How can we make reflection a habit for students?
Reflection is a tricky one. We absolutely know it is hugely valuable and powerful but who has time?
We love that famous John Dewey quote..
“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience”.
and even though we totally embrace this idea we still find ourselves scrambling by the end-of-day bell, leaving zero time for students to consider the learning that has taken place. If we leave it till the end of the day, it's also a hard ask for kids to be thoughtful at this point when they’re tired out and are already thinking about the Roblox game they’re going to play when they get home!
So two areas we are going to work on this coming term are
Weaving reflective moments and questions throughout lessons.
and
Building engaging and active reflection routines.
Hitting those reflective moments throughout the day is a must but building a concrete reflective routine that you use consistently, makes a whole world of difference to everyone in the room. It gives you invaluable and authentic assessment material to help you figure out where the kids are at and where to go next as well as a way for the kids to see their own learning.
We have a fair bit of experience devising this kind of reflection through our work in the Creative Schools program in WA and we are always looking for new ways to keep the student reflection visible and hands on.
Our core pedagogy has us teaching the learning habits devised by Bill Lucas and Ellen Spencer and we intertwine the development of being inquisitive, imaginative, disciplined, collaborative and persistent into everything we do. Each habit has a memorable colour and sub-habits that we teach and consider integral to being a successful learner regardless of the content we're teaching.
The tricky thing is - how do we know if the students are progressing over time?
Here are a few of the strategies that we’ve used over the last few years that you could adapt for your classroom.
Lego - Shona has used habit coloured lego for small working groups to choose their best habit for the session and create a small sculpture after sessions. She also had the kids individually pick out a piece in the colour of the habit that was trickiest for them and put it in a special container. You now have a quick reference of whether the kids were finding it hard to be collaborative or persistent during the activity and can plan for it tomorrow.
Habit coloured stickers - We have habit boards that we refer to in the classroom and use these with the kids to check in on their learning. The stickers are chosen by the students after lessons and placed on the habits and sub habits they felt they excelled at and also struggled with. (grab them from any $2 store or stationary seller near you)
We’ve also found that using objects and materials to gauge or graph the whole class can be effective as we fill jars with coloured sand, skittles or buttons or even use coloured string to wrap around sticks or make pom poms as lessons evolve. Or why not keep it simple and sustainable like Naomi who is recycling her Ikea packaging this term with a hand made habit board her students will add to as the weeks roll on.
The important thing is that using these methods are engaging and quick and it's easy to see the data that you can use for planning and reporting without too much effort. All you need is some imagination and a little initial planning and you're off and running! You can even ask the kids to come up with some of their own ideas of how to go about it.
How do you reflect on the learning in your classroom?
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