect the dots in his/her learning decisions.

Looking further ahead in the future, technology can be leveraged to create a constant flow of information, a network structure where anyone can learn from anyone. In such a scenario, the role of the advisor will be more critical than ever. We envision the future of education as having one mentor or advisor who will guide the student in his/her learning journey. Since content is decentralized and anyone can produce it, lack of information is not a problem. There are plenty of micro-degrees and online classes. Moreover, education has become a lifelong learning journey because knowledge is quickly becoming obsolete. Therefore, education does not stop with graduation. Lifelong learning requires lifelong reflection. In turn, the role of the advisor will be crucial in helping learners make sense of all the content out there, being able to ask the right questions, and design their own learning journey.

More than teaching students specific knowledge, much of which we can learn on our own these days, college can offer something more valuable: it can teach students how to think critically about their goals, interests and how to realizing them. Students that graduate with that skill will figure out the rest for themselves. They won’t get stuck in jobs that they do not like because they will both realize it in the first place and feel confident that they can do something to change. Much has to happen to adopt towards this culture, but college advisors seem like the best place to start.