The quote in the header is attributed to John Dewey, a philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas greatly influenced educational ideas and practices in the 20th century. In the 21st century, his philosophy on reflection is even more important as we struggle to understand and solve problems that we have never faced before and for which we have no easy answers (ie. climate change, population growth, automation, artificial intelligence etc).

Research on brain development and learning proves that reflection helps us first construct meaning from our experiences and subsequently allows us to apply what we learn in different circumstances. I think this is what Albert Einstein is getting at when he famously said that “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".

Reflection is our personal explanation of our understanding about:

• What we learn
• How we learned it
• What we struggle with
• What we want to remember
• What we still need to learn

Or in simpler terms, reflection is asking:

• What? What happened? What did I do? What did I expect? What was different? What was my reaction? What did I learn?
• So what? Why does it matter? What are the consequences or importance of my experiences? How do my experiences relate to what I’m learning? How do my experiences relate to my life in and outside of school?
• Now what? What will I do now? What will I do differently? How can I apply what I have learned? How would I approach this experience next time? What questions do I have? What do I still need to learn about this?

The act of writing down our reflections is critical to capturing our experiences and our thinking about those experiences in the moment. This is the part that I find students resist the most. At least in the beginning.

What I discovered last year with students in my Math/Science classes was remarkable. In the beginning of the year, we discussed the importance of reflection and unpacked the elements of an excellent, meaningful reflection. At that point, I was writing the reflection prompts for students. Predictably, I was met with resistance when they were asked to write their reflections in a journal.

About two months into the year, students had compiled about 20 reflections on a variety of topics, from what it means to be 100 percent engaged in class and strategies to collaborate effectively, to strategies to solve math word problems and how to convert units for 2-dimensional measurements.

As a math test approached, students asked whether they would be able to keep their reflection journals on their desks for reference. It was an exciting development because I realized they were beginning to see the value of having access to their personal reflections and I was thrilled that they had asked the question. I reached out to the principal and superintendent and shared a few of my students’ reflection journals. The response was an unequivocal “yes”. They recognized that the reflection journals were personal “anchor charts” that functioned as important reminders to students.

(The interesting thing is that students rarely opened their reflection journals during tests. It seemed that simply having it accessible on their desks was enough to help mitigate any test anxiety).

From that point forward, resistance to reflection-writing largely melted away. The most exciting development occurred around March of that year.

We were investigating buoyant force and how to use the area of the base of a boat to calculate the load a boat would be able to float. I hadn’t written reflection prompts for this concept. A student asked whether the class could write their own reflection on the concept. That was the moment they truly owned the reflection-writing process.

At the end of the year, I asked the students to leave their reflection journals with me over the summer for safe-keeping so that I could share them with their grade 9 teacher. I was surprised at how reluctant they were to leave them. Even with me! They wanted to make sure they would get them back. In their grade 9 year, the teacher made use of the reflection journals by asking students to review specific entries relevant to concepts they would be learning.

I know reflection-writing takes time. Of course, everything worthwhile takes effort and practice.

Brock University has an in-depth guide to the role and importance of reflection that reaches beyond the classroom into how reflection impacts our personal growth and interactions with other people (click here).

This incredible 5-minute video about Ezra Frech highlights the effects of developing a reflective mindset (click here)