Develop a Model for Reflective Thinking

Before beginning to design software to support reflective thinking, I needed to determine what reflective thinking is. What characterizes effective reflective thinking practices? What are the steps involved in reflective thinking? What are the different perspectives on reflective thinking?

In order to answer these important questions that would inform my design, I conducted a literature review in areas that consider reflective thinking as the foundation of higher-order learning--psychology, philosophy, and education. In my literature review, I was not able to read the comprehensive body of knowledge that exists on this topic in the various areas. However, I was able to glean some similarities among the literature that I did read and synthesize the information into a working model of reflective thinking.

From this model, I determined features of a design that would be necessary to support effective reflective thinking practices as the foundation of higher-order learning.