Ed Wood Teaching Award 2010: The role of online diaries in creating a reflective learning environment

This case study reports on the use of reflective diaries as a powerful learning tool for final year students studying a business in the biosciences module. Engaging science students with the power of reflection (Moon, 2003) helps them better understand their own learning and prepares them for problem solving and on-going personal development once in employment. Despite the wide use of reflective practice in medical and nurse practice (Saylor 1990) and evidence of benefits in secondary science teaching (Parkinson, 2002, Desouza and Czerniak, 2003), the use of reflection in Science Higher Education appears limited.