The purpose of activity reflections is to encourage graduate students to become involved in academic and professional communities. By engaging in their field of study outside of the classroom environment, they are able to: introduce themselves in different situations, build academic and professional relationships, connect issues that they learn in the classroom to current discourse, and use reflection techniques to refine their academic and professional goals.  Created by Steven Harris-Scott, Ph.D., and Amy Lewis, Ed.D., for INTO George Mason University with support from Mason 4-VA.

n the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many academic institutions around the world responded to the sudden need to move learning online, with what might be considered emergency measures. We at CLTD, similarly, created resources and worked with academics across the university to mitigate against the loss of learning opportunities our stu-dents were faced with.
To gauge the effects this move had on students, the Learning and Teaching Team engaged in a series of COVID-19 dialogues with faculty student advisers, faculty student council reps, and academics (see Re-sources, below). We suggest that while the initial move to online learning was necessitated by the pandemic and executed under pressure of time, a revised response is required. This will allow us to deepen the ped-agogical underpinning of our practices. The purpose of this eBook is to formulate a response as we approach the second semester.

Having students create a plan of study for their academic disciplines is essential for making progress in graduate study and identifying ways to be academically successful. Created by Steven Harris-Scott, Ph.D., and Amy Lewis, Ed.D., for INTO George Mason University with support from Mason 4-VA. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

A reflection journal is designed for students to learn from experiences. This reflective journal focuses on basic concepts of academic development for graduate study and future professional development. Reflective learning requires a systematic review of learning experiences and intentional applications of concepts that are discussed in class. Written reflections require substantial context and connectivity of ideas and thoughts. Each journal entry is a minimum of 350 words and submitted bi-weekly. This reflection journal was designed to compliment course lessons and reiterate course learning objevtices. Created by Steven Harris-Scott, Ph.D., and Amy Lewis, Ed.D., for INTO George Mason University with support from Mason 4-VA.

Reflection is metacognitive process that creates a greater understanding of ourselves and the situation we are in to inform future actions by this understanding. There is increasing literature on educational approaches for those in undergraduate or postgraduate studies and those continuing medical education to facilitate reflection.  This resource adds to the reflective journal exercise presented previously, by providing a description of reflection, its use and reflection frameworks as well as the way it impacts positively learning outcomes in various educational settings including medical education. Lastly, an example of a reflection exercise for medical education is also added.