Using Technology to Cultivate Reflection in the Classroom

Using Technology to Cultivate Reflection in the Classroom Alfredo Mauri and Stephen Porth Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) is at the core of Jesuit education and reflective thinking is essential to the IPP. Ignatian Pedagogy is the foundation that has supported teaching in Jesuit universities in many areas, such as service learning (Driggers, 2012; Kloppenborg, Hahnenberg, & Prosak-Beres, 2012), social justice (Chubbuck, 2007), leadership (Lowney, 2005), leadership training (Lecourt & Pauchant, 2011), among others. The Ignatian approach has also been used in business education, including creating an accounting ethics course (Van Hise & Massey, 2010), teaching business ethics (Balotsky & Steingard, 2006), and writing reflective assignments (Hidding, Scheidenhelm, & Milligan, 2014). The five components of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm are context, experience, reflection, action and evaluation. The purpose of this paper and presentation is to describe and demonstrate a technology-supported approach to foster student reflection in a senior capstone business course, Business Policy. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, believed that deep reflection of one's experience led to discernment, knowledge, and growth. Reflection is “the thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experience, idea, purpose or spontaneous reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully” (International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education -ICAJE, 1993, p. 16). The authors will introduce a technology developed by one of the co-authors designed to engage students in reflective thinking in the capstone business course at Saint Joseph’s University. The approach uses Google forms, a technology readily available to most engaged in Jesuit higher education, to elicit feedback and reflective questions and insights from students for their classmates. This technology solves two problems inherent in courses that require student presentations, a common requirement in business schools. One problem is that the students in the audience sit idle and disengaged while their classmates present. The second problem is that when students are disengaged we as educators miss the opportunity to cultivate their ability to reflect and to elicit their insights, a key to Ignatian Pedagogy. We miss a teaching and learning moment. This presentation will describe and demonstrate how we use the technology to foster reflection in the classroom and provide electronic feedback and reflective questions and insights during all student presentations.