LEARNING

THROUGH
REFLECTION

Natalia Wright
Head of the Foreign Languages
Department; regional British Council
trainer; MA student at the institute

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the workshop participants
will be able to:
Define

what reflection is;

Examine ways to reflect ;
Design a reflective activity;
Reflect on what we have learnt

Reflection is
serious

thought or consideration

The Oxford Dictionary

ametacognitivestrategy to help
learners as individuals or organizations
reflect upon experiences, actions and
decisions taken.
Retrieved from: http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Reflection

The basic metacognitive

strategies are:
1. Connecting new information to former
knowledge.
2. Selecting thinking strategies
deliberately.
3. Planning, monitoring, and evaluating
thinking processes.
(Dirkes, 1985)

Reflection is also

Survey results

Survey results continued...

Why teach your learners to

reflect?
It helps learners develop higher-order
thinking skills by prompting learners to
a) relate new knowledge to prior
understanding;
b) think in both abstract and conceptual
terms;
c) apply specific strategies in novel
tasks, and
d) understand their own thinking and
learning strategies.

Reflection can be one or some

combination of the purposes below.

Reviewing the key points of the lesson.

Giving students opportunities to draw conclusions
from the lesson.
Describing when the students can use this new
information.
Previewing future lessons.
Demonstrating students problem-solving process.
Exhibiting student learning.
Creating a smooth transition from one lesson to the
next lesson.

Ways of reflecting
What? How Why?

Focus: Encouraging students to look back to see

what they have learnt in a lesson, how and why.
Time: 5 minutes
When: during the lesson, at the end of the lesson

What?
Past Simple

How?
Why?
Teachers funny So we can ask

Regular and

story about a

people about

irregular verbs

holidays, and

recent events

Questions,

out questions

statements,
negatives

From Woodward, T (2011)Thinking in the EFL class

Ways of reflecting
Review the key points of the
lesson(initial plan).
At the end of the lesson go to the
plan (learning outcomes) students
developed at the beginning of the
lessons.
Let students look through them
and check if they covered all
points.

Ways of reflecting

Key Word Group Mapping

Focus: Encouraging students to look back to see

what they have learnt.
Time: 15 minutes
When: at the end of the lesson
Ask students to think back on the lesson and pick out three
key words or phrases that represent something important
for them in learning. They should write them down.
Ask each student to read one out loud. If a student says
something interesting, other students can add it to their
lists and ask questions about it.
If you notice you missed out some learning points, you can
reflect on why this might be and make a mental note to
come back to the topics.
From Woodward, T (2011)Thinking in the EFL class

Ways of reflecting
Solo Silent Reflection

Focus: Encouraging students to look back to see

what they have learnt in a lesson.
Time: 5 -10 minutes
When: at the end of the lesson
Give a task which encourages private thinking by asking
students questions like:
Think back over what we have done in the last half hour
and prepare one comment and one question on it. You have
four minutes to do this.
Write down the words you have learnt in this lesson and
then consider the question How do I know that I know
these words?
From Woodward, T (2011)Thinking in the EFL class

Ways of reflecting

Solo Silent Reflection continued..

Write down two actions you will take as a result of

todays lesson.

Write down the last learning point in your own

words in your learning log notebook.

From Woodward, T (2011)Thinking in the EFL class

Ways of reflecting
Students Feedback Forms
Student Reflection
Topic: __________________
1. I have learned
2. I can
3. I am good at
4. I havent managed to
5. I dont understand
6. I have difficulty in
About the lesson(s)
1. I like best
2. The most interesting thing is
3. I dont like
4. The most boring thing is

Ways of reflecting
Exit Pass
Student must answer in writing questions or reflect in some way
about the learning before being allowed to leave the room.

Ways of reflecting
3-2-1
Ask students to write down:
3 things they learned,
2 things they have a question about,
1 thing they want the teacher to know
They can use post-its, index cards,
whatever

Ways of reflecting
Fishbowl
Student writes one question
they have about the topic of
this lesson. This can be
something for which they
know the answer or for which
they want an answer.
Form an inner and outer
circle.
Share question with the
person in front of you see if
they know the answer, switch
who is asking question, if
time rotate to a new partner.

Ways of reflecting
Summary Paragraph
Ask students to write what was
learned today be specific with
examples!

Ways of reflecting
Gallery Walk
Students create graphic representations
of their learning and post them.
Students can either share out the
posters or students can move from
station to station writing questions
or comments, noting similarities and
differences, reflect on what they might
do differently if they were to repeat
the process.

Ways of reflecting
Thumbs Up / Thumbs down
Pose some questions that can be
answered thumbs up/down/
sideways, ask for explanation of the
decisions.

Ways of reflecting
Postcard
Students are given an
index card and they write
a postcard to their
parents explaining the
days lesson.

Dear Dad,
Today, we had an
English lesson. It was..

Ways of reflecting
Were Going Where?
Students predict the topic of
tomorrows lesson be sure to refer
to the predictions the next day as
either an opener or in closure.

Ways of reflecting
4 box synectics
Synectics connect unrelated ideas through metaphor.
Students have a sheet with boxes.
Working in a
team

Learning a new
rule

Writing a letter of
complaint

Students complete them by saying Working in a team is

like a rollercoaster because it is fun and exciting.
Or Learning a new rule is like a puzzle because you
have the pieces from what you have learnt previously,
but it doesnt quite make sense until you put them all
together.

Encouraging reflection
As you work toward developing a reflective learning
environment, you can periodically or regularly ask
learners to answer the following questions

What am I learning?
Why am I learning it?
How am I learning it?
How successful is my learning?
How can I demonstrate my learning?
What am I going to do next?

Encouraging reflection
Taxonomy of Reflection.
modeled on Blooms approach.

Retrieved from:
http://www.peterpappas.com/2010/01
/reflective-student-taxonomy-refle
ction-.html

The tasks
1. Using the learning outcomes for both
workshop, in your groups design one
reflection activity.
2. Perform this activity on another group
3. Was it successful? Why/Why not?

THANK YOU!

For questions email me at:

wrightnatal@gmail.com