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A recent article by Angela Stockman celebrates the incredible value of reflective questions. For teachers, reflective questions at the end of class can bring more effective closure to the learning than a teacher-shared summary ever could.
Think of the benefits of reflection –
- It challenges us to think deeply about what we have learned.
- It deepens our ownership of the learning. It makes our learning matter more.
- It encourages risk-taking and helps us to FAIL FORWARD.
- It helps us to know ourselves better and to align our actions to our vision.
- It helps us to identify what we want and what we need to do to help ourselves.
- It helps us realize our strengths and how they might be used in service to others.
Stockman points out that “Deadlines drive instruction for too much than they should, forcing learners and teachers to value perfection, products, and grades more than the development of softer and perhaps, more significant skills.” Those significant skills develop from the inside-out, rather than from external expectations and pressures. Asking the right questions at the right time tap into that “inside journey,” the journey that choice theory encourages.
Photo credit: reflectionsbyken.files.wordpress.com
With this inside journey in mind, here are ten examples of reflective questions that can be asked at the end of instruction –
- Reflect on your thinking, learning, and work today. What are you most proud of?
- Where did you encounter struggle today, and what did you do to deal with it?
- What about your thinking, learning, or work today brought you the most satisfaction? Why?
- What is frustrating you? How do you plan to deal with that frustration?
- What lessons were learned from failure today?
- Where did you meet success, and who might benefit most from what you’ve learned along the way? How can you share this with them?
- What are your next steps? Which of those steps will come easiest? Where will the terrain become rocky? What can you do now to navigate the road ahead with the most success?
- What made you curious today?
- How did I help you today? How did I hinder you? What can I do tomorrow to help you more?
- How did you help the class today? How did you hinder the class today? What can you do tomorrow to help others learn more?
So much about choice theory relies on recognizing the value of and insightfully asking the right questions. Students learn as they begin to organize and make sense of the content at a very personal level. All learning is about creating meaning and understanding. Knowledge isn’t inserted in us from without. It must be created from within. Reflective questions are a wonderful tool that supports that essential process.
* Angela Stockman’s article, Ten Reflective Questions to Ask at the End of Class, can be found on Brilliant of Insane: Education on the Edge website at http://www.brilliant-insane.com.
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The Better Plan . . 
Great post. I believe this is a key to educational responsibility. Our job is to teach to the best of our ability. It is the student’s job to learn to the best of their ability. These types of questions I used regularly when I taught. I believe my student’s self evaluations (guided by these types of questions) creates a powerful transition towards excellence and opens the path for them to do their best.
I want to keep this list of questions and maybe even add to them and grow the collection.
I totally agree… another form of formative assessment… assessing for learning.blessings
There is so much value in formative assessment. It is really the key to learning. Think about anything you have learned that mattered to you and somebody’s coaching and support was involved, not there to give you a summative grade, but to guide and correct.
Thanks for the 10 reflective questions! Always looking for writing prompts for reflective journaling with my students. In the protocols from the National School Reform Faculty, almost all of them have as their final step a step for reflective. It is where the learning is often internalized.
Great point! Self-evaluation is so important in the learning process, and reflection, to me, is a form of self-evaluation.