Celebrating Learning with Self-Reflection

Room to Grow - a Math Podcast

As we approach the end of the school year, this episode of Room to Grow addresses using self-reflection to celebrate the learning of the year. Our hosts use this definition: “Self-Reflection is the evaluation or judgement of one’s performance and the identification of one’s strengths and weaknesses with a view to improving one’s learning outcomes (Damore, 2017),” and start with unpacking this quote from John Dewey: “We don’t learn from experiences, we learn from reflecting on our experiences.”
In the conversation, Curtis and Joanie suggest that reflecting at the end of a lesson, unit, month or school year provides the opportunity to be energized by and to benefit from what we’ve experienced and how we use that learning to continue to improve.

After making the case for self-reflection, the discussion shifts to specific ideas for student and teacher self-reflection. Ensuring that students understand the purpose of self-reflection is integral to making the process meaningful for students, and increases the likelihood that their reflective practices will contribute positively to owning their own learning, and to building positive mathematical identities. Some specific reflection questions and protocols are discussed, giving you ideas you can apply in your own setting as we all wrap up the 2021-22 school year.

We encourage you to explore these resources, mentioned and referenced in this episode:

• Dewey quote and Damore’s definition of Self-Reflection came from this post: Routines for Self-Reflection: https://thinkingpathwayz.weebly.com/routinesselfreflection.html
• Journal of Practitioner Research article on reflection as a tool for continuous improvement: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=jpr
• Edutopia article with specific ideas for engaging students in self-reflection: www.edutopia.org/article/frameworks-reflection
• Tuning protocol as a way for groups of teachers to reflect specifically on student work: http://essentialschools.org/horace-issues/the-tuning-protocol-a-process-for-reflection-on-teacher-and-student-work/
• Teachers and Change: The Role of Reflective Practice: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812039870

Share your feedback, comments, and suggestions for future episode topics by emailing [email protected]. Be sure to connect with your hosts on Twitter and Instagram: @JoanieFun and @cbmathguy.