by Terry Heick
Reflection is a pure a part of studying.
All of us take into consideration new experiences–the tenting on the automotive trip dwelling, the errors made in a sport, or the feelings felt whereas ending a long-term undertaking that’s taken months to finish.
Beneath I’ve shared 15 methods for college kids to mirror on their studying. Modeling the usage of every up entrance can go a great distance in the direction of ensuring you get the standard of labor you’d prefer to see all year long–and college students be taught extra within the course of.
15 Reflection Methods To Assist College students Retain What You Simply Taught Them
1. Pair-Share
Pair-share is a basic studying technique the place college students are paired, after which verbally ‘share’ one thing that may assist them be taught new content material, deepen understanding, or evaluation what they already know. It can be used as a fast and soiled evaluation device, because the conversations typically mirror a degree of understanding the trainer can use gauge mastery and plan additional instruction.
2. Sentence Stem-based responses
Sentence stems are nice as a result of they’re like coaching wheels–or to combine a metaphor, instruments to teach college students into pondering and talking in sure patterns. For instance, you’ll be able to implore college students to ‘assume critically,’ but when they don’t have even the fundamental phrasing of essential pondering (e.g., ‘That is essential as a result of…’), essential pondering can be past their attain.
It’s also possible to see our sentence stems for essential pondering right here for different examples (you don’t have to purchase the supplies to see the samples).
3. Layered Textual content
Layered textual content is one thing I’ve meant to jot down about for years and by no means have. A layered textual content is a digital doc that’s crammed with hyperlinks that talk, properly, absolutely anything: Questions college students have, alternatives for additional inquiry, odd references and allusions that mirror the schema college students use to make which means, and so forth. (Rap Genius does a model of this.)
By including ‘layers’ of which means to a textual content by way of significant hyperlinking, college students can mirror again on something, from a pre-assessment journal entry that demonstrated their lack of awareness, to a form of ‘marking up’ of what they realized when, and from the place.
4. Tweet
140 characters forces college students to mirror fast and to the purpose–nice for transient bursts of reflection or hesitant writers who would battle to jot down significant journal entries or essays. In truth, you’ll be able to mix twitter with #6 for twitter exit slips.
5. 3-2-1
3-2-1 is a tried-and-true technique to body something from a pair-share or journal entry (e.g., ask college students to jot down 3 issues they assume they know, 2 issues they know they don’t know, and one factor they’re sure of a few matter) pre-assessment to a post-assessment (e.g., listing 3 ways your essay mirrored mastery of talent X, two methods talent Y nonetheless wants bettering, and a technique you may make your argument stronger within the subsequent 5 minutes) to a mirrored image of the post-assessment.
Learn extra about utilizing the 3-2-1 format for essential pondering.
6. Exit Slips
Whether or not you name them exit slips or exit tickets, asking college students to briefly depart behind some residue of studying–a thought, a definition, a query–is a robust instructing technique. In truth, ‘exit-slip instructing’ actually drives how I exploit information within the classroom. Asking college students to drop some little bit of reflection of the educational course of on a chair by the door on the way in which out is a no brainer.
Some examples?
How did you reply emotionally to one thing you struggled with at this time? What did you discover most shocking about _____? How did your understanding of _______ change at this time? What about _____ nonetheless confuses you or makes your curious?
7. Write-Round
I like write-arounds–straightforward methods for college kids to jot down asynchronously and collaboratively. And the writing fragments college students use don’t must be prose–sure key vocabulary and phrases will help college students mirror, however most significantly in a write-around, assist college students studying from each other as every scholar is ready to learn different responses earlier than creating theirs.
8. Sketch
Whether or not by sketch-notes or doodles, permitting college students to attract what they assume they know, how they consider their studying has modified, or some form of metaphorical pathway in the direction of deeper understanding is a superb studying technique for college kids that have a tendency in the direction of inventive expression, and a non-threatening method for struggling college students to no less than write one thing down on paper you need to use to gauge perceive and plan your (their) subsequent step.
9. Podcast
By means of podcasting as a reflecting technique, college students will discuss their studying whereas recording. If you wish to hold it ‘closed-circuit’ (not revealed), or truly push it to a public viewers of some form will depend on the educational and college students and privateness points and so forth.
This can be merely an audio file recorded and uploaded to a personal YouTube channel that’s shared with academics or dad and mom.
10. Brainstorming
Brainstorming could be an efficient reflection technique as a result of it disarms points with different approaches. For hesitant writers, journaling might not work as a result of the writing course of might overwhelm the educational. Podcasting might not work for shy college students, Pair-Share might not work properly if college students are paired successfully, and so forth.
Brainstorming is far easier. College students might take an allotted time to jot down down all the things they keep in mind a few matter. Or, they may brainstorm questions they nonetheless have (issues they’re confused or interested by). They may even brainstorm how what what they realized actually connects with what they already know by creating an idea map.
11. Jigsawing
Jigsawing is a grouping technique the place a job, idea, or one thing ‘bigger’ is damaged down into small puzzles items, and college students in teams analyze the small puzzle piece, then share out to create the puzzle at massive. Utilizing this strategy for reflection is seamless: Amongst different approaches, you’ll be able to immediate college students in teams to collect and share questions they’ve (you can group by readiness/means, for instance) in teams, after which select one query that they weren’t in a position to reply amongst themselves with the entire class (anonymously–nobody has to know who wrote the query).
12. Prezi
Consider a cross between a sketch, collage, and presentation, and you’ve got a prezi. Partaking–although distracting and overwhelming if the reflection you want is minor–reflection device that enables college students to create an artifact of studying for his or her digital portfolios.
13. Vlog
This reflection technique is near ‘Podcasting’ and even has one thing in frequent with pair-sharing. By reflecting by way of vlog’ing, college students merely discuss their studying to a digital camera.
This strategy would achieve success for college kids that love speaking to a digital camera, however much less so for others (who, if they’ve to speak in any respect about their studying, might favor podcasting–or just recording audio recordsdata which can be by no means revealed.
14. Collage
You possibly can do a standard collage of studying reflections, however a multimedia collage can also be potential–perhaps a sketchnote with a voiceover recorded as a YouTube video to share as a fast presentation with the category (or absent college students).
15. Journaling
The College of Missouri-St Louis provides 3 sorts of journals that show the completely different potentialities of the in any other case vanilla-sounding ‘journaling.’
1. Private Journal – College students will write freely about their expertise. That is normally finished weekly. These private journals could also be submitted periodically to the trainer, or saved as a reference to make use of on the finish of the expertise when placing collectively an educational essay reflecting their expertise. (Hatcher 1996)
2. Dialogue Journal – College students submit loose-leaf pages from a dialogue journal bi-weekly (or in any other case at acceptable intervals) for the trainer to learn and touch upon. Whereas labor intensive for the trainer, this may present continuous suggestions to college students and immediate new questions for college kids to contemplate in the course of the semester. (Goldsmith, 1995)
3. Highlighted Journal – Earlier than college students submit the reflective journal, they reread private entries and, utilizing a highlighter, mark sections of the journal that instantly relate to ideas mentioned within the textual content or in school. This makes it simpler for the trainer to determine the scholar to mirror on their expertise in mild after all content material. (Gary Hesser, Augsberg School)
15 Methods For College students To Replicate On Their Studying; picture attribution Flickr consumer woodleywonderworks
