Deep approaches to learning by students are encouraged by teaching that fosters engagement with learning and assessment tasks and clearly stated learning outcomes and expectations. Students learn deeper if they are required to reflect on what they have learned. Reflective thinking by students is not only a description of 'what they have seen or done', but rather it is a process of their drawing comparisons with what happened, what they already know, how they relate this experience to the theories that they have been introduced to and how they modify their own ideas in light of this reflection. In this paper, we present our experiences in using the 4 R (Report, Relate, Reason and Reconstruct) principle developed by John Bain (2002) in teaching a software engineering subject. Students are required to submit the 4R ePortfolios on the major topics of the subject as a part of their overall assessment.

1. An assessment e‐Portfolio for
developing the reflective thinking of
the students of a software
engineering class
Richard Lai
Department of Computer Science and
Computer Engineering
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
r.lai@latrobe.edu.au

2. The underlying principle behind this
piece of work
• Student learning guided by
pedagogical principle rather than
technology, with the latter
supporting the former

3. The theory of Constructive
Alignment
Constructive Alignment [Biggs, 1996] states
that education is about conceptual
change which takes place when it is
clear to students (and teachers) what is
“appropriate”, what the objectives are,
where all can see where they are
supposed to be going.
Biggs, J, (1996) “Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment” Higher
Education, 32:347‐364,Kluwer Academic Publisher.

4. The design of
the teaching
and learning
activities are
guided by the
ILOs and
constructivism
Intended
learning
Outcomes
(ILOs)
Assessment
methods
designed to
assess student
learning
outcomes
against the
ILOs
John Bigg’s Constructive Alignment

5. Constructive Progressive Alignment
(CPA)
• An extension to CA which is largely a
technique for course planning
• The extension motivated by the need to
take into consideration of the progressive
learning behaviour of students

6. Schulman’s 6‐stage learning process
[Schulman,2002]
1. Engagement and motivation,
2. Knowledge and understanding,
3. Performance and action,
4. Reflection and critique,
5. Judgment and design, and
6. Commitment and identity.
Schulman, L. S. , “Making differences: a table of learning”. Change 34, 36–44.,
2002.

7. The design of the
teaching and learning
activities including
assessment tasks
(assessments for learning)
are guided by (a) the ILOs;
(b) constructivism; and (c)
students’ learning
process which is based on
the first four stages of
Shulman’s table of
learning
Intended
learning
Outcomes
(ILOs), with
Emergent
Learning
Outcomes
absorbed into
the ILOs
Assessment
methods
designed to
assess student
learning
outcomes
against the ILOs
Constructive Progressive Alignment
Lai, R. and Sanusi, N, “Improving higher education student learning through a table of learning”, Special
issueon Higher Education in Creative Education, July 2013.

8. Reflection
• A process of drawing comparisons with what
happened, what students already know,
relating this experience to the theories they
have been introduced to and modifying their
own ideas and professional practice in light
of this reflection

9. The 4 R process
• Developed by Bain in 2002
• Report
• Relate
• Reason
• Reconstruct

10. Report
• Describe or re‐tell the key elements of
what students have learnt, seen or
experienced.
• Why is it relevant?
• Respond to the incident or issue by
making observations, expressing their
opinion, or asking questions

11. Relate
• Drawing a relationship between one’s current
personal or theoretical understandings and identify
aspects of the observation which have personal
meaning or connect with his/her experience.
• Making a connection between the incident or issue
and one’s own skills, professional experience, or
discipline knowledge.
• Asking questions like: Have I seen this before? Were
the conditions the same or different? Do I have the
skills and knowledge to deal with

12. Reason
• Exploring the relationship between theory and
practice and seeking a deep understanding of why
something has happened.
• Analysing a concept, event or experience by asking
questions and looking for answers, reviewing the
literature, considering alternatives and multiple
perspectives.
• Detailing significant factors underlying the incident
or issue by asking questions like: How would a
knowledgeable and/or experienced person
perceive/handle this? What are the ethics involved?

13. Reconstruct
• Discussing the improvements needed
• Applying the your learning to other contexts
and future professional practice by taking a
stand or position on an issue.
• How would I deal with this next time? What
might work and why? Are there different
options? What might happen if ....? Can I
make changes which will benefit others?

14. The e‐Portfolio tool used
• Moodle versus PebblePad
• Moodle providing better facilities for e‐assessment
tasks
• Moodle’s ability to align better with the
CPA pedagogy
• Moodle chosen instead of PebblePad,
despite its better user interface and
searching capability

16. Overall, the teaching/learning and assessment
activities of CSE3SDM/CSE5SDM have helped me
reflect on my own learning
No Percent
Strongly
Agree 5 32 48.5% Mean StDev Med
Agree 4 28 42.4% 4.3 0.9 4.5
Neutral 3 4 6.1%
Disagree 2 0 0.0%
Strongly
Disagree 1 1 1.5%

17. Overall, the teaching/learning and assessment
activities of CSE5CPE have helped me reflect on my
own learning
No Percent
Strongly
Agree 5 36 63.2% Mean StDev Med
Agree 4 15 26.3% 4.5 0.7 5.0
Neutral 3 6 10.5%
Disagree 2 0 0.0%
Strongly
Disagree 1 0 0.0%

18. Comments on the 4Rs from a student of
the 2014 System, Design and Methodology
(SDM) class
• Discovering the difference between software
engineering and computer science
• Giving us the fundamentals for doing the
project
• Discovering the difference between program
and system
• Relating project description to final software
product

19. Comments from another 2014
SDM student about the 4Rs
• Forcing me to think what has
occurred, where I was at, what my
goals are, where I want to be, and
how to improve my shortcomings
• Correcting them and moving forward

20. Conclusions
• The 4R principle effective for helping
software engineering students
reflect on their learning
• Moodle as an e‐Portfolio tool
working well with the 4R principle
and the CPA pedagogy

21. Conclusions
• The 4R principle effective for helping
software engineering students
reflect on their learning
• Moodle as an e‐Portfolio tool
working well with the 4R principle
and the CPA pedagogy