Innovation in Language Learning

In professional education, students often describe practice situations in detail while struggling to analyze them through disciplinary concepts. This study examines how a structured digital reflection activity, built around three written questions in Padlet, supported students' movement from experiential description toward conceptually informed analysis in a Norwegian continuing education course in supervision. The study was carried out as a practitioner action learning project involving 23 continuing education students, all experienced supervisors of workplace apprentices, across twelve sessions held over one academic year. Four complementary data sources were analyzed through thematic analysis: the written Padlet reflections, anonymous student feedback, teacher observation notes, and peer supervision notes. The analysis produced three themes: the movement from experiential description to conceptually informed reflection; participation, visibility and collective reflection, where broadened participation did not always develop into dialogue; and pedagogical tensions between structure and open inquiry. The study conceptualizes structured digital reflection as a form of pedagogical scaffolding that can support conceptually informed reflection, while also showing that visible concept use cannot in itself be treated as evidence of analytical depth. It identifies the gradual withdrawal of structure as a central design principle. The contribution is analytical, and the study makes no statistical claim: theoretically grounded findings from one context can inform practice in comparable settings, subject to the reader's own judgment of transferability.

Keywords: structured digital reflection, pedagogical scaffolding, action learning, analytical reflection, supervision education, Padlet