We live in an age when we are bombarded with information. When I googled the word reflection I received 198 million hits in .23 seconds. There is more information out there than we can possibly consume, some of it good and some of it, well.... So, as we already know, the key is to teach our students to be critical thinkers so they can analyze data and use it to meet their objectives.
In order to help students do that, they need to be reflective. They need to be able to analyze their goals, take inventory of their strengths and weaknesses, consider their options for how to improve, plan, execute those plans and reflect on their progress. Here are some key questions to use to help students:
Reflect on your goals.
- What is the class goal?
- What is my personal goal?
- What do I wish I could do better?
- What am I interested in knowing how to do?
- If I achieve my goal, what would that look like?
Is what I'm doing working?
- What is going well? What part of the goal have I already mastered?
- What am I doing?
- What am I not doing? Why not?
Options are available. List them!
- What can my teacher do to help me?
- What can my teacher say to help me?
- What can I do to help myself?
- Who else can I go to for help?
- What sort of questions should I be asking?
- What is stopping me from reaching my goal?
- What are my next steps?
- What help do I need that I'm not getting?
- What will I do?
- Where will I do it?
- When is my deadline?
- Who will I go to for help?
Then reflect again!!