Reflection and Preflection Prompts and Scaffolding

Reflection plays an important role in experiential learning, both cognitively and metacognitively. It has been widely discussed in the literature as an important approach for promoting learning and higher order thinking skills, developing professional practices, and facilitating and structuring learning through experiences. Preflection, as a precursor of reflection, is for learners to be consciously aware of the expectations associated with the learning experience, which is meant to enhance and enrich the reflection process. Meanwhile, prompts can be leveraged as the scaffolding mechanism for guiding reflection and preflection by offering both cognitive and metacognitive support to learners before, during, and after their learning processes.

This entry explores the research literature concerning reflection and preflection prompts as scaffolding in human-to-human and human-to-computer environments. The entry first differentiates reflection ...