Using Student Self-Reflection to Improve Landscape Design Abilities

Self-reflection is an important part of any learning process and can be an effective way for learners to evaluate their strengths, deficiencies and areas they want to improve. Because landscape design is an iterative process with multiple stages of review before a final design is created, incorporating student self-reflection can be a valuable teaching tool.  Providing opportunities for reflection during the different design phases allows students to evaluate their current design and implement modifications before the next review stage. Horticulture 481, Advanced Garden Composition at Iowa State University is the capstone design course for students in the Department of Horticulture’s Landscape Design, Installation and Management Option. Students complete five major projects in this course, each with multiple design stages. Throughout the design process for each project students verbalized their self-reflections during in-class design reviews. This allowed peers to provide input and suggestions for each student. At the completion of each project, students completed a three-question self-reflection and submitted it with the assignment. This self-reflection helped the student and the instructor evaluate current strengths and deficiencies and helped the instructor personalize instruction for each student to help them further their design skills and abilities.