Helping students reflect on their learning

A recent trend in education which I find really useful is “reflective teaching”. Long time ago I attended a conference with a very well-known author of textbooks and it dawned on me how important it is to reflect on what we’ve done in order to keep making progress. 

Since we want our students to improve their skills, it is critical that they learn to reflect on their learning experience too. To start with, it is essential that they reflect on their goals so that they can develop a plan to reach those goals. If they don’t know what they want to get out of a class or course, they won’t have anything to keep them focused. Also, they should reflect on their learning on a regular basis. I think it is a good idea to have students keep a journal so that they can go back and see how much they’ve learned and how they’ve learned it. That way they will develop a sense of achievement and identify their areas of improvement to do better next time.

I can’t agree more with Dr. Barret: There’s no learning without reflection.