Implementing reflection in technical courses

Students do not necessarily learn from an experience, particularly if they do not think about it or do not take responsibility for it. Reflective learning is a mechanism to address this issue and has been demonstrated to aide in the development of critical thinking, self-awareness and analytical skills, all critical to engineering education. This paper presents the experiences of the authors in incorporating reflections into a range of analytical engineering courses, from undergraduate to graduate level. The reflections target specific activities as well as reflecting on the whole-course experience.