In the opening keynote, Pleun Hermsen dives deeper into something that most of us see as very important yet frequently felt to be elusive: reflection. Educators see reflection as relevant for example in the development of professional competencies, in collaboration, in ethics and in more. Students however see reflection frequently as a chore and of little benefit. Students’ responses on reflective assignments are often non-descriptive, deflective, or even outsourced to artificial intelligence. 

How can we make students reflect authentically and meaningfully? How can we make sure that reflection supports development of socially responsible engineers, who engage in more considered decision-making processes, who can navigate complexity and act responsibly in challenging times? What is the role of educators? Should we ask different questions? Or stop asking students to reflect, but create the conditions where reflection can emerge?

Pleun Hermsen has a pluriform professional background and initiated and lead the Reflective Engineer program at Delft University of technology. In this program her team co-created many reflective educational innovations together with teachers and students. From this experience she distilled a framework that supports educators to design conditions for authentic reflection. In her keynote she will share some of the lessons learned which you could apply in practice. In the workshop that follows, she invites you to iterate on your existing reflective assignments or start designing them.