Self-reflection

Description

One way of stimulating self-reliance in students is to introduce the principle of brain, book, buddy, boss (or cerveau, cahier, compagnon, chef). During independent work, you can teach students to first ask themselves (brain / cerveau), in a second instance look at the theory or exercises in the book (book / cahier), then ask the student next to them (buddy / compagnon) before asking help from the teacher (boss / chef).

How it works

Tell your students that you will work with the following system during independent work. If they have a question, they have to seek help in the following order:

• Ask themselves (cerveau / brain): by rereading the assignment, thinking back to the previous lesson, …
• Look up background information (cahier / book): the theory in the book, exercises made before, information on the board, …
• Ask their fellow student (compagnon / buddy): Does (s)he know exactly what needs to happen? Can (s)he explain it again?
• Ask the teacher (chef / boss).

It is important that you consistently remind students of this. Only then can it become a habit and will this method work.

Tips

• Preferably, introduce this method at the start of the school year.
• Make sure that the system is visible to the students in the classroom (a poster next to the board, on the worksheets, in the PowerPoint, …)
• If possible, let students choose a buddy themselves.​

Description

Teach your students to work according to the OPER principle (Dutch: OVUR). Students are supposed to work according to a step-by-step plan: Orientation, Preparation, Execution, and Reflection (Dutch: Oriënteren, Voorbereiden, Uitvoeren, Reflecteren). The goal is for the students to reflect on what they are doing before, during, and after the assignment in order to achieve the goals in a structured way.

How it works

Teach your students to tackle an assignment according to the OPER step-by-step plan.

• Orientate towards the task:
  • What is the purpose/goal of the task? When will I have reached that goal? Why is this goal important?
  • Who or what can help me in executing this task?
  • Who is the target audience of this task?
• Prepare for the task:
  • How am I going to tackle the task? Have I made a planning yet?
  • Which steps do I go through? How do I know I am done?
  • How much time do I need for this task?
  • Do I have all the data I need?
• Execute the task:
  • While making the final product, pay attention to language (syntax, choice of words, text structure, etc).
  • Is my planning correct? Am I still on schedule? Do I want to adjust my schedule?
  • Where do I get stuck? Why is that? What possibilities do I see to remedy this myself?
  • Will I be able to stay focused? Why (not)? What can I do to concentrate better?
• Reflect on the task, both on the product (goal achieved?) and on the process (well prepared?):
  • Did I succeed in completing the task?
  • Which approach did I choose? Was that the best way?
  • Was my time schedule correct? What did I do to stay focused?
  • How come the task succeeded/did not succeed?
  • Am I satisfied with the result of the task?
  • What did I learn today that I could use a next time?

Students can use this explicitly, e.g. use the step-by-step plan to work on an assignment, or you can incorporate the method implicitly into your course materials or assignments that students have to complete.

Tips

• Preferably use this method right from the start of the school year.
• Use it yourself consistently too, so using this structure becomes a routine.
• Make sure that the structure is also visible to the students in the classroom (a poster next to the blackboard, in the headings of the worksheets and the structure of the lesson, etc).
• After using the OPER principle, you can have the students do a self-assessment. They can use the pre-defined criteria (e.g. a 'rubric') to look at their own products and learning processes.

Examples

On the Dutch website Klascement you will find some useful OPER materials for teaching English with the search terms 'OVUR' and 'Engels'. ​

This is an example of a general instruction card in Dutch which you can adjusting to your target audience. ​

Description

A portfolio is a collection of material and reflections that shows the learning progress of the student. This way, each student illustrates which knowledge and/or skills the student gradually mastered. It is a collection of specific skills (e.g. reading, writing, …) or an illustration of a certain area of knowledge.

How it works

Five specific elements are characteristic for a portfolio:

• The purpose is a goal oriented collection of the work of students.
• Each student composes their own portfolio and carefully selects what material should be included. This selection can be based on own insight or by using specific instructions of the teacher.
• The student documents growth and development in a portfolio.
• Reflecting upon the learning process by the student themselves is an essential part of the portfolio. The main focus here are the questions of ‘where am I know?’ and ‘What do I continue with?’
• Instruction and guidance by the teacher are required.

Tips

• Besides physical portfolios, it is also possible to work with a digital portfolio.
• Do not make a comparison between portfolios of different students; use a clear list of criteria to evaluate.

Examples

Example language portfolio English year 12-13 BSO (English/Dutch)

Example English proficiency portfolio first year teacher training

Example English portfolio year 12-13 ASO (English/Dutch)

​Example digital portfolio (French)​

Description

By means of a reflection star, your students themselves measure the extent to which they meet certain criteria of an assignment linked to a specific skill. You can then use this input for your feedback.

How it works

• Define the criteria you want to achieve with an assignment. For example, when assessing a writing exercise: correct verb tenses, word order, connecting words, vocabulary, logical organization of ideas, originality, ...
• Provide your students with an empty reflection star including the following information:
  • the criteria
    
  • a rating scale of 1-5
    
  • room for additional comments 
• The students hand in the completed reflection star along with their assignment.
• You use their input on the star as a guideline for your own feedback.

Tips

• Continue working with a student's completed star to add your feedback and comments.
• The students will get better at self-assessment as they receive more feedback on their own assessment.
• Ask to fill in the same star at different times during the school year to get a visual overview of a student's progress.
• Have students take a picture of their reflection star and add it to their (online) 'portfolio'.
• This visual overview will be the greatest asset of this method. Other useful representations besides a star, are a radar graph, a bar graph, a pie chart, ...

Examples

An empty version of the reflection star can be found here.

An empty version of the reflection star with feedback form (in Dutch) can be found here.

Description

By using self-assessment cards students show if they are keeping up with the lesson. This way, the teacher receives a visual overview of the class and can use this input to take concrete action immediately and by doing so meeting the needs of the students.

How it works

• The cards can be used in individual or group work.
• Students each get four colour cards with the folowing writing:
  • The green card means ‘I am keeping up with the lesson and understand everything.’
  • The yellow card means ‘I do not understand it entirely.’
  • The red card means: ‘Please help! I do not understand it at all.’
  • The white card means ‘I can do it! I am going to work independently on the exercises.’
• Students place the cards in a pile at the corner of their desks during the exercises. 
• The card that is lying on top indicates how the students feels on the subject matter.
• Respond to what the student needs: explain the theory once more in a different way, give an instruction card, make exercises with a mini class, rehearse the theory during the following lesson, …

Tips

• Explain clearly what the goal is of the cards to the students.
• Decide what cards are used yourself, for example, you could only use the red and green.
• Agree with your students to always place the pile of cards in either the right or left corner. This makes sure a good overview is kept. 
• Explain to your students that students with a red card will have priority over yellow cards.
• You could combine this method with the ‘Brain Book Buddy Boss ’ or have quicker students help the others.

Description

It is important to stimulate self-reflection with students. Have your students think on whether they did their work well or less well with tasks and/or tests. By using this self-examination they learn more of their own actions and are able to adjust themselves in the future. This gives you, as a teacher, extra information that you can possibly use in differentiation.

How it works

You can make the self-reflection explicit by adding it to homework, tests or assignments in class. Different cases can be questioned here:

• What did the students themselves think of their performance?
• What did the students do in advance to successfully complete these assignments or tests?
• Optionally, you could provide options that students could tick off:
  • Doing the classroom exercises again.
  • Studying the theory
  • Doing extra exercises on an online educational platform .
    
• What could they do different next time?

Tips

• Use the self-reflection to respond to the needs of the students afterwards: Through an individual conversation, remediation during the next class, additional input on ‘learning to study’, …
• Select what information on a student is valuable to keep and what is not.
• Prepare some time during the return of tests/assignments to look back on the self-reflection. Students could ask each other questions on the self-reflection.

Example

Template for self-reflection on top of a test or assignment (Dutch)