Reflection

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Reflection

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Reflective learners assimilate new learning, relate it to
what they already know, adapt it for their own
purposes, and translate thought into action. Over
time, they develop their creativity, their ability to think
critically about information and ideas, and their
metacognitive ability (that is, their ability to think
about their own thinking).
Effective Pedagogy, NZ Curriculum p. 34

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Reflection is about becoming aware of your own thinking
processes, and being able to make those transparent to others.
Reflection captures the idea that if a gap is found between how we
would want teaching and learning to be and how it actually is,
then something will be done to close that gap; it is not enough
just to reflect or identify that there is a gap.
Teachers themselves can become reflective practitioners who
reflect with their students on the teaching and learning process,
and teach their students to use reflective strategies to
strengthen their own capacity to learn.
Absolum, M. pp 142-143

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You can use this presentation to:
• Update, review and/or reflect on the formative
assessment practices of Reflection in your classroom or
school
• Use as a resource for exploring professional
development in Reflection/metacognition.
In the presentation you can:
• clarify the purpose and value of reflecting on the
learning and the learning process
• identify strategies that teachers can use when teaching
students how to reflect.

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Reflection asks and answers the question:
“How is my learning going?”
Reflection assesses the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the
learning and what to do as a result.
Prior to reflection, students must self assess
against criteria. This addresses the ‘what’ of the
learning and the learning process.

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Reflection - why the emphasis ?
“Powerful learners are reflective. They are able to step
back and take stock of progress. They are able to mull
over their actions and consider how they might have done
things differently. Good learners are self aware, able to
contemplate their actions to continually ‘grow’ their
learning power.”
Guy Claxton, from “What’s the Point of School?”

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A case for Reflection
• Reflection is a ‘metacognitive’ skill which is considered
integral to good learning.
• Reflection provides information for teachers and
students about the quality of the teaching and learning
taking place.
• Reflection is what enables teacher and students to co-
construct next learning.
• Students need to be able to reflect in order to ‘own’ or
make decisions about their learning.
• Students who can reflect are more likely to be engaged
in their learning.
• Reflection builds the learning-focused relationship.

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What is necessary , to ensure both teacher
and students become routinely reflective?
Making time for reflection
Planning opportunities for reflection
Training yourself and your students in reflective
techniques

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Reflective methods are more effective when
teachers apply self and peer-assessment
techniques to understanding standards and
criteria and this application can result in
improved learning.
Falchikov, 1995; Dochy, et al.,1999; Liu &
Carless, 2006; Thuy Vu & Dall’Alba, 2007

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A reflective process can help
student learning by developing
metacognitive skills.
Hacker, Dunlosky, Graesser, 1998; Hacker & Dunlosky, 2003; Masui & De
Corte, 2005

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How do you think about how you think?
Focus on the word below and its spelling. Turn to a colleague
and describe what strategies you would use to remember the
spelling.
fissiparous
Now ask your colleagues to share the strategies they used:
e.g. double ‘ss’ and the suffix ‘ous’
break words into syllables
meaning and root word as significant hooks

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Through this process you can:
• become conscious of your and others’ thinking processes
in a particular learning situation.
How does this benefit teachers and students?
• Teachers will gain an awareness that students will also
use a variety of strategies for learning.
• Teachers can share their thinking processes with
students.
• Students see an example of ‘thinking about thinking’.
• Teachers have an awareness of how they think
• Students are engaged in reflective conversations about
‘thinking about thinking’.

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“Metacognition is what people know
or think about their own thought
processes and is the individual
monitoring of one’s own thoughts.”
(Hacker & Dunlosky,
2003)

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Learners present a variety of different strategies to answer
this problem; discussion might centre around the most
effective strategy for this problem
A numeracy example
Discuss the strategy you used to answer this problem?
73+28
How did you solve this?
• partitioning method (70+20, + 3+8)
• use my knowledge of tidy numbers (73+30, -2)
• round one number, then add the remaining ones (70+28, +3)

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You can take the learning further, by reflecting or
thinking metacognitively about the strategy
used:
Was it easy or hard?
What helped you?
How would you do it next time?
Why will you change the way you solve it?
This leads on to identifying the ‘where to
next’ with the learning
Do I need to change my way of learning?
Where do we go from here?

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Reflection for students works best at the end
of a lesson:
• to consolidate the learning
• to recap on the ‘why’ of the learning
• to give students opportunities to discuss
strategies for learning, and possible ‘tricky’
bits
• to establish a ‘where to from here’
and a recap at the beginning of a lesson is
very effective too.

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Some possible reflective questions
• What were you learning and why?
• How did the learning go? What were the tricky
bits and why?
• What new learning can we celebrate?
• What helped the learning to happen?
• Who needs more help and what needs to be re-
taught?
from Clarity in the Classroom
by Michael Absolum

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You will probably have to train students to reflect
well (or at all!)
• If it’s a new process in your classroom, tell
students what’s happening and why.
• Model the type of answers you expect:
• To give students possible and appropriate
responses to reflective questions
• To show students that all learners find
things difficult.

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Possible process for active reflection
Getting started with reflection
• Re-cap the learning intention and success criteria
• Ask a reflective question
• Give students 15-30 seconds thinking time to:
• let them think!
• create the expectation that all take part
• Model appropriate responses (at first)
• Give students opportunities to respond:
• Whole class
• In groups
• In pairs

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And now?
Considerations for your classroom practice
• Where can this fit into the overall plan of the
learning?
• Where to next? As individuals and as a class
• Reflection is an assessment strategy that links with
and feeds back into planning

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Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation involves learning how we
learn, whereas self-assessment is
what we learn. To train pupils in self-
evaluation, use questions such as:
• Think about what has happened when the
learning has taken place
• What really made you think? What did you
find difficult?
• What do you need more help with?
• What are you pleased about?
• What have you learnt new about X?
• How would you change the learning
activity to suit another class?
The teacher can model answers to these
to show the pupils how to self-evaluate.
Back to AFL Tools

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Talk Partners
As a plenary or a starter
referring to the previous
lesson, students share
with a partner:
• three new things they have
learnt
• what they found easy
• what they found difficult
• something they would like
to learn in the future
Back to AFL Tools

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References and readings
Absolum, M. (2006). Clarity in the classroom. Auckland: Hodder Education.
pp.142 – 163.
Clarke, S. (2001). Unlocking formative assessment: Practical strategies for
enhancing pupils’ learning in the primary classroom. London: Hodder and
Stoughton. pp.39-49.
Claxton, G. (2008). What’s the point of school? Re-discovering the heart of
education. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Claxton, G. (2006). Expanding the Capacity to Learn: A new end for Education?
Conference Warwick University, September 6, 2006.
Discusses the teacher’s role in developing the students’ capacity for learning,
helping them to become better learners. Particularly pp.9-13.
Stoll, L., Fink, D., & Earl, L. RoutledgeFalmer (2002). It’s About Learning (and
it’s about time), Chapter 2, entitled ‘Learning about learning’.
Chapter of a text by international authors, discussing metacognition and the
science of learning.

Reflection

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