Learner Reflection

Learning experience, real-world relevance or meta-reflection

What is It?
Reflection is an essential part of learning. It provides a way for us to
articulate and understand our experiences. As such, engaging
students by asking them to reflect on what they are learning or how
they are learning influences their understanding. Recent research
from the Harvard Business School confirms that, “reflection has an
effect on both self-efficacy and task understanding.”
The act of reflection can be focused in a few ways. It can focus on
one’s own learning and learning experience, it can focus on the real-
world relevance and application of what one is learning, or it can be a
meta-reflection on the learning environment itself.
How Can I Use Reflection in My Course?
As an instructor, student reflection can provide insight into how
deeply students understand what they are learning, or it can be used
to share insights among students. When thinking about using
reflection in your course, consider whether you want students to
share their reflections with you or with their peers, and how they will
share their reflections.
Private Reflection
Shared between student and instructor.
Questions could be given as part of required homework assignments.
Journaling within Blackboard or a similar LMS is possible so that
each student has a private journal that is only available to the
student and the instructor.
Online journaling using a web publishing platform such as a blog makes
it possible to restrict access to specific individuals. Students will
have to grant access to you before you can see their reflection.
Class Reflection
Shared among students and the instructor.
Discussion Boards within Blackboard or a similar LMS allows students
to respond to the same questions. This gives the students the
opportunity to see what others share and provide insight into the
perspectives among peers.
Class blogs within Blackboard or a similar LMS enable students to
share their reflections among peers without being concerned about
being open to the public.
Group projects within Blackboard or a similar LMS enable students
have email, file exchange, discussion board, and/or live web
conferencing where they can share reflections.
Collaboration tools outside of the LMS that are made available only
to individuals explicitly invited to participate. Instructors and
students will have to create unique (or shared) accounts.
Public Reflection
Shared among students, the instructor, and others outside the class.
Individual blog/journal online. Students create their own sites or
include their reflections on their current site if they already have
one. This gives the opportunity to be professional and accountable to
a larger community of practitioners.
Class blog/journal online. You might consider having one class blog
with students all contributing.
Other collaboration tools. New social platforms appear regularly.
What kind of Reflection can I use in My Course?
Reflection on learning and the learning experience
Examples:
How difficult did you find this lesson material in relation to the other
lessons?
Which concept caused the most difficulty for you in this lesson?
It would be helpful to me if there were more example problems
about:
Do you feel you are “on track’ for finishing the course on schedule?
Why? How are you planning to do so?
What is interfering with your learning right now?
Reflection on the real-world relevance and application of what
they are learning
Examples:
After completing this lesson, what questions do you have or want to
investigate further?
Which topic do you think applies the most to your life? (Which are
you most likely to use?)
Explain how (the topic of the lesson) will play a part in your life ten
years from now.
What is one thing that you can take away from the (chapter, lecture,
module) to apply to your life?
Describe an experience you have had relating to (the topic of the
lesson)
Based on the concepts developed in this lesson, describe one real-
world application for this theory (process, principle, or whatever it is
etc.).
Meta-reflection on the learning materials, strategies, and
structure employed in the course itself
Examples:
Write a one-sentence summary of this week’s most important topic.
Which topic did you find the most interesting?
What was this lesson’s “muddiest moment’ for you?
Which concept did you find the easiest?
Questions and Considerations
Reflection activities can be particularly useful when used in online
courses. In an online course it can be difficult to gauge how well
students understand concepts because they are not directly in front
of us. Reflection not only gives learners an opportunity to think about
their learning for themselves, it also provides a mechanism for them
to process and articulate their learning experience for you.
Technologies
The following list includes tools that support reflection activities:
Blackboard discussion boards
Blackboard journals
Blackboard assignments
Google Docs
Reflective learning
Being a reflective learner allows you to step back from what you are
learning and develop your critical thinking skills by analysing your
experience and improving on your future performance.
Being a reflective learner involves making your learning a more
conscious process. It helps you to become an active learner by asking
questions and thinking critically about your own ideas. This can be a
private process that you undertake as one of your own personal study
strategies, or it may be part of your formal assessment. You may find
there are unexpected rewards in consciously reflecting on your
learning. The reflective process can help you find out things you had
not considered before and you may even find that your academic
writing improves.
Benefits of reflecting on your learning
Examine what you have learned and how you have learned it.
Demonstrate how your thinking grows and develops over time
Assist with making connections between what you already know and
what you are learning
Help you learn from mistakes by identifying how you would do things
differently next time
Encourage you to become a reflective practitioner in your future
career.
There are many levels of reflection. As you progress through your
studies, you will develop your reflective practice and gradually learn
to reflect at a deeper, more critical level. It is a useful to keep in
mind that reflecting critically is an extension of critical thinking.

6 Easy Activities that Empower Daily Learner Reflection

Why is learner reflection important?
Already familiar with why learner reflection is so important? Scroll
down to see the activities!
Learner reflection is magical. It supports students in becoming active
co-creators in their learning. It gives students the opportunity to
contemplate what they are learning and what they have learned in the
past. This opens the door for students to generate new meaning from
what they’ve learned. They can then build on these ideas, understand
them in their own way, and gain a better understanding of what they
know, or what they still need to learn.
Student reflection is ranked on John Hattie’s Visible Learning list as
one of the top factors that increases student achievement.
Learner reflection is so important because it gets students to review
their experience and look for inconsistencies, or elements that may
be right or wrong. It also engages them in an active learning process
where they make their own meaning from what they are taught.
Integrating student reflection helps as it:
supports active and independent learning, as well as critical thinking,
bolsters deep engagement and ownership of learning,
promotes differentiated thinking, and
builds confidence in ideas.
Now that we’re all on board with reflection let’s dive into the
activities and tips that we’ve found to be the best for learner
reflection.
Pre-lesson reflection
A great way to engage students is to ask them what they already
know. This will give you insight into what they already know or don’t
know and help you understand what they took away from your lesson.
This will also help your students get into the habit of recalling
knowledge and can boost their self-confidence — showing students
that they already know quite a lot.
Activity #1 – Initial reactions
Show students a picture or a short video that relates to the
topic/subject that you will be teaching. Ask them an open-ended
question about what they already know about the subject. Give
students some time to write down their initial reactions and thoughts.
Then open the floor to your students — compile a list of all the things
that they came up with.
This is an easy way to open the floor to a new topic and is a great
reflection practice. Now both you and your students will have a really
good idea of what they already know about it and how to proceed
from there.
Before starting a Live RoundTable discussion give students a few
minutes to write their initial ideas down in the notes section before
beginning the discussion.
Tip: Stop and listen. This is a tried and true method for gaining a
better understanding of what your students are thinking. Keep note
of things students are saying or questions they’re asking (if you’re
using Parlay you can use your notepad to write down these
observations). These are hints that can give you a lot of perspective
into what students still need to learn or how they’re thinking about
the topic.
Mid-lesson reflection
During a lesson or discussion, it’s good to review what has already
been said or what is already known. This gives students an
opportunity to make connections between different ideas.
Activity #2 – Poll the class
During your lesson or discussion make time to poll the class to find
out where everyone is in the process of their learning. Polls can
consist of straight forward questions like:
Does this make sense to you? [Yes, no, I need more explanation]
Do you still have any questions about ________ idea?
Polls are also an easy way to ground the discussion and connect their
learning to different themes and ideas that have already been
discussed or taught in class. For instance ask:
Has your perspective changed about ________ now that you know
________?
These kinds of questions support learner reflection and allow
students to understand the ebb and flow of ideas and their own
learning.
Activity #3 – Pause and Reflect
Midway through the lesson or discussion, pause the class and allow
students 1-2 minutes to independently reflect on how they are
thinking about what they’ve learned. If it’s a discussion or
collaborative activity, have them reflect on their participation.
Am I distracted or focused?
How can I contribute to this conversation or topic?
Do I have any clarifying questions?
Try this in Parlay!
In the Live RoundTable, you can click stop to pause the discussion,
and encourage students to look at their student summary or the class
summary. After a few minutes, start the discussion again to continue!
Post-lesson reflection
Activity #4 – Note for next time
Activities where there is lots of learning and discussion going on
require time set aside to reflect on what was learned and said. Give
students time to make notes on their thinking so they can process
everything and think about their growth as an active learner.
Get students to create a Google Slide or use a journal and after each
time they have a discussion or a lesson give them 5 minutes of time to
reflect. Use prompts like:
What is one new thing that you learned?
Is there anything that you are unsure about?
Or if it’s a journal to reflect on their discussion skills ask them:
What is one thing you did well today?
What is one area where you think you could improve?
Give students time to make notes on their participation at the end of
a Live RoundTable Discussion. Before your next discussion get
students to look at their notes from last time to remember what they
need to work on.
Activity #5 – Exit tickets
Exit tickets are a great way to kick-start reflective thinking. Get
students to jot down a few sentences to summarize their thoughts on
a topic, on the day/week, or whatever it is you want them to reflect
on. This short activity will have students thinking and reflecting in no
time!
Activity #6 – Word cloud
Use a word cloud to prompt reflection. Challenge your students to
reflect on their learning and participation by looking at what they
have done in the past or what their classmates have done.
Find a word cloud application, have students send you a written
reflection. Once everyone has completed this, have your students
review the top words and consider how their post may or may not be
different after seeing what their classmates wrote. Have students
write a short paragraph on 3 things they would like to add or take
away from their submission and why they would make these changes.
A word cloud is generated at the end of every Online RoundTable in
Parlay. Have your discussion and reflection all in one place, get the
class to reflect on the key vocabulary and themes that came up in the
discussion.
Discussion topics for student reflection.
The Parlay Universe has lots of ready-made discussion topics that
help students to reflect in different ways. Here are a few to get
started:
Weekly check-in
End of Year Reflection
Template: Experiential Reflections
Template: Literature Reflection
Teacher Tips!