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Ways to Incorporate Reflection Activities Into Your Course

The most meaningful reflective work involves engaging students in regular reflection experiences throughout a course (and, ideally, a program of study). Reflection is not an isolated or stand-alone assignment. Instead, it is an inquiry-based process that students will need to be guided through to help them articulate who they want to become.

A set of well-planned reflective activities can help students articulate influential university experiences that connect with their future goals. There are many possibilities for facilitating student reflection, and it can and will look different in each FF course.

The following activities provide some suggestions that can be adapted to your FF course. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list but is meant to prompt ideas of your own.


Regular Freewrites, Sketching, or Drawing

Consistent, informal reflection is key. Consider a prompt to open each class session. For example, you might ask students to write in response to questions like the following:

  • When you think about your first year of college, what three terms come to mind? Why?

  • Revisit your unofficial transcript. Look at the list of [first semester, first year, second year, internships, etc] classes. Choose one in which you learned something about a subject. What do you remember? Why did it stick?

  • Choose one class in which you learned how to do something new. What was it? Why did it stick

  • Choose a class in which you learned something about yourself as a person and learner. What was it? Why did it stick?

  • The key words for Boise State's undergraduate curriculum are: Know, Do, Become. Write those as headers of three columns. Under each, brainstorm specific ideas and experiences that come to mind during your time at Boise State and at other colleges--list as much as you can. Then, look for any connections across your three columns. What do you notice?

Heuristics

Providing students frameworks for deliberate reflection can be helpful. For example:

  • Develop a personal mission statement

  • Create a 7-word sentence that describes you

  • Create a personal journey map

Reflection Gallery Walk

During this kind of full-class exercise, posters are placed around the room and are labeled: Early Program, Mid Program, Senior Year, Field Experiences, and whatever else may be appropriate for your context or discipline. Students travel in small groups to discuss what experiences they have had that have been influential. They add to the posters as they go around the room and take notes for themselves to help generate ideas for further reflective writing. This exercise helps students to see the full picture of their major and allows them to make connections to University Foundations courses.

Currerè

Currerè is an approach that invites learners to investigate their individual experience through the reflecting on artifacts, actors, and operations of the educational journey or pilgrimage. It is "a knowledge producing discipline with its own method of inquiry and its own area of investigation. It is the study of the educational experience" (Pinar, 1975, p. 400). While it was originally developed for curriculum and instruction, others may find the description helpful for their disciplines: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1LvZgJ2s2I2kdkLtVZIQT-4bcX1OJKv6P

Vision Boards

Vision boards can be used to help students articulate their core values, experiences, and visions for their futures. For examples, see: https://artfulparent.com/make-vision-board-works-10-steps/