Reflection Activities for Teachers
Have you ever gone to a workshop or training and then realize within a few days you can’t remember anything you hoped to put into practice? You wake up Monday morning, pour your cup of coffee, and then scratch your head. Wasn’t there something you were hoping to do today to improve your practice? What was that big take-away from last week’s training that I was hoping to implement? Wasn’t there something I was going to try this week?
We have all been there.
As teachers, we make a million decisions a second, so it is easy to dive right back into our week without reflecting upon our new learning. Even teachers need to reflect, which ensures sustained improvements in our practice over time. Don’t worry, fellow teachers, just enjoy that cup of coffee…I think I have a solution for you!
We all know that it isn’t practical to rummage through that binder or book given to us at the training. Who has time for that?
Reality is….that binder is just going to end up back on the shelf with the rest of them! But, what do we do when there is something we learned that truly enlightened us? Something that inspired us. Something that we know we can improve on. We just don’t have time to dig through our notes or pull out those binders and refresh our memory.
Instead, if we are intentional about completing our own reflection activities, we are more likely to follow-through.
It is so simple, yet so powerful. After each workshop I attend, I choose a reflection activity, jot down my thoughts and store them in a folder in my desk’s top shelf. Then, come Monday morning, I can enjoy that cup of coffee and know exactly where to look to reference my learning and put my plans into motion!
What are my favorite no-prep, no-fuss strategies?
My favorite strategy involves Non-Linguistic Representation. Most recently, neuroscience has shown that when we connect new ideas to images, we are more likely to remember them. For example, maybe I have just learned about a new instructional practice involving increasing response rates. I might just draw pictures to represent the response rate strategies I would like to try and then I quickly label them. I add them to a paper and toss them into my folder. This makes it easier when I am ready to implement something new, I simply take a glance at my “picture notes” from the training and I am ready to go! Sometimes I take this a step further and create small posters that I add to my classroom walls (using my created images). When I am “in the moment” teaching, I can quickly glance up and have a visual reminder right there!
Another favorite of mine is “A Letter to Myself.” Typically, during trainings I find myself discovering my “why.” Something within me connects that new learning to my current classroom or current practices. That is really what inspires me to try something new. And I don’t want to forget that feeling. Instead I want to use it for fuel to motivate me to be “Much Better Than Yesterday.” So, I take 2–3 minutes and write a letter to myself. I include my “why,” what I learned and what I hope to implement into my classroom. Months later, I can re-read the letter and get that extra dose of motivation I might need to follow-through.
Are you an instructional leader? Are you intentionally providing Reflection Activities for your teachers?
Even teachers need to reflect upon their new learning, which ensures sustained improvements in their practice over time. As instructional leaders, we often spend the majority of our time developing the content of our trainings, but forget about the “Now What?” steps. By intentionally providing a reflection activity, you can ensure that your teachers improve their practice and sustain new learning over time. And, just like you hope that your teachers will refer to their reflections to make changes, you too should ensure they receive the support, objective feedback and coaching needed to make growth. By asking your teachers to keep their reflection activities, you can partner with your teachers and refer back to the reflections when discussing changes made over time.
