Reflecting with Students
I consider myself a reflective learner.
But what does that really mean?
I don’t know exactly when I started reflecting on my classroom practice, but it was very early on. Maybe even that first year as the year ended. And I moved from my first Kindergarten job to the second kindergarten job in a different district. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and more importantly, what I didn’t want to do. In other words, I learned a lot that first year!
Soon, I started thinking about that sooner….around April. So I spent May and June experimenting on my class to see what new things I wanted to perfect and implement right away in the fall. The kids loved it, although they had no idea I was experimenting. They just thought …show more content…
Should kids be reflective learners? If kids are going to grow into creative and collaborative adults, it is an imperative job skill. They must be able to self reflect and learn from their own success and mistakes.
I have used reflection with younger students with questions like, do you think you understand what was taught? But now I realize, that was surface stuff.
How DO we teach them to be reflective learners?
That was the question posed on Twitter awhile ago. My tendency is to have kids write responses to prompts that would spur reflection. But then I began to think about my own process. It isn’t written.
Not at all. In fact, I am quickly learning that even writing a blog post is not where the reflection happens. It happens way before the keyboard is opened up!
It is verbal.
Yes, verbal. Sometimes, my husband thinks it is too verbal! But my own thoughts are a kind of verbal dialogue with myself. Kids also need an opportunity to verbally reflect.
But they don’t know how to reflect on what they do or on a project they have completed, much less on their process of learning. I hadn’t considered that until it was brought up on Twitter. Kids need modeling.
I want kids to go beyond what did you learn
I consider myself a reflective learner.
But what does that really mean?
I don’t know exactly when I started reflecting on my classroom practice, but it was very early on. Maybe even that first year as the year ended. And I moved from my first Kindergarten job to the second kindergarten job in a different district. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and more importantly, what I didn’t want to do. In other words, I learned a lot that first year!
Soon, I started thinking about that sooner….around April. So I spent May and June experimenting on my class to see what new things I wanted to perfect and implement right away in the fall. The kids loved it, although they had no idea I was experimenting. They just thought …show more content…
Should kids be reflective learners? If kids are going to grow into creative and collaborative adults, it is an imperative job skill. They must be able to self reflect and learn from their own success and mistakes.
I have used reflection with younger students with questions like, do you think you understand what was taught? But now I realize, that was surface stuff.
How DO we teach them to be reflective learners?
That was the question posed on Twitter awhile ago. My tendency is to have kids write responses to prompts that would spur reflection. But then I began to think about my own process. It isn’t written.
Not at all. In fact, I am quickly learning that even writing a blog post is not where the reflection happens. It happens way before the keyboard is opened up!
It is verbal.
Yes, verbal. Sometimes, my husband thinks it is too verbal! But my own thoughts are a kind of verbal dialogue with myself. Kids also need an opportunity to verbally reflect.
But they don’t know how to reflect on what they do or on a project they have completed, much less on their process of learning. I hadn’t considered that until it was brought up on Twitter. Kids need modeling.
I want kids to go beyond what did you learn