Student Reflection

 

Teaching students to reflect on their work and learning process can be a high-leverage routine.  Reflection can help students improve their work or products.  It can also help students improve their learning process, helping them become lifelong learners.  In this module, you will learn the rationale for teaching students to reflect, some instructional strategies, and additional resources for your professional learning.

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Why should we teach student reflection?

Watch this short video to understand why it is important to teach students to reflect and some ideas for how to incorporate it into your classroom.

 

How do we teach reflection?

Below are some resources to support student reflection.  Thinking routines support student reflection by providing them with a framework, prompts, or question stems.  This can help students reflect on their own work, as well as provide thoughtful feedback to others. 

Project Zero Thinking Routines

A thinking routine is a set of questions or activities used to scaffold and support student thinking. The thinking routines are designed to help make thinking “visible.". Thinking routines help to reveal students’ thinking to the teacher and also help students themselves to notice and name particular “thinking moves,” making those moves more available and useful to them in other contexts.  By making thinking "visible," students are better able to use reflection in their work.

• I used to think...now I think...
• See feel think wonder
• Compass Points
• What makes you say that?
• The 3 Whys

Question Formulation Technique (QFT)

The Question Formulation Technique is a five-step questioning strategy to teach students ask their own questions.  Reflection is an integral part of this technique.  The Maine DOE runs a QFT course at no cost to teachers and districts.  See our professional development page to learn more.

 

Additional Resources