Sample of Learner's Work and Feedback

Looking at the Best of Students Work

“Reflective learners assimilate new learning, relate it to what they already know, adapt it for their own purposes, and translate thought into action. Over time, they develop their creativity, their ability to think critically about information and ideas, and their metacognitive ability (that is, their ability to think about their own thinking).”

By sharing their reflections on their academic work, students can both advise and seek help from their peers. Sharing their achievements helps those who struggled with that particular task, and sharing their weak spots helps them troubleshoot as they work through a problem set or have a peer edit a rough draft. When children are first learning to reflect on their work, their educators use simple prompts to get them thinking: Do you like what you made? Did you do a good job? Eventually, they are also asked to consider the process: What did you learn from this task? Usually these questions are posed by an outsider—a parent or a preschool teacher, for example—who asks the learner for a simple assessment of the outcome. Metacognitive reflection, however, takes this process to the next level because it is concerned not with assessment, but with self-improvement: Could this be better? How? What steps should you take? As a result, metacognitive reflection can be used to develop resilience in the face of a challenge. Many young children (and some adults) will throw down their work when they become frustrated with it, unable to transcend the struggle. By contrast, a student who has learned the value of metacognitive reflection will recognize frustration as a signal to pause and think through the situation instead of ploughing ahead with the same approach or giving up entirely.