Reflection: An Important Learning Tool and a Record of a Historic Moment

 When projects and units come to an end, we ask the students to actively reflect on their learning:

• What were their goals? What progress did they make toward those goals? Let's look back. . .
• What questions did you have when we started? What progress have we made toward answering them?
• What new skills have you acquired?
• How have you grown as a thinker?
• How have you grown as a communicator and collaborator?
• What are you proud of?

At the end of the semester, we do a more substantial reflection that usually involves finding specific evidence from a student's work to support their answers to questions like those above.

Historic Times

I recently sent students digital cards with a short video congratulating them on doing something "unprecedented" by finishing a full semester of distance learning.

Immediately thereafter, I realized that we have had periods of distance learning before, like during the polio epidemic:

Chicago schools, for instance, moved to the radio:

"In Chicago, teachers collaborated with principals to create on-air lessons for each grade, with oversight from experts in each subject. Seven local radio stations donated air time. September 13 marked the first day of school.

Local papers printed class schedules each morning. Social studies and science classes were slated for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were devoted to English and math. The on-air school day began with announcements and gym. Classes were short – just 15 minutes – providing simple, broad questions and assigning homework.

The objective was to be “entertaining yet informative.” Curriculum planners incorporated an engaging commercial broadcasting style into the lessons. Two principals monitored each broadcast, providing feedback to teachers on content, articulation, vocabulary and general performance. When schools reopened, students would submit their work and take tests to show mastery of the material.

Sixteen teachers answered phone calls from parents at the school district’s central office. After the phone bank logged more than 1,000 calls on the first day, they brought five more teachers on board.

News stories reporting on this novel radio school approach were mostly positive, but a few articles hinted at the challenges" (La Monica, Martin).

 

This is the first time so much technology has been available to help us help the students, so what they have done is still, in many ways, unprecedented. 

As such, we asked them to create something more special, more memorable, for their end of semester reflection.

The students had two options: create a museum box representative of their learning this semester or create a Pinterest-style digital board that gathered moments from their learning this year.

Creative Reflection

Reflection in this way allows the students to make a story out of their learning, which is one of the key ways that learning connects to long-term memory. Some of the students shared how much they enjoyed creating their museum boxes, thinking metaphorically about their learning.

The results range in variety and style as broadly as our students do.

We even had a Minecraft reflection. The student who submitted this also submitted a written explanation. The video highlights their creativity.

And some "moments" from the Pinterest boards:

The students will remember and use the skills they have learned during this semester for years to come. They will remember much of the content they have learned, too.  The experience of working together through this time, of learning and growing alongside each other, of trusting us to help them learn, of overcoming challenges, of building learning spaces that worked for them--those are memories they will have for a lifetime.

We are lucky to be on this journey together.