An important aspect of the learning process, identified by Zimmerman (1986; 2008), and a key skill in building resilience, is the self-reflection phase. By taking time to step away from an assessment or experience and critically reflect on your learning journey, you can gain a deeper understanding of what you have achieved, identify time-management or organisational issues, acknowledge challenges, and recognise motivating factors.
Reflecting on experiences provides an opportunity to identify obstacles and compartmentalise challenging circumstances. Acknowledging these challenges helps to reduce stress and anxiety by allowing you to process your emotions, which in turn, enables you to stay focused in similar situations in the future. It is equally important to recognise your progress and achievements, as doing so reinforces a positive learning experience and fosters growth from overcoming challenges.
The reflective cycle allows you to maintain perspective on tasks, especially when they seem overwhelming. It also offers strategies to adapt, fostering an initiative-taking and continuous learning cycle that strongly supports learner resilience. These reflective practices contribute to academic resilience by enabling you to plan for future assessments with purpose and meaning. Also, they help you to prevent problems by adapting your learning strategies—a process Dewey referred to as transformative learning (Holdo, 2023). The Reflective Models section of this guide can help you in adopting effective reflective methods.
References
Holdo, M. (2023) ‘Critical reflection: John Dewey’s relational view of transformative learning’, Journal of Transformative Education, 21(1), pp. 9-25.
Zimmerman, B. J. (1986) 'Becoming a self-regulated learner: Which are the key subprocesses?', Contemporary Educational Psychology, 11(1), pp. 307-313.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2008) ‘Investigating self-regulation and motivation: Historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects’, American Educational Research Journal, 45(1), pp. 166-183.