Sharing Student Reflections in a Debrief Circle

Are you working on your closures, but getting thoroughly sick of exit slips?  A fun closure strategy is the Debrief Circle, demonstrated here in this Teaching Channel video from Expeditionary Learning (note: you may have to create an account to watch the full video).

In this two minute-video, the teacher has her students form two circles, one inside the other, each with the same number of students. The students face one another; each holds written responses to reflection questions. When the teacher calls time, the students share with the person directly across from them the answer to the first question.  One circle then rotates, so that students now have new partners, and they then discuss the second question.  In the video, the teacher has students answer four questions:

• What would you have changed in the lab you did?
• What did you notice?
• What did you wonder?
• What did it mean to meet the learning target?

While the video doesn't show this, the teacher could take notes on what he/she hears, and use those notes either as a quick summary at the end of the period or to have students share specific targeted responses with the large group.

This would be a creative way for students to reflect, to practice their communication skills, and to deepen their understanding of the topic!

Sticking the Landing: Closure in the Classroom

Sticking the landing. This phrase is typically used when referring to gymnasts as they finish their routine with a perfect landing. 

This phrase also applies to closure in the classroom.

Tyler Reese, an educational blogger, writes: “How a lesson ends can affect a learner's ability to organize, evaluate, and store information presented in class. Although we give emphasis to hooking students' interest at the start of instruction, the end is often hurried and overlooked. These emergency landings leave students struggling to absorb newly acquired knowledge as they rush out the door to the drone of homework reminders and announcements. Teachers tend to subconsciously undervalue closure; as a result, they don't plan for it and miss out on the opportunity to collect rich learner feedback.”

One take-away from this article that many teachers found comforting was that closure doesn’t have to be at the end of the lesson. It can, in fact, happen during a transition in the middle of class or even at the beginning of the period the next day! Providing enough time for kids to reflect on the days learning is just as important as what they are reflecting about.

We can have the most amazing lesson with student talk, engaged students, and critical thinking. We could be on fire with our teacher moves, questioning strategies and checks for understanding. But, if we don’t give kids enough time to reflect and connect to that new learning we would expect the same results a gymnast would if they didn’t stick the landing-- a less than perfect lesson.

Start sticking the landing in your classroom by reading about Reese’s strategies to plan routine closure in your classroom! Need strategies for a closure activity? Visit our formative assessment blogs for ideas!

Student Self-Evaluation and Reflection

As teachers are aware, student self-assessment and self-reflection are considered instructional best practices, are part of Criteria 6.1 (“Self-assessment of learning connected to the success criteria”), and, according to Hattie’s research, have the HIGHEST impact on student achievement of all factors or interventions.

Sometimes, however, it is challenging to develop thoughtful questions that force students to consider metacognitively what they have learned, how they have learned it, and how their accomplishment meets the learning target and success criteria.

Feel free to choose from the assortment of self-assessment and self-reflection questions below to use or modify as needed for use at the end of an assignment, a essay/paper, or a project. They are divided into four categories: backward-looking, inward-looking, outward-looking, and forward-looking (adapted from  https://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-replicatingPBL-21stCAcad-reflection-questions.pdf).

Questions for Student Self-Evaluation and Reflection

Backward-Looking

Self-Evaluation

1.              What process did you go through to produce this piece (or complete this assignment)? Explain the steps of the process and steps that you may have completed in addition to meeting the success criteria.

2.              Reflect on your progress toward mastering the learning target. In what ways do you think you need to improve?  What parts of the success criteria were a struggle for you? How did you overcome those struggles?

3.              What resources did you use while working on this piece? Which ones were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again? Did the success criteria and instructions guide you to those resources, or did you have to find them on your own? 

Self-Reflection

1.              How much did you know about the subject before we started? What additional learning did you acquire?

2.              Have you done a similar kind of work in the past (earlier in the year or in a previous grade, in school or out of school)? What new learning about yourself, about the process, or about the content does this piece reveal? In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of work?

3.              Does this work tell a story? If so, what does it reflect about you or about life?

Inward-Looking

Self-Evaluation

1.              As you review the rubric and success criteria, consider where you could have invested more effort and where you may have been stretched beyond your previous skill level.

2.              What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished product? Did you fulfill all of the success criteria? Did you add additional personal success criteria to your work?

Self-Reflection

1.          How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

2.          What did/do you find frustrating about this piece of work?

3.          What does this piece reveal about you as a learner? What new insights do you have about yourself as a learner after having completed this piece? Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject?

4.          Find another piece of work that you did at the beginning of the year to compare and contrast with this. How have you grown in terms of your specific skills and your ability to plan the process? What changes can you see? How did those changes come about?

Outward-Looking

 Self-Evaluation

1.     If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about this piece? Use the rubric and/or success criteria to determine your comments. Based on the rubric or grading criteria, what grade would you give it? Why?

2.     In what ways did your work meet the criteria for this assignment? In what ways did it not meet those criteria?  Did you exceed the criteria?

Self-Reflection

1.     Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

2.     What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your work? What do your classmates particularly notice about your piece when they look at it?

3.      If someone else were looking at the piece, what might they learn about who you are?

Forward-Looking

 Self-Evaluation

1.              What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again? Using the rubric and success criteria, explain what you would change in the next revision of this piece.

2.              What's the one element that you have seen in your classmates' work or process that you would like to try in your next piece? Was this element part of the rubric/expectations? Why would you want to add this element to your work?

3.              As you look at this piece, what's one thing that you would like to try to improve upon? Would this improvement result in a better evaluation on the rubric, or would it bring you greater satisfaction?

Self-Reflection

1.      What's one goal you would like to set for yourself for next time?

2.      What would you like to spend more time learning in this class?

3.      What do you need more help with?

4.      What might you want next year's teacher to know about you and your learning style, potential, challenges, struggles, etc.? What work would you show your future teacher to help him/her understand those things?