ABSTRACT Reflective practices (RPs) are widely acknowledged for cultivating both cognitive and metacognitive development in educational contexts. However, very limited empirical research has investigated the impact of integrating metacognitive strategies (MCS) and RPs on writing achievement in English as a third language (L3) contexts like Morocco. This mixed-methods study, using an explanatory sequential design, examined the combined effect of MCS and RPs instruction on enhancing writing achievement at a public university. The participants were 85 Moroccan English majors, who were assigned to an experimental group (EG, n = 45) and a control group (CG, n = 40). An argumentative writing test was used to assess students’ writing performance pre- and post-intervention, while focus group discussions and self-reflective reports were conducted to identify participants’ writing difficulties and their reflection on the strategy-based instruction. Quantitative data was analyzed using Mixed-ANOVA tests, while the focus group discussions and reflective reports were analyzed thematically. The results revealed that the EG obtained higher writing scores than the CG. Additionally, findings revealed that the EG students held positive perceptions of the training, demonstrated increased self-reflection, and showed improved writing confidence and proficiency. The findings highlight the potential of reflective processes to enhance both linguistic and reflective outcomes in EFL writing.

ABSTRACT Reflection is vital for learning, helping students connect content to their careers, education, and lives. Yet, engagement with reflection across curricula varies, and research on students’ confidence and experiences with formal and informal reflective activities – especially when explicitly taught – is limited. This study investigates undergraduate students’ perceptions, knowledge, and preparedness before and after a reflection intervention, where reflective skills were explicitly taught. Using established survey instruments, 411 students across 10 disciplines completed pre- and post-intervention surveys. Findings indicate that although students reported prior exposure to reflection within the curriculum, explicit instruction in reflective purpose and techniques significantly enhanced their confidence and experience (p < .001, α = 0.05) with reflective practice. The study concludes with recommendations for educators on the importance of explicitly integrating reflection into curriculum design to support deeper and more intentional learning.

ABSTRACT Reflective practice emerged as a response to the limitations of technical rationality and is said to enable students to develop a form of objective professional knowledge grounded in experience and ambiguity. An emerging assumption is that as reflective practice is expressive, emotionally rich, and individualised, it is not easily replicable by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). However, as GenAI becomes increasingly sophisticated, this assumption is becoming less tenable. This paper explores how reflective practice has previously been taught, questioning whether it has been far more instrumentalist and procedural than assumed, thus more easily automated. This paper asks: How do we teach and assess reflective practice in a world where the use of GenAI is increasingly normalised and pervasive? This question is addressed by arguing that Gen AI lacks the ability to wonder and be surprised, therefire these elements must be included in our eudcational work in reflective practice. Turning to the aesthetic, I propose the adoption of foregrounding, a literary technique that aims at defamiliarisation, to reflective writing. This produces a ‘slow reflection’ aimed at surprise and not self-improvement. I suggest ways in which students can be taught how to achieve this type of reflection.

ABSTRACT Current volatility and unpredictability of our global environment and recent advances in info-communication technologies demand the work of reflective professionals more than ever: professionals who are truly innovative and resourceful in responding to the complexities of the emerging environmental and social challenges. Professionalism reduced to non-reflected use of technologies, and its possible consequence, control work instead of empowerment in social work maintain the existing power relations and serve the short-term interests of the ruling regimes only – today’s lucky few, but in the long run, sharers in humankind’s predictable losses. This article describes a class design with a focus on a method, Reflective Portrait, which facilitates the development of students’ systemic, person-in-environment orientation and enables them to reflect on the synergies between the societal, cultural, relational, and individual factors influencing social problem definition and resolution. Students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, as the core constituents of their professional identity, are the key targets of the learning process.

ABSTRACT This paper explores how academics individually and collectively reflect on their wellbeing using arts-based approaches to support wellbeing literacy development in professional contexts. Eleven academics from an Australian university engaged in a two-day off-campus retreat using collage as an arts-based inquiry method. Participants created visual representations of their past, present, and future academic experiences, followed by reflective dialogue. Data were analysed using thematic inductive analysis. Three key themes emerged: arts-based approaches facilitated deep reflection through metaphorical thinking; academics’ wellbeing trajectories revealed evolution from past confusion toward more intentional futures; and collective reflection fostered shared wellbeing literacy development. The process illuminated multiple PERMAH dimensions, particularly relationships, meaning, and health. This study demonstrates how arts-based reflection functions simultaneously as professional development and wellbeing practice, developing critical wellbeing literacy that can help embed wellbeing as a core component of academic practice rather than an optional add-on.

ABSTRACT Reflection is essential for professional development and improving teaching quality in higher education, yet faculty members often struggle with meaningful reflective practices. This quasi-experimental study was conducted at Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences (HUMS) with 30 faculty members who voluntarily participated. The intervention consisted of two phases: Phase 1 involved two workshops focused on Rolfe et al. (2001) reflective model (What, So What, Now What), while Phase 2 included a two-month mentorship program where participants engaged in guided reflections on real-life teaching challenges. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed using Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Model, including participant reaction, learning outcomes, behavioral changes, and improvements in reflective depth. The findings indicated a positive participants’ perceptions of reflection. The depth of reflective reports improved over time, with the percentage of participants achieving higher levels of reflection increasing from Phase 1 to Phase 2. The findings emphasize the crucial role of longitudinal support in fostering sustained engagement with reflection. Structured mentorship programs can significantly enhance reflective practice beyond the impact of short-term workshops, leading to long-term improvements in faculty development and teaching quality.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a reflexive, art-based inquiry into how clay making can serve as a conduit for embodied reflection and multi-faceted professional identity development among academic practitioners. Conducted over six 2-hour sessions, the project involved two co-researchers, an art therapist, and a visual sociologist, engaging in a structured yet intuitive process that included intentional space-setting, guided dialogue, silent clay work, visual documentation, journaling, and collaborative reflection. Drawing on qualitative and art-based methodologies, the study employed clay not merely as a medium, but as an active participant in the inquiry process. The method foregrounded embodied knowing, dialogic interpretation, and material thinking as key modes of sense-making. Data was generated through clay sculptures, field notes, poetic writing, and transcribed audio reflections. The inquiry was guided by ethical frameworks emphasizing reflexivity, mutual accountability, and collaborative moral practice. Rather than producing generalizable outcomes, this inquiry illuminated how tactile engagement with clay can facilitate iterative cycles of introspection, symbolic expression, and relational understanding. It was reasoned that such art-based practices can re-humanize academic inquiry, offering fertile ground for scholars to critically engage with their identities, roles, and ways of knowing.

ABSTRACT In this article, the authors examine the critical importance of implementing reflective practice groups as a proactive support mechanism for staff within mental health services. In psychiatric hospitals, the high degree of emotional distress in nursing and staff is widely acknowledged and comes from attending to the ongoing anxieties and frustrations experienced by patients and their families. In order to have a deeper understanding of how reflective practice groups can be implemented effectively within mental health services, the authors reviewed the results of a three – month audit conducted across all Cygnet Health and Social Care sites in the southern part of England. As a result, a number of recommendations aiming at building up robust protocols have been identified.

ABSTRACT This paper examines a group of students’ reflections on their learning in a digital research project as part of an undergraduate course in a Hong Kong university. Underpinned by an integrated skills approach to project-based learning, the project was designed to develop students’ ability to integrate subject knowledge, research skills and digital technological skills in the completion of the tasks involved. Post-course reflections gathered via interviews with students were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that students not only acquired the target skills (i.e. research and digital technological skills) in an integrated manner, but also developed their ability to solve problems and cope with challenges relating to project management and teamwork. Students also reported that their communication and collaboration skills had improved as a result. The study also found that the reflective writing component of the project helped students gain insights into their project experience and learn to become reflective. By self-assessing their strengths and weaknesses and identifying particular areas for improvement, students developed a deepened understanding of themselves as learners, leading to personal growth and transformation. The findings of the study have implications for future implementations of an integrated skills approach to project-based learning in enhancing students’ learning experience.

ABSTRACT This article reflects on emergent findings from an interdisciplinary practice-based doctoral research project situated in the fine arts. Grounded in artistic practices of ‘making’, and weaving in approaches from psychoanalysis and art psychotherapy the author explores what happens when things are moved from one context to another and how meaning is continually (un)made and (re)made over time through returning to revisit and respond to material ‘made’ in the past as it meets the stuff of new situations in the present. Emphasising the affective ‘work’ of art-as-research, attention is drawn to sites of ‘making’ as reflexive spaces for imaginative encounter, performative enactment, and working through, where understanding emerges through the affective work of moving, (re)assembling, and (re)configuring diverse practices and materials, the interweaving of dialogues, and the negotiation of tensions and resistances encountered at the borders between different domains. Claiming a position in the broad area of reflective practice(s) the research amplifies the significance of ‘transference’ as a reflexive method of enquiry, and the creative potential of art as a performative research practice; pushing beyond more conventional ideas of reflection and reflexivity in its capacity to embrace complex relationalities, and engage affective, ethical, sensibilities through the moving, modifying, and handling of ‘stuff’.