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Most agree that a necessary element of teaching is to promote connections between what students
experience and the meaning that they derive from those experiences. One way for doing
this is reflection. Ancient sources suggest that reflection is
multiform. For example, in the Old Testament, the psalmist reported meditating on the law
of the Lord by talking to himself day and night. Elsewhere, in one of his fables, the
Greek sage Aesop told of an old woman who chancing upon an empty wine bottle, recollected
the once fragrant contents of the remaining dregs. In the Tao Teh Ching, the wise master
Lao Tzu reminded the disciple that in order to cultivate the mind, one must “know how
to dive in the hidden deeps.” Yet again, in the Bhagavad Gita, the hero Arjuna is advised
to contemplate one action at a time in order to avoid straying onto irresolute paths and
innumerable distractions. According to these citations, reflection could include activities
such as meditation, recollection, cultivation, and contemplation.
A contemporary definition of reflection suggests that it is thinking for an extended period
of time about recent experiences, “looking for commonalities, differences, and interrelations
beyond their superficial elements.” John Dewey defined reflection as “active, persistent,
and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of
the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends.” The Enlightenment
philosopher John Locke defined reflection as, “that notice which the mind takes of
its own operations.” Although there is no widely agreed upon definition
of reflection, there is some consensus about its general characteristics. Reflection involves
time to thoroughly explore knowledge or skills with depth. The corollary of having time to
explore to achieve deep comprehension is avoiding content coverage for its own sake, but rather
covering the content according to student learning progress. Another element is having
students think about their own learning processes and progress, which is often referred to as
metacognition. Like other instructional practices, effective
reflection occurs when certain classroom conditions are in place. Some conditions include and
engaging curriculum, frequent use of informal assessments, consistent opportunities to practice
reflection, explicit instruction of strategies for reflecting, and using verbal and written
forms of reflection. Metacognition provides a useful lens for integrating
reflection as a learning activity. Metacognition means thinking about one’s own thinking.
The term itself derives from the Greek word meta (after or beyond) and the Latin word
cognoscere (to know or ponder). Students engaged in metacognitive thinking consider subject
matter and process, but they also consider affective elements, such as importance, value,
and meaning. It includes experiences, self-efficacy, strategies, and comprehension of the goal
or task at hand. It is not entirely divisible from cognitions. An example of metacognitive
thinking is feeling confused about a problem, and recalling the same sense of confusion
about a similar problem from some previous point in time, then recollecting the set of
strategies used to solve the previous problem but applying them to the new one. Or again,
a learner thinking in metacognitive terms may say “I don’t get it… but I have
seen this kind of problem before and I should…” and then the learner takes steps for remediating
his confusion. A learner who is not thinking with metacognition may say “I don’t get
it...” but then takes no further action. Another model for understanding reflective
activity is student voice. Student voice shows evidence of learning from the students’
perspective. It includes a personal assessment of learning process and performance. In this
way student voice is similar to metacognition. However, unlike metacognition, activating
student voice depends on a learning target. The content for reflection, according to the
student voice model, is thinking about one’s strengths, weaknesses, and where to go for
help, with the learning target as the reference point. For comparison, metacognition may include
all of these activities, along with a broader array of self-assessment practices, for example,
open-ended questions which may be independent of a learning target and therefore invite
divergent responses. A set of prompts for having students reflect
according to the student voice model includes Explaining the learning target in their own
words Expressing why the learning target is important
Describing whether they have achieved the learning target
Analyzing their work to describe progression across the lesson sequence
Describing strengths, weaknesses, and at least one way to improve, and
Describing resources for improving performance on a learning target.
Some additional activities for promoting reflection, which may be aligned with metacognition or
student voice, include I Learned Statements. I Learned statements
are comments spoken or written by students summarizing whatever they learned from the
lesson. There are various ways to implement I Learned, such as having students share their
thinking with nearby peers, or writing an Exit Slip. Questions for eliciting I learned
statements include What did you learn?
What part of the lesson did you find most interesting?
What is the value of what you learned? What do you think you will remember from today’s
lesson? Having students speak their I Learned statements
aloud to a partner ensures an additional level of engagement in the reflective process. During
pair share of I Learned statements, the teacher can circulate and listen-in to use information
for deciding the next steps of instruction, such as whether students need more instruction
or practice. A strategy similar to I learned is Key Idea
Identification, which depends on larger and broader unit-related goal statement, sometimes
referred to as the unit focus, central focus, guiding question, essential question, or big
idea. Questions for engaging students to share their thoughts about the key idea of the unit
include How does yesterday’s lesson relate to today’s
lesson? How do you summarize what you have learned
from these last few days? What is the key idea that explains our activities
over the last few weeks? Clear and Unclear Windows uses comparisons,
rather than lesson or unit goals, as its subject matter. Venn diagrams, tables, and graphs
are visual representations of comparison. A t-chart is a simple table comparing two
or more characteristics of things. Marking one side clear and another side unclear turns
the chart into Clear and Unclear Windows. Students use the chart for identifying parts
of the lesson that make sense and those that are confusing. Another step for engaging metacognitive
thinking is to have students list a few resources or strategies for clarifying confusing parts.
Another visual learning activity is Learning Illustrated, which many students find particularly
engaging since most school work involves mastering and manipulating numbers and letters. Images,
pictures, diagrams, and other visual representations, are just as important, and more readily understood
by learners since most brain activity is occupied with processing visual information. Some prompts
for eliciting illustrations include What picture can you draw to show your learning?
Summarize your learning by illustrating a graphic organizer.
How can you represent this information as a diagram?
Assemble a flow chart to show the events or steps.
Another strategy is to have students switch roles with the teacher and instruct a peer
through I Can Teach. The Latin proverb, By learning you will teach; by teaching you will
understand, summarizes this strategy. Activities for engaging students in I Can Teach are similar
to those effective educators use for planning lessons, and include
Articulating the learning goal Designing and deploying an activity
Assessing the results, and Reteaching if needed
A final strategy is The Week in Review, which is a summary of what students have learned
at the conclusion of the week. The review may be self-assessment of one’s progress
on the learning targets, or simple descriptions of learning activities. The summary may be
completed verbally or in writing, independently, or collaboratively. An outline or chart may
be used to structure the review or clarify the process.