Student Self-Reflections
With the start of the new calendar and the start of a new semester, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. My last blog post was the product of a morning reflection on the progress I have made toward my goals for this year. I’ve also reflected on my classroom environment and some of the teaching strategies I’ve used to decide what to keep, tweak, or ditch for second semester. One aspect that came up in my own thinking and in discussing with other teachers was student reflection. We had tried out some student self-assessment forms for our formative tests in hopes of getting students thinking about their progress. Personally, and as a department, we are very proud of the progress we have made with these self-assessments. Unfortunately, there is still a disconnect between students’ reflections on the content and their reflections on their feelings and progress as a student. I’ll share my successes with content reflections for anyone who is interested, but then I’d like to explore some options of more personal student reflections.
This year everyone in our math department tried something new to help our students place more value on their formative assessments. (Note: Our students take a formative test on new material, which does not affect their grade and a summative test on older material that heavily affects their grade.) One thing a few of us have tried is attaching a self-assessment form for each target on the formative test. As students take the test, they fill out a bar for how confident they feel while attempting it. When they turn it in, we go through and highlight any steps where students made an error. We don’t write comments and don’t put a grade on it (though we do keep track of grades to put in the gradebook for tracking purposes later). At first I was both worried about the lack of written feedback and extremely excited about the amount of time this would save.
When students get the tests back, we ask them to work as a team and ask questions to correct any highlighted errors. I think the mystery of highlights without comments has inspired student to figure out their own mistakes. Instead of tossing their tests aside, students are using this time to have discussions both about the content and their comfort level with the material. Once students understand their mistake, they go back to the self-reflection form to explain their mistake and tell us how they plan to improve their understanding of the target. The one aspect that could use the most work are the explanations of their mistakes, but I think through modeling and reminders of what I expect this will improve.
I’m proud of the time and effort students are now putting into their formative test. This is serious improvement from students mindlessly copying correct answers or throwing them in the trash. But after celebrating this success, I am still left wondering how to help students reflect on their daily experiences in class.
I started thinking back to the teacher workshop Corina Rogers did this summer. Corina talked about giving students time for expressive writing in the classroom. She pointed out that since reflections prove to be one of the most effective way to improve our jobs as teachers, they should also be one of the best way for our kids to become better students. Our feelings are an important aspect to these reflections. How did we feel today and how did that affect our attitude in the classroom? Do I understand why I’m doing what I’m doing? What am I frustrated with and what am I proud of today? These are the types of questions I should be asking students more regularly.
Through Corina’s Teacher Workshop and my conversations with others in our GMWP cohort, I am working to gather prompts and activities to facilitate these types of reflections. One simple idea is using a warm up prompt like Corina’s “Let’s Go” that has students fill in “On the grading scale, I am feeling ___ today because ____________.” It could also be an exit ticket with no problem, but simply a question about how students felt about the lesson today. “What did you feel confident about during today’s class?” “What are you currently struggling with in class and what can Ms. Collegnon do to help you?” “What is one thing you are looking forward to and one thing you are dreading? “What has been your biggest obstacle in school this year? What can you try to get around this obstacle?” Maybe I could do a larger activity each quarter that has student interviewing each other about their progress in math/school/life this year. Maybe I could make a graphic organizer for students to fill out about their feelings in different aspects of life right now. I am doing something similar to that as a “get to know you” activity to start second semester.
There are many ideas out there. Many of which are simple enough to use on the fly if there are a few minutes left at the end of class (a rarity, I know). These simple steps could have a major impact on the way students think about school and think about their progress in life. They also double as a community builder. I just need to remember to take the time to use and prepare these types of reflections. Now that I have content reflections in place (though I could always add more or make changes), it’s time to focus on the expressive reflections to help students grow as students and people.
