Co-authored by Dimity Wehr and Melinda Lewis
Collaborative Reflective Circles (CRC) were originally designed as a small group (circle) dialogue activity within the Graduate Certificate Higher Education Teaching & Learning (GCHETL) program (2022-2026). Through this pedagogy, staff participants can explore a reading, reflect on their experience and share emergent insights in a facilitated, low-stakes way.
CRC process and principles
Akin to a think-aloud research method, CRC enables learning as a process to be externalised and shared by examining one’s own thoughts, feelings, experiences and biases in real-time. Internal reflective thoughts as a means of sense-making and higher order thinking can be shared in an inclusive, developmental sequence, where insights from the group can inform one’s own. CRC amplifies verbal communication skills in real-time, where feedback mechanisms are enacted within the circle. A full description of CRC design and activity are featured in Education Without Boundaries.
The CRC design principles:
- Dialogic methods aim to develop learner communication skills where learning is a process
- Learning activities are in real-time, traditionally supporting formative assessment and immediate feedback
- Discourse methods offer learning activities that promote critical and reflective thinking
- Assessment for the development of dialogic skills can be individual and ungraded, or scaffold into a more formal assessment regime (marks and grades) at a later date
CRCs as authentic learning and dialogic teaching
Authentic learning is both real-world and real-time where the focus on individual achievement can be observed, developed and measured. CRCs are designed to prioritise and legitimise participation, the development of self-regulation skills, and self-reflective judgement, all of which can be offered within the circle and through assessment tasks. Additionally, CRCs are inherently relational and carry a measure of authenticity through the relational act of exchanging ideas.
Key features of CRCs are that they are:
- Consequential – there are always products of a gathering and discussion
- Accountable – lived experiences in real-time educational environments have impact where all participants have responsibility to create and hold psychological safety, check-in with their behaviours and be accountable for relevant outcomes.
Where CRCs depart from earlier dialogic teaching, CRCs are not:
- Small group discussions, unguided
- Privileging dominant speakers in a group setting
- Privileging speakers with more proficiency in the English language
- A learning circle, while similar, CRC emphasises shared dialogues, turn-taking and perspective shifting
- A Circle Yarn from First Nations cultural protocol
Reflexive considerations
Reviving authenticity in learning
CRC is a dialogic learning and teaching process which is not a group assignment and not assessed as such. In preference, authentic learning is developed.
Where assessment is required, we recommend the following:
- The outcome of the discourse is important in terms of cognitive engagements, deeper understanding, shifts in values and the development of discourse skills (all of which are reflective, self-reported and expressed by the student)
- Individual engagement and performance are important and feedback can be offered against the learning criteria, highlighting relational and discursive skills development
- A pass/fail grade is suited to the CRCs representing learning as a staged and developmental process over time. Where further development is required, continual learning opportunities are required to enable students to adequately develop the skills and capabilities to pass at the expected stage.
Managing AI-Mediated learning environments
With the advent and evolution of GenAI more than ever it seems poignant that the dialogic, authentic and human element of collaborative, reflective practice is fostered to mitigate cognitive offloading to the machine. GenAI tools can generate written reflections and prepare spoken scripts that closely emulate a student’s tone, context, and perspective. To mitigate misuse, tools can be intentionally incorporated into the dialogic circle and reflective practice process, with transparent acknowledgement of their use. The process mirrors skills of agentic and agile thinking, speaking and decision-making which are necessary for professional practices. We consider the following:
- Dialogic teaching and learning methods can co-exist with GenAI/LLMs without the risks of cognitive offloading
- The products of the learning experience and the development of the practices are important – LLMs can assist in the foregrounding content topic; model an agentic, shared and collaborative dialogic method; record and analyse audible transactions in a circle; summarise a transcript for reflection and analysis by group members
- Bots as learning group members (e.g. in writing circles) in real-time enable another dialogic partner and for students to contribute and influence the global pool of data which may steer systematised dialogues towards social impact values which are historically entrusted to humanity
Try WriteGPT
AcaWriter was UTS’s reflective writing tool, but it has been recently disestablished and will be replaced by a more dialogic tool in UTS Recast named WriteGPT. This is a custom chatbot powered by the UTS secure instance of GPT. It replicates AcaWriter’s analysis in chatbot style, enables a conversation with the student and can generate examples.
If you are interested in trying this out for your subject, please fill in this form – for Question 1 (What is your idea for an Assistant?), indicate WriteGPT. For further information on WriteGPT, contact Professor Simon Buckingham Shum. To explore dialogic-reflective teaching and CRCs further, contact Melinda Lewis or Dimity Wehr.