Building Reflective learners

Teacher: "Today we are going to write a procedural text. There is no rubric, no expectations and I am not going to scaffold, model or co-construct this text form with you- good luck!"
Students: "Whaaaaat?"

Yaaaa, teachers wouldn't do that. Writing has a specific skill set which requires students have scaffolded experiences in order to play, experiment with and construct writing.

Reflection is also a skill. We need to provide kids a variety of opportunities from the age of 3 all the way up to the time they leave school in order for them to reflect on their learning journey. They need to be able to document failures, set goals and celebrate successes. We need to model this process, provide feedback and help them develop the ability to deeply understand their own strengths and limitations.

Sometimes it is easy to ask kids to reflect on their learning by using the tired, '2 stars and a wish' or another old tried and true. To help you escape from this cycle of doom I have complied a list of ED-ucation Publishing's top 5 favorite resources for building reflection as a skill for learners.
Click on the images to link to the sites.

1. EASY BLOG JR. -EL3/4 (preschool)- Grade 5

Designed by teachers for elementary and early childhood classes, its simple interface ensures that children as young as 4 are able to easily post photos, video and voice-over-photos to Blogger. Older users can also publish text based posts. This app is perfect for kids to blog about things that worked, ideas they have for the future and goals they would like to set. As an early learning teacher I absolutely love this app and the idea of blogging as a refection tool.

2. PLANT LOVE GROW -EL5 (Kindergarten)- Grade 5

By random chance I stumbled onto Plant Love Grow, and was smitten!
Elaheh Bos creates support tools and resources to assist parents, teachers and health professionals in order to guide, nurture, inspire, and become facilitators for change and growth. This site is FULL of free resources to print and use for kids to develop the skill of reflection- everything from Anger Management to Virtues.
Seriously, I love this site!

3. THE NEVER-ENDING MATHS TEST -Grade 1- Grade 5

Sometimes, before you start out it's nice to have an exemplar to read to kids. Jeff and I wrote this book to help teachers redefine success and help kids to understand that failing and making mistakes is an essential part of the learning journey. Reach kids with this funny book and help them become reflective. Available on Amazon now.

4. WEEBLY fOR EDUCATION -Grade 5 - grade 12

Websites are easy to create now! Just drag and drop to create a whole site complete with a blog for reflection.

Jeff and I power all our websites through Weebly, (and no we are not paid to promote them)- they are just super easy for kids to use!
This year I helped 15 Grade 5 students create websites for their PYP exhibition projects. Wouldn't it be cool if they continued that site as documentation (or a portfolio) of their learning journey all the way to graduation and beyond?

5. TWITTER -Age 13 and up...

Use Twitter to micro-blog. A single entry could consist of a sentence, fragment, an image or a brief, ten second video. A collection of these short micro-reflections could then be used to develop more in-depth reflections in a traditional blog entry.

Do you have a favorite tool to help students build the skill of reflection? Add it in the comments section and I am sure our community will benefit from the shared resources!!

Tosca Killoran