reflection paper on education

Guide on How to Write a Reflection Paper with Free Tips and Example

A reflection paper is a very common type of paper among college students. Almost any subject you enroll in requires you to express your opinion on certain matters. In this article, we will explain how to write a reflection paper and provide examples and useful tips to make the essay writing process easier.

Reflection papers should have an academic tone yet be personal and subjective. In this paper, you should analyze and reflect upon how an experience, academic task, article, or lecture shaped your perception and thoughts on a subject.

Here is what you need to know about writing an effective critical reflection paper. Stick around until the end of our guide to get some useful writing tips from the writing team at EssayPro — a research paper writing service

What Is a Reflection Paper

A reflection paper is a type of paper that requires you to write your opinion on a topic, supporting it with your observations and personal experiences. As opposed to presenting your reader with the views of other academics and writers, in this essay, you get an opportunity to write your point of view—and the best part is that there is no wrong answer. It is YOUR opinion, and it is your job to express your thoughts in a manner that will be understandable and clear for all readers that will read your paper. The topic range is endless. Here are some examples: whether or not you think aliens exist, your favorite TV show, or your opinion on the outcome of WWII. You can write about pretty much anything.

There are three types of reflection paper; depending on which one you end up with, the tone you write with can be slightly different. The first type is the educational reflective paper. Here your job is to write feedback about a book, movie, or seminar you attended—in a manner that teaches the reader about it. The second is the professional paper. Usually, it is written by people who study or work in education or psychology. For example, it can be a reflection of someone’s behavior. And the last is the personal type, which explores your thoughts and feelings about an individual subject.

However, reflection paper writing will stop eventually with one very important final paper to write - your resume. This is where you will need to reflect on your entire life leading up to that moment. To learn how to list education on resume perfectly, follow the link on our dissertation writing services .

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Free Reflection Paper Example

Now that we went over all of the essentials about a reflection paper and how to approach it, we would like to show you some examples that will definitely help you with getting started on your paper.

Reflection Paper Format

Reflection papers typically do not follow any specific format. Since it is your opinion, professors usually let you handle them in any comfortable way. It is best to write your thoughts freely, without guideline constraints. If a personal reflection paper was assigned to you, the format of your paper might depend on the criteria set by your professor. College reflection papers (also known as reflection essays) can typically range from about 400-800 words in length.

Here’s how we can suggest you format your reflection paper:

How to Start a Reflection Paper

The first thing to do when beginning to work on a reflection essay is to read your article thoroughly while taking notes. Whether you are reflecting on, for example, an activity, book/newspaper, or academic essay, you want to highlight key ideas and concepts.

You can start writing your reflection paper by summarizing the main concept of your notes to see if your essay includes all the information needed for your readers. It is helpful to add charts, diagrams, and lists to deliver your ideas to the audience in a better fashion.

After you have finished reading your article, it’s time to brainstorm. We’ve got a simple brainstorming technique for writing reflection papers. Just answer some of the basic questions below:

• How did the article affect you?
• How does this article catch the reader’s attention (or does it all)?
• Has the article changed your mind about something? If so, explain how.
• Has the article left you with any questions?
• Were there any unaddressed critical issues that didn’t appear in the article?
• Does the article relate to anything from your past reading experiences?
• Does the article agree with any of your past reading experiences?

Here are some reflection paper topic examples for you to keep in mind before preparing to write your own:

• How my views on rap music have changed over time
• My reflection and interpretation of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Why my theory about the size of the universe has changed over time
• How my observations for clinical psychological studies have developed in the last year

The result of your brainstorming should be a written outline of the contents of your future paper. Do not skip this step, as it will ensure that your essay will have a proper flow and appropriate organization.

Another good way to organize your ideas is to write them down in a 3-column chart or table.

Do you want your task look awesome?

If you would like your reflection paper to look professional, feel free to check out one of our articles on how to format MLA, APA or Chicago style

Writing a Reflection Paper Outline

Reflection paper should contain few key elements:

Introduction

Your introduction should specify what you’re reflecting upon. Make sure that your thesis informs your reader about your general position, or opinion, toward your subject.

• State what you are analyzing: a passage, a lecture, an academic article, an experience, etc...)
• Briefly summarize the work.
• Write a thesis statement stating how your subject has affected you.

One way you can start your thesis is to write:

Example: “After reading/experiencing (your chosen topic), I gained the knowledge of…”

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs should examine your ideas and experiences in context to your topic. Make sure each new body paragraph starts with a topic sentence.

Your reflection may include quotes and passages if you are writing about a book or an academic paper. They give your reader a point of reference to fully understand your feedback. Feel free to describe what you saw, what you heard, and how you felt.

Example: “I saw many people participating in our weight experiment. The atmosphere felt nervous yet inspiring. I was amazed by the excitement of the event.”

As with any conclusion, you should summarize what you’ve learned from the experience. Next, tell the reader how your newfound knowledge has affected your understanding of the subject in general. Finally, describe the feeling and overall lesson you had from the reading or experience.

There are a few good ways to conclude a reflection paper:

• Tie all the ideas from your body paragraphs together, and generalize the major insights you’ve experienced.
• Restate your thesis and summarize the content of your paper.

We have a separate blog post dedicated to writing a great conclusion. Be sure to check it out for an in-depth look at how to make a good final impression on your reader.

Need a hand? Get help from our writers. Edit, proofread or buy essay .

How to Write a Reflection Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: create a main theme.

After you choose your topic, write a short summary about what you have learned about your experience with that topic. Then, let readers know how you feel about your case — and be honest. Chances are that your readers will likely be able to relate to your opinion or at least the way you form your perspective, which will help them better understand your reflection.

For example: After watching a TEDx episode on Wim Hof, I was able to reevaluate my preconceived notions about the negative effects of cold exposure.

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Experiences You’ve Had Related to Your Topic

You can write down specific quotes, predispositions you have, things that influenced you, or anything memorable. Be personal and explain, in simple words, how you felt.

For example: • A lot of people think that even a small amount of carbohydrates will make people gain weight • A specific moment when I struggled with an excess weight where I avoided carbohydrates entirely • The consequences of my actions that gave rise to my research • The evidence and studies of nutritional science that claim carbohydrates alone are to blame for making people obese • My new experience with having a healthy diet with a well-balanced intake of nutrients • The influence of other people’s perceptions on the harm of carbohydrates, and the role their influence has had on me • New ideas I’ve created as a result of my shift in perspective

Step 3: Analyze How and Why These Ideas and Experiences Have Affected Your Interpretation of Your Theme

Pick an idea or experience you had from the last step, and analyze it further. Then, write your reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing with it.

For example, Idea: I was raised to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight.

Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of research to overcome my beliefs finally. Afterward, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key to a healthy lifestyle.

For example: Idea: I was brought up to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight. Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of my own research to finally overcome my beliefs. After, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key for having a healthy lifestyle.

Step 4: Make Connections Between Your Observations, Experiences, and Opinions

Try to connect your ideas and insights to form a cohesive picture for your theme. You can also try to recognize and break down your assumptions, which you may challenge in the future.

There are some subjects for reflection papers that are most commonly written about. They include:

• Book – Start by writing some information about the author’s biography and summarize the plot—without revealing the ending to keep your readers interested. Make sure to include the names of the characters, the main themes, and any issues mentioned in the book. Finally, express your thoughts and reflect on the book itself.
• Course – Including the course name and description is a good place to start. Then, you can write about the course flow, explain why you took this course, and tell readers what you learned from it. Since it is a reflection paper, express your opinion, supporting it with examples from the course.
• Project – The structure for a reflection paper about a project has identical guidelines to that of a course. One of the things you might want to add would be the pros and cons of the course. Also, mention some changes you might want to see, and evaluate how relevant the skills you acquired are to real life.
• Interview – First, introduce the person and briefly mention the discussion. Touch on the main points, controversies, and your opinion of that person.

Writing Tips

Everyone has their style of writing a reflective essay – and that's the beauty of it; you have plenty of leeway with this type of paper – but there are still a few tips everyone should incorporate.

Before you start your piece, read some examples of other papers; they will likely help you better understand what they are and how to approach yours. When picking your subject, try to write about something unusual and memorable — it is more likely to capture your readers' attention. Never write the whole essay at once. Space out the time slots when you work on your reflection paper to at least a day apart. This will allow your brain to generate new thoughts and reflections.

• Short and Sweet – Most reflection papers are between 250 and 750 words. Don't go off on tangents. Only include relevant information.
• Clear and Concise – Make your paper as clear and concise as possible. Use a strong thesis statement so your essay can follow it with the same strength.
• Maintain the Right Tone – Use a professional and academic tone—even though the writing is personal.
• Cite Your Sources – Try to cite authoritative sources and experts to back up your personal opinions.
• Proofreading – Not only should you proofread for spelling and grammatical errors, but you should proofread to focus on your organization as well. Answer the question presented in the introduction.

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Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Related Articles

How to Write a Reflection Paper in 5 Steps (plus Template and Sample Essay)

by Kaelyn Barron | 15 comments

If you’ve been assigned the task of writing a reflection paper on a book you’ve read, film you’ve seen, or an event you’ve attended, you may be wondering where to start.

After all, there are few rules when it comes to writing a reflection, since it’s basically just your reaction and thoughts on the material—and all that creative freedom can be intimidating at first! But even with this lack of structure, there are steps you can take to write a reflection paper that adds value to the discussion.

What Is a Reflection Paper?

A reflection paper is a type of essay that requires you to reflect, or give your thoughts and opinions, on a certain subject or material. This type of essay is often assigned to students after they’ve read a book or watched a film.

However, it can also be written in a professional setting, often by those who study education or psychology, to reflect on an individual’s behavior. Or, you can write a reflection paper for your own purposes, to work out your thoughts and feelings on a personal subject.

If you’re a student, in most cases, you’ll be given a prompt or question to guide your reflection. Often, these assignments are completed in class, so the reflections are generally under 1,000 words. The good news is that there are on wrong answers!

However, there are things you can do to write more effective reflections that will give you (and your teachers, if applicable) more insight to your views and thought processes.

How to Write a Reflection Paper

Use these 5 tips to write a thoughtful and insightful reflection paper.

1. Answer key questions.

To write a reflection paper, you need to be able to observe your own thoughts and reactions to the material you’ve been given. A good way to start is by answering a series of key questions.

For example:

• What was your first reaction to the material? Was it positive, negative, or neutral?
• Do you find the writer (or director, presenter, etc.) to be credible?
• Has the material changed your mind in some way?
• Which issues or questions does the material fail to address?
• What new or remaining questions do you have after reading/viewing the material?
• What have you learned from this material?
• Does it remind you of any personal experiences, or anything else you’ve seen or read?

Answering these questions will help you formulate your own opinions, draw conclusions, and write an insightful reflection.

2. Identify a theme.

Once you’ve answered a few basic questions, look at your responses and see if you can identify any common themes .

What’s the main takeaway? If you could summarize your thoughts on this piece in one sentence, what would you say?

Think about what you’ve learned, or how the material has affected you. Be honest about how you feel, especially if the material incites any strong opinions or reactions from you.

3. Summarize.

Your reflection paper should not be just a mere summary of the material you’ve read or studied. However, you should give a recap of the most important aspects, and offer specific examples when necessary to back up any assertions you make.

Include information about the author (if you’re writing about a book or article). If you’re writing about a work of fiction, very briefly and concisely summarize the plot. If writing about nonfiction, share the author’s thesis, or the main argument they’re trying to make.

Just be careful to not overdo the summary—you don’t want to reproduce or offer a play-by-play of the original work, but rather offer enough context so readers can appreciate your reflection and analysis.

4. Analyze.

Your reflection paper is a great place to practice your critical thinking skills , which include analysis. The questions in Step 1 will offer you a good start when it comes to thinking more analytically.

Once you’ve offered enough context for your readers by including a brief summary, analyze the

• the overall tone of the work
• the credibility of the writer (or producer of the content)
• potential biases
• the intended purpose of the material

If you’re writing a reflection paper on a work of fiction, be sure to check out our guide to writing a literary analysis.

5. Make connections.

Does the material remind you of any personal experiences you’ve had, or other books or films you’ve encountered? Can you connect it to any current events or real-world examples?

Then, zoom out and try to see the bigger picture. What do these connections have in common? Can you point out a larger, more universal theme?

The more of these connections you can tie in to your reflection to create a cohesive picture, the better.

Reflection Paper Template

Reflection papers don’t really require a rigid structure—the most important thing is that you communicate your ideas clearly and effectively. (Of course, if you received specific guidelines from your instructor, you should stick to those.)

The following is a loose outline that you can use to guide you through your reflection paper:

• Include: Title, Author Name (or Director, Photographer, etc.).
• Briefly summarize the work and its main themes.
• Write a thesis that states the work’s overall impact on you.
• When relevant, include specific quotes or examples to support your claims.
• Explore your main reactions and thoughts after reviewing the material.
• Build connections to personal experiences and other works you’ve encountered.
• Show how the ideas from your body paragraphs tie together to support your thesis.
• Summarize the overall effect the material had on you.

Reflection Paper Example

The following is an example of a reflection paper I wrote for a university course in response to an academic article on conflict resolution, found in the book Managing Conflict in a World Adrift :

In “Understanding the Gendered Nature of Power,” Oudraat and Kuehnast explain how peace theorists have fallen short in their analyses of the role of gender (and of women especially). Because gender roles are a reflection of power dynamics within societies, they can also serve as valuable indicators of dynamics within conflicts and post-conflict processes.

The authors emphasize the importance of using international intervention wisely. Although postconflict reconstruction might seem like an opportunity to rethink gender norms and roles, it seems that postconflict programs tend more often to reproduce gender norms that “no longer contribute productive approaches to society and escalate social tensions.” While I think we should always strive to bring more opportunities to women and eradicate gender biases, I agree with the authors that international actors must “be attentive to the gendered nature of the societies in which they intervene.” We have seen many cases where international intervention, although well-meaning, can end up hurting a community even more by meddling without truly knowing the conditions of a local situation.

One example of such misguided help is the campaign for “clean stoves” in African villages, based on the idea that women are assaulted when they look for fuel and water outside their camps. Providing clean stoves does nothing to address the root of the problem (sexual violence), and in fact further confines women to their homes, while many studies show that times of collecting water or other supplies are often critical opportunities for women to communicate, socialize, exchange ideas, and so on. In many cases it is the only time they will leave the home or village that day. The solution proposed by the clean stoves campaign reminds me of the culture surrounding sexual violence in the United States, where rather than working to attack the root causes of such crimes, we instead teach women that it is unsafe to go out late, or to dress in a certain way.

In order to make any progress, I agree with the authors when they suggest we need qualitative data that capture the changing nature of societies coming out of war. We must first identify the information we lack in order to move forward wisely and effectively.

Writing a Reflective Essay

Whether you’ve been assigned a reflection paper for school or simply want to write one for your own exercise, these tips will help you get the most from the experience.

Remember that when you’re consuming any type of media, it’s good practice to reflect on what you’ve absorbed and ask critical questions so you can draw your own conclusions.

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

• 19 Books That Make You Think: A List of Thought-Provoking Reads
• Why You Should Keep a Reading Journal: Tips for More Reflective Reading
• How to Write a Literary Analysis: 6 Tips for the Perfect Essay
• How to Summarize a Novel: 4 Steps to Writing a Great Summary

As a blog writer for TCK Publishing, Kaelyn loves crafting fun and helpful content for writers, readers, and creative minds alike. She has a degree in International Affairs with a minor in Italian Studies, but her true passion has always been writing. Working remotely allows her to do even more of the things she loves, like traveling, cooking, and spending time with her family.

15 Comments

Very helpful, thanks a lot!

Thankful for this! Thanks to you!

we’re glad you found the post helpful! :)

In my understanding, this post helped me to guide my students while I was teaching them how to write effective reflection paper. In addition to this, I had time to correct my past through this post. Thanks a lot!!!

I’m so glad you found this post helpful for your students! :)

I believe I understood the steps and instructions on how to write a reflection paper and it makes lots of sense to me now than before . What I was really hoping for was that you could give us an example of a text or an article written followed by a reflection that was done on that article . Maybe I`m asking too much. Thank you though!!!!

Hi Larry, I’m glad the article was helpful for your reflection paper! I tried to provide an example of one of my own papers, but I couldn’t find the full text of the article I wrote on (it was from a textbook). I’ll try to find another example though :)

am very empress with this information. it really helps me to write an effective reflection papers

thanks Benjamin, we’re so glad you found it helpful! :)

This is very helpful as I am preparing for my portfolio defense. Many thanks Mark

I’m so glad you found it helpful, Mark!

Very informative.

Thanks Sara, I’m glad you found the post helpful! :)

Many thanks for this information,,very needed today for my final exam.

You’re very welcome Lyn, I hope it helped for your exam! :)

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Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

• Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
• Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
• Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
• Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
• Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
• Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
• Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
• Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
• If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

• Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
• Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
• Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

• Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
• Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
• Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

• Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
• Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
• Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

• Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
• Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
• Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

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Department of English College of Liberal Arts

The Purpose of Reflection

Why is reflection important in the writing classroom .

Reflection— a process where students describe their learning, how it changed, and how it might relate to future learning experiences (“ Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind ,” 2008) —is a skill that often goes undervalued in classrooms that are packed with content. However, reflection is an important practice for students to make sense of and grow from a learning experience, and it is a practice backed by scholarship (see List of Scholarship below). A 2014 study by Harvard also confirmed that reflecting on one’s work improves job performance. Although often situated in the humanities and social sciences, reflection is an important practice across academic disciplines including nursing, business, the sciences, and more (see WAC Clearinghouse for a list of disciplinary reflection articles). As a result, reflective writing is one great method for students to reflect on their learning experiences in the English 106/108 classroom. Students, therefore, should be exposed to continuous reflective writing practices so that they become “producers” and not “consumers” of knowledge ( Costa and Kallick, 2008 ). 

In terms of writing studies, reflection has been tapped as an important skill for students’ abilities to transfer writing skills. Writing transfer, according to forty-five writing researchers from the Elon Research Seminar , is defined as “the phenomenon in which new and unfamiliar writing tasks are approached through the application, remixing or integration of previous knowledge, skills, strategies, and dispositions.” In fact, two enabling practices within the Elon Research Seminar focus specifically on metacognition—i.e., thinking about thinking. Additionally, the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing —a collaboration between the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project—further supports the use of reflection as it is one of the eight habits of mind needed for student success. 

Reflection is a broad term that includes many different applications . Instructors can assign many different reflective activities, both guided and unguided (e.g., class discussion, journals, interviews, questioning, etc.). Nevertheless, the goal of reflection, according to Yancey (1998) in Reflection in the Writing Classroom , is as follows: 

In method, reflection is dialectical, putting multiple perspectives into play with each other in order to produce insight. Procedurally, reflection entails a looking forward to goals we might attain, as well as a casting backward to see where we have been. When we reflect, we thus project and review, often putting the projections and the reviews in dialogue with each other, working dialectically to discover what we know, what we have learned, and what we might understand. (p. 6)

Furthermore, there are two purposes of reflection according to Ryan’s (2013) “The Pedagogical Balancing Act: Teaching Reflection in Higher Education” : 

• Reflection allows students to make sense of material/experience in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the material/experience;
• Reimagine material/experience for future personal or social benefit (p. 147).

Recurring reflection activities encourage students to think critically about their writing practices and to make sense of and reimagine their experiences for future benefit (see Dyment et. al, 2010 for further discussion). 

Benefits of Reflection: 

• What Benefits Reflective Writing Might Have for My Students—WAC Colorado State: Discusses the various benefits reflection has for students, and it also contains a list of reflection scholarship in various disciplines.
• Cultivating Reflection and Metacognition—Sweetland Center for Writing : Discusses how and why reflection is beneficial within the classroom. In addition, the website discusses how to incorporate reflection into practice. 
• Learning Through Reflection—ASCD : A discussion of reflection’s benefits in K-12 classrooms, but provides scholarship for why reflection is beneficial overall. 
• Writing@CSU: The Writing Studio : Colorado State University’s page provides information on the benefits of reflection, how to facilitate reflection, and activities to use within the classroom. This resource is service-learning focused. 

Reflection Activities: 

• Facilitating Reflection : Contains a plethora of writing and non-writing reflection activities to incorporate into the classroom. Some of these activities are short and others could potentially take an entire class period. 
• Digging Deeper : Contains reflection activities from Depaul University that works through the different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. 
• 15 ways to spark student reflection in your college classroom by Tricia Whenham: As the name foreshadows, Whenham briefly discusses 15 activities that spark reflection in students. 
• What Are Some Strategies for Reflection Activities—UMSL Center for Teaching and Learning : Provides a list of reflective activities to include within the classroom.

Teaching Resources:

• Reflective Writing Guide—Auburn University Office of University Writing : This fantastic resource succinctly provides instructions for incorporating reflective activities, how to assess them, and provides examples.
• Reflective Writing in Education—Monash University : An excellent resource that discusses reflection as a whole and how it factors into disciplines outside of writing (e.g., critical incidents in nursing). This source also presents sample assignments that are composed in other disciplines, including trigger warnings when necessary (e.g., law reports). 
• Reflective Writing Guide—Dundee and Angus College : Provides an overview of reflection and various methods for incorporating it into your classroom. 
• A Short Guide to Reflective Writing—University of Birmingham : Similar to the other guides as it presents examples for reflective writing and how to include it into the classroom. 

Scholarship: 

• John Zubizarreta (2008) The Learning Portfolio: A Powerful Idea for Significant Learning : This article discusses writing portfolios, or learning portfolios as they are termed in the article, and why reflection is critical to its success. In addition, the article argues for reflection to be collaborative, consistent, and guided.
• Kathleen Blake Yancey (1998) Reflection in the Writing Classroom : A pivotal piece on reflection and its use within the writing classroom. This work provides several chapters on reflection in various areas, including the classroom, assessment, and reading.
• Kathleen Blake Yancey (2016) A Rhetoric of Reflection : An edited collection of various writing scholars and how reflection factors into their practice.
• Mary Ryan (2011) Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective : This article discusses the various theories of reflection and uses systemic functional linguistics to build a social semiotic model for reflective writing. 
• Vankooten (2016) Identifying Components of Meta-Awareness about Composition: Toward a Theory and Methodology for Writing Studies : Works towards a theory of meta-awareness in composition and discusses the four observable areas of metacognition: 1) process, 2) techniques, 3) rhetoric, and 4) intercomparativity. 
• Jenson (2011) Promoting Self-Regulation and Critical Reflection through Writing Students’ use of Electronic Portfolio : This empirical study discusses reflection and how its consistent use illustrated a deeper mode of thinking in students. 
• Zohar and Dori (2012) Metacognition in Science Education : Discusses research in metacognition and its use within science education. 
• Israel, Block, Bauserman, & Kinnucan-Welsch (2006) Metacognition in Literacy Education : This source brings research from education, psychology, linguistics, and reading to illustrate the need for reflection within literacy education. 

*Note: This is not an exhaustive list of reflection scholarship and a simple database search will yield more results.

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Reflective Practices in Education: A Primer for Practitioners

Haleigh machost.

1 Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903

Marilyne Stains

Associated data.

Reflective practices in education are widely advocated for and have become important components of professional reviews. The advantages of reflective practices are many; however, the literature often focuses on the benefits to students, rather than the benefits for the educators themselves. Additionally, the extant literature concerning reflective practices in education is laden with conflicting terminology and complex studies, which can inhibit educators’ understanding of reflective practices and prevent their adoption. As such, this Essay serves as a primer for educators beginning reflective practices. It briefly describes the benefits to educators and different classifications and modalities of reflection and examines some of the challenges that educators may encounter.

INTRODUCTION

“Reflection” has become a buzzword in academia and has vast array of implications across fields, disciplines, and subdisciplines. When considering reflection about teaching practices, John Dewey, a psychologist and philosopher who was heavily influential in educational reform, provides a relevant description: reflection is ‘‘the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” ( Dewey, 1933 , p. 9). The act of reflection in this context is meant to indicate a process , with Dewey highlighting the necessity of active thinking when encountering obstacles and problems. In less philosophical phrasing, reflection entails considering past or present experiences, learning from the outcomes observed, and planning how to better approach similar situations in the future. Consequently, Dewey suggests that educators embark on a journey of continual improvement when engaging in reflective practices. This is in stark contrast to how reflection is used in higher education. For many educators, the only time they engage in reflection is when they are asked to write documents that are used to evaluate whether they should be promoted, receive a raise, or be granted tenure. Reflection, within an evaluation framework, can be counterproductive and prevent meaningful reflections due to perceptions of judgment ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

This gap may result from the particular adaptation of reflections by some academics. The origin of reflective practices lies not in the realm of academia, but rather in professional training. It is often traced back to Donald Schön’s instrumental 1983 work The Reflective Practitioner , which, while aimed at his target audience of nonacademic professionals, has become foundational for reflective practices in teaching ( Munby and Russell, 1989 ).

In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing “messes” incapable of technical solution. The difficulty is that the problems of the high ground, however great their technical interest, are often relatively unimportant to clients or to the larger society, while in the swamp are the problems of greatest human concern. ( Schön, 1983 , p. 42)

Schön’s work on the education of various professionals gained traction, as he diverged from common norms of the time. In particular, he disagreed with separating knowledge and research from practice, and methods from results ( Schön, 1983 ; Newman, 1999 ). In doing so, he advocated for practical as well as technical knowledge, enabling professionals to develop greater competency in the real-world situations they encounter. Research in the ensuing decades focused on both gaining evidence for the effectiveness of reflective practices ( Dervent, 2015 ; Zahid and Khanam, 2019 ) and understanding the obstacles that can prevent reflective practices from being adopted ( Davis, 2003 ; Sturtevant and Wheeler, 2019 ).

This Essay is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of this work for use by education researchers; rather, the goal of this Essay is to provide a guide, grounded in this literature, to inform beginning reflective practitioners about the benefits of reflections, the different types of reflections that one can engage in, practical advice for engaging in reflective practices, and the potential challenges and corresponding solutions when engaging in reflective practices. It is also intended as a resource for professional development facilitators who are interested in infusing reflective practice within their professional development programs.

WHY SHOULD I ENGAGE IN REFLECTIVE PRACTICES?

Perhaps the best place to begin when discussing reflective practices is with the question “Why do people do it?” It is common to conceptualize reflection about teaching situations as a way to help “fix” any problems or issues that present themselves ( Brookfield, 2017 ). However, this view is counterproductive to the overarching goal of reflective practices—to continually improve one’s own efficacy and abilities as an educator. Similar to how there is always a new, more efficient invention to be made, there is always room for improvement by even the most experienced and well-loved educators. People choose to be educators for any number of personal reasons, but often the grounding desire is to help inform, mentor, or guide the next generation. With such a far-reaching aim, educators face many obstacles, and reflective practices are one tool to help mitigate them.

Classrooms are an ever-changing environment. The students change, and with that comes new generational experiences and viewpoints. Updates to technology provide new opportunities for engaging with students and exploring their understanding. New curricula and pedagogical standards from professional organizations, institutions, or departments can fundamentally alter the modes of instruction and the concepts and skills being taught. As described by Brookfield, reflection can act as a “gyroscope,” helping educators stay balanced amid a changing environment ( 2017 , p. 81). Through the process of reflection, practitioners focus on what drives them to teach and their guiding principles, which define how they interact with both their students and their peers. Furthermore, reflective practitioners are deliberately cognizant of the reasoning behind their actions, enabling them to act with more confidence when faced with a sudden or difficult situation ( Brookfield, 2017 ). In this way, reflection can help guide educators through the challenging times they may experience in their careers.

One such obstacle is imposter syndrome, which is all too familiar for many educators ( Brems et al. , 1994 ; Parkman, 2016 ; Collins et al. , 2020 ). It is a sense that, despite all efforts put in—the knowledge gained, the relationships formed, and the lives changed—what one does is never enough and one does not belong. These feelings often lead to a fear of being “discovered as a fraud or non-deserving professional, despite their demonstrated talent and achievements” ( Chrousos and Mentis, 2020 , p. 749). A part of reflective practices that is often overlooked is the consideration of everything that goes well . While it is true that reflective practitioners are aware of areas for improvement in their teaching, it is also true that they acknowledge, celebrate, and learn from good things that happen in their classrooms and in their interactions with students and peers. As such, they are more consciously aware of their victories, even if those victories happen to be small ( Brookfield, 2017 ). That is not to say that reflective practices are a cure-all for those dealing with imposter syndrome, but reflections can be a reminder that their efforts are paying off and that someone, whether it be students, peers, or even the practitioner themselves, is benefiting from their actions. Furthermore, reflecting on difficult situations has the potential for individuals to realize the extent of their influence ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

In a similar vein, reflective practices can help educators realize when certain expectations or cultural norms are out of their direct ability to address. For example, educators cannot be expected to tackle systemic issues such as racism, sexism, and ableism alone. Institutions must complement educators’ efforts through, for example, establishment of support systems for students excluded because of their ethnicity or race and the implementation of data-driven systems, which can inform the institutions’ and educators’ practices. Thus, through reflections, educators can avoid “self-laceration” ( Brookfield, 2017 , p. 86) and feelings of failure when the problems experienced are multifaceted.

In addition to alleviating “self-laceration,” developing reflective practice and reflective practitioners has been identified as one of four dominant change strategies in the literature ( Henderson et al. , 2011 ). Specifically, developing reflective practitioners is identified as a strategy that empowers individual educators to enact change ( Henderson et al. , 2011 ). One avenue for such change comes with identifying practices that are harmful to students. Reflecting on teaching experiences and student interactions can allow educators to focus on things such as whether an explanatory metaphor is accessible to different types of students in the class (e.g., domestic and international students), if any particular group of students do not work well together, and whether the curriculum is accessible for students from varied educational and cultural backgrounds. Thus, through the process of reflection, educators grow in their ability to help their students on a course level, and they are better positioned to advocate on their students’ behalf when making curricular decisions on a departmental or institutional level.

An additional part of reflection is gathering feedback to enable a holistic view of one’s teaching practices. When feedback is given by a trusted peer, this invaluable information can guide chosen teaching methods and ways of explaining new information. When feedback is given by students and that feedback is then acted upon, it demonstrates to the students that their opinions and experiences are taken seriously and fosters a more trusting environment ( Brookfield, 2017 ). Furthermore, when discrepancies arise between the intention of the teacher and the interpretation of the students, reflection also aids practitioners in verbalizing their reasoning. Through reflection, educators would need to consider past experiences, prior knowledge, and beliefs that led to their actions. As such, reflective practitioners are able to have honest and informed discussions with their students who may be confused or unhappy with a particular decision. Explaining this to students not only models the practice of continuous inquiry and of considering one’s actions, but it also allows students to understand the rationale behind decisions they may not personally agree with, fostering a more productive student–teacher relationship ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF REFLECTION?

This section aims to summarize and clarify the different ways reflection has been conceptualized in the literature ( Table 1 ). Specifically, reflections have been described based on their timing, depth, and content. Notably, practitioners of reflective practices must utilize multiple types of reflection in order to more effectively improve different aspects of their teaching ( Griffiths and Tann, 1992 ).

The various conceptualizations and associated types of reflections along with examples of guiding questions

Time-Dependent

To understand the time-dependent conceptualization of reflection, we return to Schön (1983 ). He defines two particular concepts—“reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action”—which are delineated based on the time that the reflection takes place. Reflection-in-action is characterized as practitioners reflecting while simultaneously completing the relevant action. Reflection-on-action encompasses a practitioner reflecting on a past action, analyzing the different influences, and carefully considering the observed or potential outcomes. Reflection-in-action is perceived as more difficult due to the multiple factors that teachers have to consider at once while also ensuring that the lesson carries on.

Later work built on this initial description of time-dependent reflections. In particular, Loughran renamed the original two timings to make them more intuitive and added one time point ( Loughran, 2002a ). The three categories include: “anticipatory,” “contemporaneous,” and “retrospective,” wherein actions taken, or to be taken, are contemplated before, during, and after an educating experience, respectively. It should be noted that both Loughran’s and Schön’s models are able to function in tandem with the depth- or content-based understandings of reflections, which are described in the next sections.

Depth of Reflections

Conceptualizing reflection in terms of depth has a long history in the literature (see Section 5.1 in the Supplemental Material for a historical view of the depth-based model of reflections). Thankfully, Larrivee (2008a) designed a depth-classification system that encompasses an array of terminologies and explanations pre-existing in the literature. This classification includes a progression in reflective practices across four levels: “pre-reflection,” “surface,” “pedagogical,” and “critical reflection.”

During the pre-reflection stage, educators do not engage in reflections. They are functioning in “survival mode” ( Larrivee, 2008a , p. 350; Campoy, 2010 , p. 17), reacting automatically to situations without considering alternatives and the impacts on the students ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). At this stage, educators may feel little agency, consider themselves the victims of coincidental circumstances, or attribute the ownership of problems to others such as their students, rather than themselves ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). They are unlikely to question the status quo, thereby failing to consider and adapt to the needs of the various learners in their classrooms ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). While the description of educators at this level is non-ideal, educators at the pre-reflection level are not ill intended. However, the pre-reflective level is present among practitioners, as evidenced in a 2015 study investigating 140 English as a Foreign Language educators and a 2010 analysis of collected student reflections ( Campoy, 2010 ; Ansarin et al. , 2015 ). The presence of pre-reflective educators is also readily apparent in the authors’ ongoing research. As such, being aware of the pre-reflection stage is necessary for beginning practitioners, and this knowledge is perhaps most useful for designers of professional development programs.

The first true level of reflection is surface reflection. At this level, educators are concerned about achieving a specific goal, such as high scores on standardized tests. However, these goals are only approached through conforming to departmental norms, evidence from their own experiences, or otherwise well-established practices ( Larrivee, 2008a ). In other words, educators at this level question whether the specific pedagogical practices will achieve their goals, but they do not consider any new or nontraditional pedagogical practices or question the current educational policies ( Campoy, 2010 ). Educators’ reflections are grounded in personal assumptions and influenced by individuals’ unexamined beliefs and unconscious biases.

At the pedagogical level, educators “reflect on educational goals, the theories underlying approaches, and the connections between theoretical principles and practice.” ( Larrivee, 2008a , p. 343). At this level, educators also consider their own belief systems and how those systems relate to their practices and explore the problem from different perspectives. A representative scenario at this level includes: teachers contemplating their various teaching methods and considering their observed outcomes in student comprehension, alternative viewpoints, and also the current evidence-based research in education. Subsequently, they alter (or maintain) their previous teaching practices to benefit the students. In doing so, more consideration is given to possible factors than in surface reflection. This category is quite broad due to the various definitions present in the literature ( Larrivee, 2008a ). However, there is a common emphasis on the theory behind teaching practices, ensuring that practice matches theory, and the student outcomes of enacted teaching practices ( Larrivee, 2008a ).

The last level of reflection categorized by Larrivee is critical reflection, wherein educators consider the ethical, moral, and political ramifications of who they are and what they are teaching to their students ( Larrivee, 2008a ). An approachable way of thinking about critical reflection is that the practitioners are challenging their assumptions about what is taught and how students learn. In doing so, educators evaluate their own views, assertions, and assumptions about teaching, with attention paid to how such beliefs impact students both as learners and as individuals ( Larrivee, 2005 , 2008b ). Through practicing critical reflection, societal issues that affect teaching can be uncovered, personal views become evidence based rather than grounded in assumptions, and educators are better able to help a diverse student population.

Larrivee used this classification to create a tool for measuring the reflectivity of teachers (see Section 4.1 of the Supplemental Material).

Content of Reflections

The third type of reflection is one in which what is being reflected on is the defining feature. One such example is Valli’s five types of reflection ( 1997 ): “technical reflection,” “reflection-in and on-action,” “deliberative reflection,” “personalistic reflection,” and “critical reflection.” Note that Valli’s conceptions of the two types of reflection—reflection-in and on-action, and critical reflection—are congruent with the descriptions provided in the Time-Dependent and Depth sections of this Essay , respectively, and will thus not be detailed in this section.

In a technical reflection, educators evaluate their instructional practices in light of the findings from the research on teaching and learning ( Valli, 1997 ). The quality of this type of reflection is based on the educators’ knowledge of this body of work and the extent to which their teaching practices adhere to it. For example, educators would consider whether they are providing enough opportunities for their students to explain their reasoning to one another during class. This type of reflection does not focus on broader topics such as the structure and content of the curriculum or issues of equity.

Deliberative reflection encompasses “a whole range of teaching concerns, including students, the curriculum, instructional strategies, the rules and organization of the classroom” ( Valli, 1997 , p. 75). In this case, “deliberative” comes from the practitioners having to debate various external viewpoints and perspectives or research that maybe be in opposition. As such, they have an internal deliberation when deciding on the best actions for their specific teaching situations. The quality of the reflection is based on the educators’ ability to evaluate the various perspectives and provide sound reasoning for their decisions.

Personalistic reflection involves educators’ personal growth as well as the individual relationships they have with their students. Educators engaged in this type of reflection thoughtfully explore the relationships between their personal and professional goals and consider the various facets of students’ lives with the overarching aim of providing the best experience. The quality of the reflection is based on an educator’s ability to empathize.

To manage the limitations of each type of reflections, Valli recommended that reflective practitioners not focus solely on a specific type of reflection, but rather engage with multiple types of reflections, as each addresses different questions. It is important to note that some types of reflections may be prerequisite to others and that some may be more important than others; for example, Valli stated that critical reflections are more valuable than technical reflections, as they address the important issues of justice. The order of Valli’s types of reflection provided in Table 1 reflects her judgment on the importance of the questions that each type of reflection addresses.

HOW CAN I ENGAGE IN REFLECTION?

Larrivee suggested that there is not a prescribed strategy to becoming a reflective practitioner but that there are three practices that are necessary: 1) carving time out for reflection, 2) constantly problem solving, and 3) questioning the status quo ( Larrivee, 2000 ). This section of the Essay provides a buffet of topics for consideration and methods of organization that support these three practices. This section is intended to assist educators in identifying their preferred mode of reflection and to provide ideas for professional development facilitators to explicitly infuse reflective practices in their programs.

For educators who are new to reflective practices, it is useful to view the methods presented as “transforming what we are already doing, first and foremost by becoming more aware of ourselves, others, and the world within which we live” ( Rodgers and Laboskey, 2016 , p. 101) rather than as a complete reformation of current methods.

Focus of the Reflection: Critical Incident

When practicing reflection, a critical incident may be identified or presented in order to ignite the initial reflection or to foster deeper thought by practitioners ( Tripp, 2011 ). Critical incidents are particular situations that become the focus of reflections. Farrell described critical incidents in education as unplanned events that hold the potential to highlight misconceptions and foster greater and newer understanding about teaching and learning ( 2008 ). These can be situations ranging from students not understanding a foundational concept from a previous course to considering how to navigate the analysis of a data set that includes cultural background and socioeconomic status.

Critical incidents are used, because meaningful reflection is often a result of educators experiencing a problem or some form of cognitive dissonance concerning teaching practices and approaches to their students ( Lee, 2005 ). Therefore, it is most effective to combine techniques, which are outlined later in this section, with a critical incident to force practitioners into a new and difficult positions relating to education. Larrivee details that a sense of “uncertainty, dissonance, dilemma, problem, or conflict” is extremely valuable to personal reflection and growth ( 2008b , p. 93). Thus, unsettling experiences encourage changes to action far more than reflecting on typical teaching/learning interactions. This is an inherently uncomfortable experience for the practitioner, as feelings of self-doubt, uncertainty, anger, and self- or peer-rejection can come to the surface ( Larrivee, 2008b ). Yet, it is when educators are in an uncomfortable position that they are best able to challenge their learned assertions about what they are teaching and how they are supporting their students’ learning. This requires a conscious effort on the part of the educator. Humans tend to function automatically based on their past experiences and ingrained beliefs. This results in certain aspects of events being ignored while others become the driving force behind reactions. In a sense, humans have a “filter system” that can unconsciously eliminate the most effective course of action; this results in humans functioning in a cycle in which current, unquestioned beliefs determine which data and experiences are given attention ( Larrivee, 2000 , p. 295).

Critical incidents highlight any dissonance present in one’s actions, enabling practitioners to tackle social, ethical, political, and pedagogical issues that may be systemic to their departments, their fields, or their cultures. Critical incidents foster critical reflection (under the depth- and content-based models) even in novice teachers ( Pultorak, 1996 ; Griffin, 2003 ). It is because of the difficulty and uncertainty posed by critical incidents that they are widely promoted as an invaluable aspect of reflective practices in education. Therefore, the analysis of critical incidents, whether they are case studies or theoretical examples, has been used in educating both pre-service ( Griffin, 2003 ; Harrison and Lee, 2011 ) and current educators ( Benoit, 2013 ).

Scaffoldings Promoting Reflections

Once a critical incident has been identified, the next step is structuring the reflection itself. Several scaffolding models exist in the literature and are described in Section 3 of the Supplemental Material. As reflections are inherently personal, educators should use the scaffolding that works best for them. Two scaffoldings that have been found to be useful in developing reflective practices are Bain’s 5R and Gibbs’s reflective cycle.

Bain et al. (2002) created the 5R framework to support the development of pre-service teachers into reflective practitioners. The framework includes the following five steps ( Bain et al. , 2002 ):

• Reporting involves considering a particular experience and the contextual factors that surround it.
• Responding is when the individual practitioners verbalize their feelings, thoughts, and other reactions that they had in response to the situation.
• Relating is defined as teachers making connections between what occurred recently and their previously obtained knowledge and skill base.
• Reasoning then encourages the practitioners to consider the foundational concepts and theories, as well as other factors that they believe to be significant, in an effort to understand why a certain outcome was achieved or observed.
• Finally, reconstructing is when the teachers take their explanations and uses them to guide future teaching methods, either to encourage a similar result or to foster a different outcome.

This framework facilitates an understanding of what is meant by and required for reflective practices. For a full explanation of Bain’s scaffolding and associated resources, see Sections 1.2 and 3.3 in the Supplemental Material.

A popular scaffolding for promoting reflective practices is the reflective learning cycle described by Gibbs (1988) . This cycle for reflection has been extensively applied in teacher preparation programs and training of health professionals ( Husebø et al. , 2015 ; Ardian et al. , 2019 ; Markkanen et al. , 2020 ). The cycle consists of six stages:

• Description: The practitioner first describes the situation to be reflected on in detail.
• Feelings: The practitioner then explores their feelings and thoughts processes during the situation.
• Evaluation: The practitioner identifies what went well and what went wrong.
• Analysis: The practitioner makes sense of the situation by exploring why certain things went well while others did not.
• Conclusions: The practitioner summarizes what they learned from their analysis of the situation.
• Personal action plans: The practitioner develops a plan for what they would do in a similar situation in the future and what other steps they need to take based on what they learn (e.g., gain some new skills or knowledge).

For a full explanation of Gibbs’s scaffolding and associated resources, see Sections 1.3 and 3.4 in the Supplemental Material.

We see these two models as complementary and have formulated a proposed scaffolding for reflection by combining the two models. In Table 2 , we provide a short description of each step and examples of reflective statements. The full scaffolding is provided in Section 3.6 of the Supplemental Material.

Proposed scaffolds for engaging in reflective practices a

a An expanded version is provided in Section 3.6 of the Supplemental Material.

Even with the many benefits of these scaffolds, educators must keep in mind the different aspects and levels of reflection that should be considered. Especially when striving for higher levels of reflection, the cultural, historical, and political contexts must be considered in conjunction with teaching practices for such complex topics to affect change ( Campoy, 2010 ). For instance, if equity and effectiveness of methods are not contemplated, there is no direct thought about how to then improve those aspects of practice.

Modalities for Reflections

The different scaffolds can be implemented in a wide variety of practices ( Table 3 ). Of all the various methods of reflection, reflective writing is perhaps the most often taught method, and evidence has shown that it is a deeply personal practice ( Greiman and Covington, 2007 ). Unfortunately, many do not continue with reflective writing after a seminar or course has concluded ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ). This may be due to the concern of time required for the physical act of writing. In fact, one of the essential practices for engaging in effective reflections is creating a space and time for personal, solitary reflection ( Larrivee, 2000 ); this is partially due to the involvement of “feelings of frustration, insecurity, and rejection” as “taking solitary time helps teachers come to accept that such feelings are a natural part of the change process” while being in a safe environment ( Larrivee, 2000 , p. 297). It is important to note that reflective writing is not limited to physically writing in a journal or typing into a private document; placing such a limitation may contribute to the practice being dropped, whereas a push for different forms of reflection will keep educators in practice ( Dyment and O'Connell, 2014 ). Reflective writings can include documents such as case notes ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ), reviewing detailed lesson plans ( Posthuma, 2012 ), and even blogging ( Alirio Insuasty and Zambrano Castillo, 2010 ; van Wyk, 2013 ; Garza and Smith, 2015 ).

Common methods to engage in reflective practices

The creation of a blog or other online medium can help foster reflection. In addition to fostering reflection via the act of writing on an individual level, this online form of reflective writing has several advantages. One such benefit is the readily facilitated communication and collaboration between peers, either through directly commenting on a blog post or through blog group discussions ( Alirio Insuasty and Zambrano Castillo, 2010 ; van Wyk, 2013 ; Garza and Smith, 2015 ). “The challenge and support gained through the collaborative process is important for helping clarify beliefs and in gaining the courage to pursue beliefs” ( Larrivee, 2008b , p. 95). By allowing other teachers to comment on published journal entries, a mediator role can be filled by someone who has the desired expertise but may be geographically distant. By this same logic, blogs have the great potential to aid teachers who themselves are geographically isolated.

Verbal reflections through video journaling (vlogs) follows the same general methods as writing. This method has the potential to be less time intensive ( Clarke, 2009 ), which may lower one of the barriers facing practitioners. Greiman and Covington (2007) identified verbal reflection as one of the three preferred modalities of reflection by student teachers. By recording their verbal contemplations and reflections, practitioners can review their old thoughts about different course materials, enabling them to adjust their actions based on reflections made when observations were fresh in their mind. Students learning reflective practices also noted that recorded videos convey people’s emotions and body language—reaching a complexity that is not achievable with plain text or audio ( Clarke, 2009 ).

If writing or video journaling is not appealing, another method to facilitate reflective practices is that of making video recordings of teaching experiences in vivo. This differs from vlogs, which are recorded after the teaching experiences. A small longitudinal qualitative study indicated that the video recordings allowed participants to be less self-critical and to identify effective strategies they were employing ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ). Additionally, beginning teachers found the most value in videotaping their teaching as compared with electronic portfolios and online discussions ( Romano and Schwartz, 2005 ). By recording their teaching practices, practitioners can use a number of clearly outlined self- and peer-assessments, as detailed in Section 4 of the Supplemental Material. However, it should be noted that all three technology-driven methods used in the study by Romano and Schwartz (2005) were helpful for the participants, and as reflective practices are inherently personal, many methods should be considered by practitioners new to purposeful reflection.

Group efforts, such as group discussions or community meetings, can foster reflective thinking, thereby encouraging reflective practices. “The checks and balances of peers’ and critical friends’ perspectives can help developing teachers recognize when they may be devaluing information or using self-confirming reasoning, weighing evidence with a predisposition to confirm a belief or theory, rather than considering alternative theories that are equally plausible” ( Larrivee, 2008b , p. 94). These benefits are essential to help educators reach the higher levels of reflection (i.e., pedagogical reflection and critical reflection), as it can be difficult to think of completely new viewpoints on one’s own, especially when educators are considering the needs of diverse students yet only have their own experiences to draw upon. Henderson et. al . (2011) review of the literature found that successful reports of developing reflective practitioners as a strategy for change had two commonalities. One of these was the presence of either a community where experiences are shared ( Gess-Newsome et al. , 2003 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ) or of an additional participant providing feedback to the educator ( Penny and Coe, 2004 ; McShannon and Hynes, 2005 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ). The second commonality was the presence of support by a change agent ( Hubball et al. , 2005 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ), which is far more context reliant.

Even in the absence of change agent support, peer observation can be implemented as a tool for establishing sound reflective practices. This can be accomplished through informal observations followed by an honest discussion. It is vital for the correct mindset to be adopted during such a mediation session, as the point of reflection is in assessing the extent to which practitioners’ methods allow them to achieve their goals for student learning. This cannot be done in an environment where constructive feedback is seen as a personal critique. For example, it was found that peers who simply accepted one another’s practices out of fear of damaging their relationships did not benefit from peer observation and feedback ( Manouchehri, 2001 ); however, an initially resistant observer was able to provide valuable feedback after being prompted by the other participant ( Manouchehri, 2001 ). One approach to ensure the feedback promotes reflections is for the observer and participant to meet beforehand and have a conversation about areas on which to focus feedback. The follow-up conversation focuses first on these areas and can be expanded afterward to other aspects of the teaching that the observer noticed. Observation protocols (provided in Section 4.2 in the Supplemental Material) can also be employed in these settings to facilitate the focus of the reflection.

For those interested in assessing their own or another’s reflection, Section 4 in the Supplemental Material will be helpful, as it highlights different tools that have been shown to be effective and are adaptable to different situations.

WHAT BARRIERS MIGHT I FACE?

It is typical for educators who are introducing new practices in their teaching to experience challenges both at the personal and contextual levels ( Sturtevant and Wheeler, 2019 ). In this section, we address the personal and contextual barriers that one may encounter when engaging in reflective practices and provide advice and recommendations to help address these barriers. We also aim to highlight that the difficulties faced are commonly shared by practitioners embarking on the complex journey of becoming reflective educators.

Personal Barriers

Professional development facilitators who are interested in supporting their participants’ growth as reflective practitioners will need to consider: 1) the misunderstandings that practitioners may have about reflections and 2) the need to clearly articulate the purpose and nature of reflective practices. Simply asking practitioners to reflect will not lead to desirable results ( Loughran, 2002b ). Even if the rationale and intent is communicated, there is also the pitfall of oversimplification. Practitioners may stop before the high levels of reflection (e.g., critical reflection) are reached due to a lack of in-depth understanding of reflective practices ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). Even if the goals are understood and practitioners intend to evaluate their teaching practices on the critical level, there can still be confusion about what reflective practices require from practitioners. The theory of reflective practices may be grasped, but it is not adequately integrated into how practitioners approach teaching ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). We hope that this Essay and associated Supplemental Material provide a meaningful resource to help alleviate this challenge.

A concern often raised is that the level of critical reflection is not being reached ( Ostorga, 2006 ; Larrivee, 2008a ). Considering the impacts that student–teacher interactions have on students beyond the classroom is always a crucial part of being an educator. In terms of practicality, situations being considered may not be conducive to this type of reflection. Consider an educator who, after a formative assessment, realizes that students, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, or gender, did not grasp a foundational topic that is required for the rest of the course. In such a case, it is prudent to consider how the information was taught and to change instructional methods to adhere to research-based educational practices. If the information was presented in a lecture-only setting, implementing aspects of engagement, exploration, and elaboration on the subject by the students can increase understanding ( Eisenkraft, 2003 ). If the only interactions were student–teacher based and all work was completed individually, the incorporation of student groups could result in a deeper understanding of the material by having students act as teachers or by presenting students with alternative way of approaching problems (e.g., Michaelsen et al. , 1996 ). Both of these instructional changes are examples that can result from pedagogical reflection and are likely to have a positive impact on the students. As such, educators who practice any level of reflection should be applauded. The perseverance and dedication of practitioners cannot be undervalued, even if their circumstances lead to fewer instances of critical reflection. We suggest that communities of practice such as faculty learning communities, scholarship of teaching and learning organizations, or professional development programs are excellent avenues to support educators ( Baker et al. , 2014 ; Bathgate et al. , 2019 ; Yik et al. , 2022a , b ), including in the development of knowledge and skills required to reach critical reflections. For example, facilitators of these communities and programs can intentionally develop scaffolding and exercises wherein participants consider whether the deadlines and nature of assignments are equitable to all students in their courses. Professional development facilitators are strongly encouraged to be explicit about the benefits to individual practitioners concomitantly with the benefits to students (see Section 2 in the Supplemental Material), as benefits to practitioners are too often ignored yet comprise a large portion of the reasoning behind reflective practices.

At a practitioner’s level, the time requirement for participating in reflective practices is viewed as a major obstacle, and it would be disingenuous to discount this extensive barrier ( Greiman and Covington, 2007 ). Reflective practices do take time, especially when done well and with depth. However, we argue that engagement in reflective practice early on can help educators become more effective with the limited time they do have ( Brookfield, 2017 ). As educators engage in reflective practices, they become more aware of their reasoning, their teaching practices, the effectiveness of said practices, and whether their actions are providing them with the outcomes they desire ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). Therefore, they are able to quickly and effectively troubleshoot challenges they encounter, increasing the learning experiences for their students. Finally, we argue that the consistent engagement in reflective practices can significantly facilitate and expedite the writing of documents necessary for annual evaluations and promotions. These documents often require a statement in which educators must evaluate their instructional strategies and their impact on students. A reflective practitioner would have a trail of documents that can easily be leveraged to write such statement.

Contextual Factors

Environmental influences have the potential to bring reflective practices to a grinding halt. A paradigm shift that must occur to foster reflective teacher: that of changing the teacher’s role from a knowledge expert to a “pedagogic expert” ( Day, 1993 ). As with any change of this magnitude, support is necessary across all levels of implementation and practitioners to facilitate positive change. Cole (1997) made two observations that encapsulate how institutions can prevent the implementation of reflective practices: first, many educators who engage in reflective practices do so secretly. Second, reflections are not valued in academic communities despite surface-level promotions for such teaching practices; institutions promote evidence-based teaching practices, including reflection, yet instructors’ abilities as educators do not largely factor into promotions, raises, and tenure ( Brownell and Tanner, 2012 ; Johnson et al. , 2018 ). The desire for educators to focus on their teaching can become superficial, with grants and publications mattering more than the results of student–teacher interactions ( Cole, 1997 ; Michael, 2007 ).

Even when teaching itself is valued, the act of changing teaching methods can be resisted and have consequences. Larrivee’s (2000) statement exemplifies this persistent issue:

Critically reflective teachers also need to develop measures of tactical astuteness that will enable them to take a contrary stand and not have their voices dismissed. One way to keep from committing cultural suicide is to build prior alliances both within and outside the institution by taking on tasks that demonstrate school loyalty and build a reputation of commitment. Against a history of organizational contributions, a teacher is better positioned to challenge current practices and is less readily discounted. (p. 298)

The notion that damage control must be a part of practicing reflective teaching is indicative of a system that is historically opposed to the implementation of critical reflection ( Larrivee, 2000 ). We view this as disheartening, as the goal of teaching should be to best educate one’s students. Even as reflective practices in teaching are slowly becoming more mainstream, contextual and on-site influences still have a profound impact on how teachers approach their profession ( Smagorinsky, 2015 ). There must be a widespread, internal push for change within departments and institutions for reflective practices to be easily and readily adopted.

The adoption of reflective practices must be done in a way that does not negate its benefits. For example, Galea (2012) highlights the negative effects of routinizing or systematizing this extremely individual and circumstance-based method (e.g., identification of specific areas to focus on, standardized timing and frequency of reflections). In doing so, the systems that purportedly support teachers using reflection remove their ability to think of creative solutions, limit their ability to develop as teachers, and can prevent an adequate response to how the students are functioning in the learning environment ( Tan, 2008 ). Effective reflection can be stifled when reflections are part of educators’ evaluations for contract renewal, funding opportunities, and promotions and tenure. Reflective practices are inherently vulnerable, as they involve both being critical of oneself and taking responsibility for personal actions ( Larrivee, 2008b ). Being open about areas for improvement is extremely difficult when it has such potential negative impacts on one’s career. However, embarking on honest reflection privately, or with trusted peers and mentors, can be done separately from what is presented for evaluation. We argue that reflections can support the writing of documents to be considered for evaluation, as these documents often request the educators to describe the evolution of their teaching and its impact on students. Throughout course terms, reflections conducted privately can provide concreate ideas for how to frame an evaluation document. We argue that administrators, department chairs, and members of tenure committees should be explicit with their educators about the advantages of reflective practices in preparing evaluative documents focused on teaching.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Reflective practices are widely advocated for in academic circles, and many teaching courses and seminars include information regarding different methods of reflection. This short introduction intends to provide interested educators with a platform to begin reflective practices. Common methods presented may appeal to an array of educators, and various self- and peer-assessment tools are highlighted in Section 4 in the Supplemental Material. Reflective practices are a process and a time- and energy-intensive, but extremely valuable tool for educators when implemented with fidelity. Therefore, reflection is vital for efficacy as an educator and a requirement for educators to advance their lifelong journeys as learners.

To conclude, we thought the simple metaphor provided by Thomas Farrell best encapsulates our thoughts on reflective practices within the context of teaching: Reflective practices are “a compass of sorts to guide teachers when they may be seeking direction as to what they are doing in their classrooms. The metaphor of reflection as a compass enables teachers to stop, look, and discover where they are at that moment and then decide where they want to go (professionally) in the future” ( Farrell, 2012 , p. 7).

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank Annika Kraft, Jherian Mitchell-Jones, Emily Kable, Dr. Emily Atieh, Dr. Brandon Yik, Dr. Ying Wang, and Dr. Lu Shi for their constructive feedback on previous versions of this article. This material is based upon work supported by NSF 2142045. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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6 Tips to Writing a Solid Reflection Paper (With a Sample Essay)

A reflection paper is an essay that focuses on your personal thoughts related to an experience, topic, or behavior. It can veer toward educational as a reflection of a book you've read or something you've been studying in class. It can also take a more professional slant as you reflect on a certain profession or your experiences within that profession.

A lot of students enjoy writing this type of essay, especially if they find it easy to discuss their feelings and experiences related to a topic or profession. However, some students find this type of subjective writing to be difficult and would rather a more objective writing assignment.

Whether you're the former or the latter, for this article, we're going to look at 6 tips for writing a solid reflection paper that will help you get through the outlining and writing processes. We've also provided a sample reflection paper so you can see these tips in action.

Tip #1—Choose a topic you're passionate about

However you choose to focus your reflection paper, if you're able to choose your own topic, choose one that is highly interesting to you or that you find important. You'll find that your paper will be much easier to outline and draft if you do. There are a range of potential topics that have been used or have the potential of turning into a great reflection paper. Here are a few suggestions:

• Describe your internship experience.
• Discuss a recent book you read that changed you.
• What is "family" to you and why?
• What are some of the qualities demonstrated by your favorite employers and/or managers? What makes them your favorite?
• Discuss music that has altered your way of thinking or made you see the world from a different perspective.
• Reflect on your favorite memory of a pet or loved one.

Tip #2—Outline your reflection paper before you write

Be sure to outline your reflection paper first before you start to write. Even though this sort of essay is written as a personal reflection, you'll still need to make sure you stay on topic and organize your writing in a clear, logical way. As with other traditional essays, there should be an introduction with a thesis statement, a body, and a conclusion. Each paragraph within your body should focus on a different sub-topic within the scope of your overall topic.

Tip #3—Write in first-person singular

Write in first-person singular. Format the essay according to your teacher's instructions, using whatever citation style required. Your teacher will likely request that it is double-spaced, with 1" indentation in each margin, in 12 pt. font. Also keep in mind that most reflection papers will be around 750 words or less.

Tip #4—Avoid too much description

Avoiding adding too much description of events. This is not the kind of essay where you need to discuss a play-by-play of everything that happens. Rather, it is the kind of essay that focuses on your reflection of the topic and how you felt during these experiences.

Tip #5—Avoid colloquial expressions or slang

Avoid colloquial expressions or slang—this is still an academic assignment. Also, be sure to edit your essay thoroughly for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Since a reflection paper is written in first-person point of view, it's easy to mistake it for an informal essay and skip the editing. Regardless of the type of essay you submit to your professor, it should always be edited and error-free.

Tip #6—Critical reflection goes deeper

If your assignment asks you to write a critical reflection paper, it is asking for your observations and evaluations regarding an experience. You'll need to provide an in-depth analysis of the subject and your experience with it in an academic context. You might also provide a summary, if the critical reflection paper is about a book or article you've read.

Sample reflection paper

My student teaching experience with the Master's in Education program has been a great learning opportunity. Although I was nervous at first, it didn't take long to apply lessons I have been learning in my academic program to real-world skills such as classroom management, lesson planning, and instruction.

During my first week of student teaching, I was assigned a mentor who had been teaching middle school grades for over 12 years. She assured me that middle school is one of the most difficult grades to teach and that there is a high turnover rate of teachers, which worried me. However, once the week got started and I began to meet the students, my fears abated. These young people were funny, inquisitive, and eager to begin reading the assigned book, Lord of the Flies —especially after we started with a group project scenario that included kids being stranded on an island without adults.

The first few weeks of applying classroom management skills I had read about in my Master's program were a definite learning experience. I had read enough about adolescent development to know that they were not yet at the age where they were able to control all of their impulses, so there were moments when some would yell out an answer or speak without raising their hand first. So, at my mentor's suggestion, I worked with the students to create their own classroom rules that everyone would agree to abide by. Since they played a role in coming up with these rules, I believe it helped them take more personal responsibility in following them.

When we finished that initial group project, I began to see how tasks such as lesson planning—and plans that have to be turned in to the administration weekly—can easily become overwhelming if not worked out on the front-end of the semester. My mentor explained that most seasoned teachers will work on their lesson plans over the summer, using the proper state curriculum, to have them ready with the school year begins. Having scrambled to get my lesson planning done in time during the first few weeks, I saw the value in this and agreed with her that summertime preparation makes the most logical sense. When the school year gets started, it's really a whirlwind of activities, professional development and other events that make it really difficult to find the time to plan lessons.

Once the semester got well underway and I had lesson planning worked out with as little stress as possible, I was able to focus more on instructional time, which I found to be incredibly exciting. I began to see how incorporating multiple learning styles into my lesson, including visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, helped the students stay more actively engaged in the discussion. They also enjoyed it when I showed them short video clips of the movie versions of the books we were reading, as well as the free-write sessions where they were able to write a scene and perform it with their classmates.

Finally, my student teaching experience taught me that above all else, I have truly found my "calling" in teaching. Every day was something new and there was never a dull moment—not when you're teaching a group of 30 teenagers! This lack of boredom and the things I learned from the students are two of the most positive things for me that resulted from the experience, and I can't wait to have my own classroom in the fall when the school year begins again.

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Coronavirus and schools: Reflections on education one year into the pandemic

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok lauren bauer , lauren bauer fellow - economic studies , associate director - the hamilton project @laurenlbauer stephanie riegg cellini , stephanie riegg cellini nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy helen shwe hadani , helen shwe hadani former brookings expert @helenshadani michael hansen , michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen douglas n. harris , douglas n. harris nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy , professor and chair, department of economics - tulane university @douglasharris99 brad olsen , brad olsen senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @bradolsen_dc richard v. reeves , richard v. reeves president - american institute for boys and men @richardvreeves jon valant , and jon valant director - brown center on education policy , senior fellow - governance studies @jonvalant kenneth k. wong kenneth k. wong nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy.

March 12, 2021

• 11 min read

One year ago, the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. Reacting to the virus, schools at every level were sent scrambling. Institutions across the world switched to virtual learning, with teachers, students, and local leaders quickly adapting to an entirely new way of life. A year later, schools are beginning to reopen, the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill has been passed, and a sense of normalcy seems to finally be in view; in President Joe Biden’s speech last night, he spoke of “finding light in the darkness.” But it’s safe to say that COVID-19 will end up changing education forever, casting a critical light on everything from equity issues to ed tech to school financing.

Below, Brookings experts examine how the pandemic upended the education landscape in the past year, what it’s taught us about schooling, and where we go from here.

In the United States, we tend to focus on the educating roles of public schools, largely ignoring the ways in which schools provide free and essential care for children while their parents work. When COVID-19 shuttered in-person schooling, it eliminated this subsidized child care for many families. It created intense stress for working parents, especially for mothers who left the workforce at a high rate.

The pandemic also highlighted the arbitrary distinction we make between the care and education of elementary school children and children aged 0 to 5 . Despite parents having the same need for care, and children learning more in those earliest years than at any other point, public investments in early care and education are woefully insufficient. The child-care sector was hit so incredibly hard by COVID-19. The recent passage of the American Rescue Plan is a meaningful but long-overdue investment, but much more than a one-time infusion of funds is needed. Hopefully, the pandemic represents a turning point in how we invest in the care and education of young children—and, in turn, in families and society.

Congressional reauthorization of Pandemic EBT for  this school year , its  extension  in the American Rescue Plan (including for summer months), and its place as a  central plank  in the Biden administration’s anti-hunger agenda is well-warranted and evidence based. But much more needs to be done to ramp up the program–even  today , six months after its reauthorization, about half of states do not have a USDA-approved implementation plan.

In contrast, enrollment is up in for-profit and online colleges. The research repeatedly finds weaker student outcomes for these types of institutions relative to community colleges, and many students who enroll in them will be left with more debt than they can reasonably repay. The pandemic and recession have created significant challenges for students, affecting college choices and enrollment decisions in the near future. Ultimately, these short-term choices can have long-term consequences for lifetime earnings and debt that could impact this generation of COVID-19-era college students for years to come.

Many U.S. educationalists are drawing on the “build back better” refrain and calling for the current crisis to be leveraged as a unique opportunity for educators, parents, and policymakers to fully reimagine education systems that are designed for the 21st rather than the 20th century, as we highlight in a recent Brookings report on education reform . An overwhelming body of evidence points to play as the best way to equip children with a broad set of flexible competencies and support their socioemotional development. A recent article in The Atlantic shared parent anecdotes of children playing games like “CoronaBall” and “Social-distance” tag, proving that play permeates children’s lives—even in a pandemic.

Tests play a critical role in our school system. Policymakers and the public rely on results to measure school performance and reveal whether all students are equally served. But testing has also attracted an inordinate share of criticism, alleging that test pressures undermine teacher autonomy and stress students. Much of this criticism will wither away with  different  formats. The current form of standardized testing—annual, paper-based, multiple-choice tests administered over the course of a week of school—is outdated. With widespread student access to computers (now possible due to the pandemic), states can test students more frequently, but in smaller time blocks that render the experience nearly invisible. Computer adaptive testing can match paper’s reliability and provides a shorter feedback loop to boot. No better time than the present to make this overdue change.

A third push for change will come from the outside in. COVID-19 has reminded us not only of how integral schools are, but how intertwined they are with the rest of society. This means that upcoming schooling changes will also be driven by the effects of COVID-19 on the world around us. In particular, parents will be working more from home, using the same online tools that students can use to learn remotely. This doesn’t mean a mass push for homeschooling, but it probably does mean that hybrid learning is here to stay.

I am hoping we will use this forced rupture in the fabric of schooling to jettison ineffective aspects of education, more fully embrace what we know works, and be bold enough to look for new solutions to the educational problems COVID-19 has illuminated.

There is already a large gender gap in education in the U.S., including in  high school graduation rates , and increasingly in college-going and college completion. While the pandemic appears to be hurting women more than men in the labor market, the opposite seems to be true in education.

Looking through a policy lens, though, I’m struck by the timing and what that timing might mean for the future of education. Before the pandemic, enthusiasm for the education reforms that had defined the last few decades—choice and accountability—had waned. It felt like a period between reform eras, with the era to come still very unclear. Then COVID-19 hit, and it coincided with a national reckoning on racial injustice and a wake-up call about the fragility of our democracy. I think it’s helped us all see how connected the work of schools is with so much else in American life.

We’re in a moment when our long-lasting challenges have been laid bare, new challenges have emerged, educators and parents are seeing and experimenting with things for the first time, and the political environment has changed (with, for example, a new administration and changing attitudes on federal spending). I still don’t know where K-12 education is headed, but there’s no doubt that a pivot is underway.

• First, state and local leaders must leverage commitment and shared goals on equitable learning opportunities to support student success for all.
• Second, align and use federal, state, and local resources to implement high-leverage strategies that have proven to accelerate learning for diverse learners and disrupt the correlation between zip code and academic outcomes.
• Third, student-centered priority will require transformative leadership to dismantle the one-size-fits-all delivery rule and institute incentive-based practices for strong performance at all levels.
• Fourth, the reconfigured system will need to activate public and parental engagement to strengthen its civic and social capacity.
• Finally, public education can no longer remain insulated from other policy sectors, especially public health, community development, and social work.

These efforts will strengthen the capacity and prepare our education system for the next crisis—whatever it may be.

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News from the Columbia Climate School

Personal Reflections on Education During the Pandemic

Steven Cohen

I have a number of jobs at Columbia University: I teach professionally-oriented graduate students; I direct two master’s programs and one concentration in environmental sustainability policy and management and for the past two years I’ve served as senior vice dean of Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. While I’ve taken time out for government service and consulting, for the past four decades I’ve mainly been an educator, teaching while managing programs, schools and even a research institute. In all that time, I’ve never seen anything like the months since March 2020. It has been challenging, difficult, sad and at times, oddly rewarding.

Teaching in cyber-space and in what we call hyflex has been a technical and pedagogical challenge. In hyflex, we teach from a classroom with a skilled student video-aid operating a TV camera. The students include socially distant, masked students in the classroom along with students Zooming in from home. All sessions are taped and preserved on the course website. The new format created real challenges to teaching: How do I communicate to people in two dimensions who look like contestants on a game show? How do I combine classroom with distant instruction and dialogue? I teach case-based courses that require two-way communication. In fact, when we teach face-to-face, we prefer case classrooms where the seating is in a semi-circle so students can see each other. How do I encourage participation and ensure that students remain engaged? Student presentations and Zoom breakout rooms provided some opportunities for student involvement. For students in different time zones, I set up half-hour discussion sections where I addressed questions and tried to connect to those students who typically viewed the class via videotape. My class in Sustainability Management had about 80 students and encouraging dialogue can often be difficult, but this year it often felt like we were in uncharted waters. We all did our best, but it was definitely a challenge for everyone.

In the environmental management simulation workshop I teach, the class is much smaller, and my engagement with the group was easier since everyone could see each other on a single Zoom screen. Just as I miss social engagement with friends, colleagues and family, I missed that in this class, but the sense of mission and generosity of spirit I felt from my students made the experience particularly profound. Compliments in the chat box after student presentations and smiles and visible manifestations of teamwork were common. In the fall, when we shifted from all virtual to hyflex, a few students came into the classroom most weeks and it was great to see them walk out together connecting (masked) in real-time and space.

One of the most interesting aspects of my courses this past summer and fall were that students performed as well or better than students in past semesters. I know that students in K-12 education had less positive learning outcomes, but graduate professional education has a different dynamic. I think students were grateful for the sense of structure and purpose they found in continuing their education, and the classes were in some way a method of breaking up the monotony of pandemic life. Without the distraction of New York City’s night life and dynamism, they seemed to spend more time on coursework. Some, of course, seemed and likely were depressed, but the sense of mutual support and caring practically jumped off the screen with regular frequency. Students went the extra mile to be mutually supportive and that was wonderful beyond words.

This is not to say that I prefer this form of teaching and learning. I don’t. But I know that it is demonstrating our resilience and creativity and I believe that learning how to use this technology will have a long-term, positive impact on teaching and learning. I give enormous credit to the technical assistance staff at Columbia, who supported my teaching and to the people who developed Zoom, an application so simple even I could figure it out. Assuming I remain healthy, I will look back on this time as a type of battle that we waged to continue staying positive despite the pain and suffering that enveloped us constantly. I suppose new terms like: “I’ll share my screen” and “you’re muted” are now permanent additions to our language.

My experience as a teacher influenced the way I’ve tried to provide leadership as an educational administrator. In a time of incredible abnormality, I thought it vital to provide a sense of normalcy and purpose. At Columbia, the School of Professional Studies manages the summer session, and when we moved to online education last March, we quickly decided to move the summer session online as well. Amy Hungerford, our new dean and vice president for Arts and Sciences convened a working group of senior administrators from her office and from most of the undergraduate and graduate schools in the Arts and Sciences to plan a high quality and exciting online summer session. Her leadership resulted in a team effort unlike any I had ever experienced before at Columbia. Working together, we created a summer session that had more enrollments than any summer session had before. Our high school program enrolled over 1,000 more students than the summer before, and both graduate and undergraduate enrollments increased over previous summers. We had originally projected significant drops in enrollment, but we were proven wrong. In retrospect, I realized that many normal summer activities like travel, camp and field-based internships, were impossible and so, a high-quality educational experience seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Unfortunately, the picture changed as we entered the fall semester. Our biggest problem was that international students could not get visas to travel to New York because embassies stopped issuing them. In addition, there were travel restrictions related to health concerns. At the School of Professional Studies, nearly 1,800 students had sent deposits committing them to begin in one of our 17 master’s programs in the fall, but over 600 of them (mainly international) asked to defer admission until January or September 2021. But there were bright spots despite that setback. We were able to launch an online weekend high school program this fall that enrolled about 700 students, and commitments for graduate study in January are now higher than they were last year at this time. Interestingly, over 200 of the 300 students who had deferred until January have recommitted and plan to begin next semester.

My analysis of all of this is that education provides people with a sense of normalcy and forward progress even during the horrific time we are now enduring. The socialization aspects of higher education are very important, and its absence is very real and a huge cost of the pandemic. We have learned that for young children, the need for face-to-face education is far greater than for older students. It is not trivial for graduate students, but for a few semesters, we can operate this way. For my three-year-old granddaughter, it is a different story and her parents have resumed her attendance in pre-school. But as the disease spikes again in New York, and with indoor dining closing again here in the city, we need to be prepared for a second lockdown like the one we had last spring.

I now know we can teach and learn in this environment, but I worry that everyone is getting a little screen weary. Time is less distinct than it once was. Weekends do not revolve around social engagements and are mainly recognizable by the absence of Zoom meetings. My friends who teach younger students are concerned about the ability of their students to learn in this environment. I understand that, but for graduate students, the formal part of their education is succeeding. The work I am seeing is spectacular. But I am certain the informal part of education is suffering. I always say that in graduate school I learned more from my classmates in bars and cafes than I ever learned in classrooms. In some way, the classes were just the excuse for the transformational educational experience I was enjoying. And so, I am happy for what we have accomplished, but I long for what we’ve lost. Like everyone else, I am eager for the vaccine to be distributed and for the infection rate to go down so we can all exhale and return to the real world. A world I know I will never again take for granted.

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I manage a few different websites and forums related to education and parenting, and I can tell you that people are hurting – badly. I totally agree that another lockdown is coming, but I very much hope this vaccine can work wonders.

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Education Reflection Paper

Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values and beliefs. Also Education is an enlightening experience. I ask myself, what’s the purpose of education? During this past year’s I have read and learned that the main purpose of education is to provide the betterment of each student for living morally, creatively and productively in a democratic society. One philosophical perspective that schools should implement is perrenialism. Perrenialism is the belief that schools should teach ideas that are everlasting. In my perspective, I consider myself as a perrenialist, because I would have that courage and confidence giving lessons to students that they can interpret and use in their daily life …show more content…

Then I will give them few minutes to think for a response, then students will turn to a partner or groups and share their responses. At the end, students will debate within them and then finalize with a correct response and share with me, their teacher. That will be a good activity for them to think and use their knowledge . Furthermore, the next activity will be that I will teach concepts that they will use in their daily life and not only in school . For example in math, some teachers always used to teach their students formulas. I as a teacher will not teach my students to learn formulas nor to memories them. I will teach them how to solve the problem without using does formulas because usually formulas don’t help you in real life. I as the teacher will always place my students in group so that they can socialize with each other and learn to share among them. My classes will always be teacher centered, only few times will be student centered. My students will be able to understand and have that potential to learn. Each student is considered as a unique individual, with cultural background and prior knowledge influencing their learning . The role of my students is constructivism. Constructivism is basically a theory- based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. My students will engage and interact with the world around, with peers and

Supporting Learning Activities and Assessment for Learning

In an informal discussion between myself and the class teacher we would determine our roles throughout the activities, what teaching styles will be used to match the needs of the individual children or groups. Discussing the individual children and preparing to provide additional support ensuing all needs are met, any barriers that may become apparent during the lesson can be overcome without fuss.

Essay on Unit 008 Ptlls

Your main role as a teacher should be to teach in a way that involves and engages your student every session. You should also make sure that each individual is learning with consistent assessing of their progress and keeping records of this, to help we have a teaching and learning cycle (Gravells, A. 2012).

Personal Philosophy Of Education Essay

I believe that positive student/teacher interaction and family involvement are essential to the learning process. I believe that all students can succeed in education. It is my goal as a teacher to develop the intellect of all learners through a challenging curriculum. I hope to propose thought provoking questions that will prompt students to think and learn on their own. I will provide supervised practice to ensure the students in my classroom are learning. I believe problem-solving skills will be the most valuable skills students can learn. It is important for the class to be active in the community and active in life-changing events. Students learn best by doing. Emphasis will be placed on learning how to learn. Students will take an active role in helping decide what they learn and how they want to learn it. They will be responsible for helping to care for and maintain the learning environment, thus taking ownership of the class.

Philosophy of Education Paper

As postmodern educators feel their way through an ever changing multicultural classroom environment, it is imperative that each hold firmly to their philosophical positions and do not let society influence them in a negative way. At the same time all teachers should be continually reflecting inwardly to make oneself accountable to their profession.

Criminal Law Worksheet

As a class we will go over the different situations and students will be sharing how they rated the situations. Students will then discuss why they rated the situation the way they did. I will ask questions during our discussion. I will then end the lesson with a discussion and explaining to students what we will be learning next.

Standardized Testing Research Paper

I would take to strengths of my students knowledge to build on it. I would be sure to focus on the understanding and scaffold at all times to be sure that even though some students

Personal Education Philosophy Essay

Children see the world in a different light than anyone else. They also learn differently than each other. I also believe that teachers need to differentiate instruction and build in adaptations so that children will understand the concept. Classroom management is also key in how children learn. The environment must be comfortable and promote learning. Assessment will also be used daily so that student progress is recorded. The instruction can be adapted to fit the students’ progress in order to meet their goals. I will have individual goals for students so that they can all be challenged but able to scaffold and build off of prior knowledge.

Five Year Education Research Paper

FIVE YEAR EDUCATION/CAREER GOALS? My five year plan is to become an assistant principal within my county. I want to impact my county with a positive influence, with a direction that is clear and where teachers and students can succeed.

Philosophy Of Education Research Paper

I believe that each child is born with a gift. The more educated our children are today, the brighter and richer our culture will be in the future. Education is a necessity; it is not a privilege. My goal as an educator is to help students find their element and harness their skills to the fullest potential. They are the future of our society. Every child is born with the hunger to learn. As an educator, I will make sure that my students are in a safe learning environment. I will teach my students the necessary tools that they will need to learn how to be successful in their lives. Since I was a child I always believed that love and respect are two of the most important things that people will need to learn. I think that with the power of love and respect you can make a big difference in other people's lives.

Personal Statement: My Philosophy Of Education

The purpose of education is enlightening the mind socially, morally and academically. It is also to have knowledge about the world and everything around us. Education is Knowledge. It makes us acquire skills and gives you an insight on the things you desire to know. There are many philosophies that have been established already but my philosophy of education is that every child has the ability to learn and when given the opportunity the outcome is powerful. Education is a unique and individual learning experience to each student therefore teachers should be passionate about teaching and make an impact on each of their student. In order to get through to each student, a teacher must fully understand his/her job. As a teacher, you are assigned

Instructional Practice Research Paper

I believe that every person/student is very unique and brings a lot ot the table in order for everyone to learn from. The teacher needs to create a safe and welcoming learning environment when at school. The students should feel comfortable when coming to class and find that their teacher cares about their education. When caring for and loving the students in the class the teacher is respecting them and welcoming them with open arms. Through this, I will work with the students in helping them get where they need to be academically and teaching on their level of learning they are in. I will go to all lengths to help them grow in and grasp what is being taught if they are behind not comprehending the

Philosophy Of Education

I believe helping students learn and grow is my purpose in life. Education helps prepare students for the real world. When students become young adults, they can help contribute to society by having a job and giving back to their community. Education is a vital part of each individual's life, we need to look to the education team in finding ways to make education better. Each team member has a role to play. The role of the student is to attend school and learn new information that they can apply to their lives. Teachers are responsible for meeting the needs of every learner and ensuring continual growth for students. A paraprofessional, an assistant to the teacher and students, forms a bond with the education team to carry out the task of educating the students. The community plays a major role in education by providing resources and support for the

Education For The Whole Child

A student centered approach is one where students are directly involved in the discovery of their own knowledge and learning. Through collaboration and cooperation with others, students engage in learning that is authentic, holistic and thought-provoking. During this process, students are empowered to use their prior knowledge to construct new learning. Curriculum and assessment are centered on meaningful performance in real world perspective. Teachers are not the leader, the children are. Teachers act as a partner in learning, creating organized and cohesive experiences to assist students in making the real world connections. The main culture of curriculum that best relates to developing a classroom that is student centered is that of Constructivism.

Teacher Reflection Paper

Walking into the first two weeks of the EDU program I desired to experience what it would be like to be a future educator and have a grasp of how to help the molding of our youth and giving them the possibility to become future leaders. Doctor dresser was able to bring in a Concordia alumni who had just begun to experience his professional education, career and is teaching multiple different grade levels as a young teacher. When he first walked into the classroom my first impressions were that unfortunately he looked very inexperienced and unsure of what was to be expected of the lecture I thought to myself in the position of a younger student in his classroom this is a person I would not take seriously. He then proceeded to communicate

Reflection Paper On Teaching

This reflection paper addresses as a student and counseling professional how I feel as though I have been readily prepared to teach in higher education and areas, concepts, strategies, and thoughts on how I have evolved through this course. This course has made me think more into how the most powerful, durable, and effective agents of educational change are not the policy makers, the curriculum developers or even the education authorities themselves; they are the teachers. It further contends that the quality of the educational changes that teachers have the skills and opportunities to effect will only be as reliable and proficient as the teachers’ individual capacities for reflective practice and the development of self-knowledge (Stepien, 1999). These aspects of teacher development have, historically, been largely overlooked in the preparation and promotion of effective teachers. The emphasis has been more explicitly focused on the development and demonstration of teachers’ understanding of content knowledge and the associated pedagogies and in their capacities to understand their students as individual constructors of knowledge in diverse social contexts (Bosworth, 1999).

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• Educational psychology

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5 Minutes of Daily Reflection, All Year Long

Setting aside a few minutes a day to jot down what went well and what challenges arose helps teachers notice patterns and make positive changes.

Teaching is hard work. In my early years of teaching, I would return to my classroom after dismissal and just sit still amid the cluttered mess of broken pencils and papers on the floor, surrounded by disheveled desks and student work. Totally exhausted, I would reflect on the day, grab my journal, and make a list of all the problems. 

For example, I would make notes of times during the day when behavior issues arose most frequently or when students seemed unengaged in their learning. I’d record practical things like traffic jams at the pencil sharpener or kids arguing about getting supplies they needed for lessons. Somehow, these problems seemed less daunting after I put them on paper. From that list, I would begin to problem-solve and find ways to make changes, one small step at a time, until I saw progress in the flow of our day and the quality of instruction in the room. 

Years later, I do the same thing as an instructional coach for a K–6 elementary school. At the end of every day, I sit at my desk and spend five minutes recording my observations from the many classrooms I visit daily. I keep it simple so that it does not become too time-consuming in my day. This reflective document guides my work and helps me create action steps to improve student learning for the students at my school.

My reflection journal 

Over the years, I have refined this practice to include one sentence for each of the following:

• Gratitude (for things going well)
• Things I am learning (from the principal, teachers, kids, or lessons I observe) 
• Questions (for all the unsolved problems) 

Gratitude: Starting with gratitude reminds me of things going well in the building. It is easy to become overwhelmed with the challenges facing educators, but it is also important to remember the good things happening. Sometimes, it can be a positive interaction with a student in the hallway, a successful lesson I observed, or a meeting I attended where all voices were heard. Whether it is a quick interaction with a colleague or a goal long worked for, noticing what’s going well and bringing attention to it is one way to create a positive work environment. This is especially true if you take the time to share those reflections with others through specific compliments or acknowledgments of their work.  

Things I am learning: My favorite instructional coaching leader, Jim Knight, is well known for saying, “I leave every meeting educated.” That is a mindset I carry with me every day. When I walk into a classroom or attend a team meeting with peers, I try to listen and learn from others. What is working? What is it they are trying to tell me? What changes need to be made? Where are the conflicts that need attention? Where might I need to change my perspective? What is a new innovative approach that I can share with others? These are the kinds of things I record so I can reflect on them as I learn and grow as an instructional coach. 

Questions: Working in schools today means dealing with lots of challenges. As I walk the hallways, head into classrooms, or sit at a meeting with colleagues, questions often arise for which I do not always have solutions. Rainer Maria Rilke, my favorite poet, wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.... Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Awareness of the questions and challenges facing our school drives my work as an instructional coach and helps me strive to make improvements. As school leaders, we don’t always know the answers, but being aware of the questions moves us toward seeking clarity, finding answers, and creating systems for change. 

Recording Action Steps in Daily Teacher Reflection

At the end of the month, I use questions I adapted from Elena Aguilar’s work to reflect on my successes and what still needs more attention: 

• Whom did you make meaningful connections with this month? 
• When did you feel competent or even masterful in your work? 
• What do you feel proud of having done or not done this month? 
• When did you feel like your work was most impactful?
• What are the unresolved challenges that need more attention? 

From this reflective document, I create action steps on a to-do list that is constantly changing and evolving. This helps me create priorities that guide my daily work with teachers and students. Then, every month, I begin again and start a new list so that this practice becomes a regular, routine part of my day. This cycle of making daily observations, creating a new list of reflections every month, and summarizing it at the end has a tremendous impact on my work.

For example, when I meet with my principal weekly, this list helps focus my thoughts when I add topics to the agenda for us to talk about as we set priorities and plan faculty meetings or staff development. It also helps me keep a balanced perspective, as I hold on to real examples of what’s going right along with the challenges arising. Lastly, it keeps me humble as I realize there is so much to learn from each other as we work together to improve student learning. Our school adopted a new phonics program this year that I was slow to come around to, but the more I observed and noted the successes teachers were having with it, the easier it was for me to change my perspective.  

By the end of the school year, I have more than 30 pages of reflections summarizing the year, which then helps me create a space to take stock, set goals, and find areas of improvement for the next school year. Taking the time to use reflective practice to guide my work each day grounds me in purpose and keeps me connected to the real work happening in classrooms every day.

Against Artificial Education: Towards an Ethical Framework for Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use in Education

• Andrew Swindell Asian University for Women
• Luke Greeley Rutgers Business School https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5544-1589
• Antony Farag Rutgers Graduate School of Education https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0771-2268
• Bailey Verdone Rutgers Graduate School of Education

The arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally different from prior technologies used in educational settings. Educators and researchers of online, blended, and in-person learning are still coming to grips with possible applications of AI in the learning experience with existing technologies; let alone understanding the potential consequences that future developments in AI will produce. Despite potential risks, AI may revolutionize previous models of teaching and learning and perhaps create opportunities to realize progressive educational goals. Given the longstanding tradition of philosophy to examine questions surrounding ethics, ontology, technology, and education, the purpose of this critical reflection paper is to draw from prominent philosophers across these disciplines to address the question: how can AI be employed in future educational contexts in a humanizing and ethical manner? Drawing from the work of Gunther Anders, Michel Foucault, Paolo Freire, Benjamin Bloom, and Hannah Arendt, we propose a framework for assessing the use and ethics of AI in modern education contexts regarding human versus AI generated textual and multimodal content, and the broader political, social, and cultural implications. We conclude with applied examples of the framework and implications for future research and practice.

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