Reflecting on your reflections

A friend of mine is going through a doctoral program, and her current assignment is to reflect on her reflections for the semester. At first I thought that it sounded like such a silly assignment. But then I thought, "It's the PERFECT assignment to affect change in that person."

What happens when you reflect? You think back on what you've done and how you felt about it and how, if at all, it changed you. Right? What happens when you reflect on those reflections? You start to think about the way you learn, and about how you are impacted by what you read and hear.

At first, you tell about how you feel about something. It moved you. You disagreed with it. You're not sure about it, etc.  But, when you reflect back on the sum total of all those thoughts, you think, "I used to think this way, but now I'm not so sure." Or, "I can see how my thoughts have changed throughout this experience." Or, "I have grown in so many ways because of what I've been exposed to."

I love this assignment. Think about it. Do you ask your students to reflect on their learning? What if, at the end of a marking period, you asked them to reflect upon their reflections. "Read back through your blog posts and tell me what you see."

I love it, It may not appear on any PSSA test or Keystone exam, but I LOVE the task.