Reflection Tools and Best Practices
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What is reflection?
Reflection is the process by which individuals understand the ways they learn from experiences, how they learn about themselves as learners, and how they use that understanding to improve their learning effectiveness. Reflection is a critical component of experiential learning opportunities.
Students who take the time to reflect will have a deeper understanding of their learning and take informed action.
Some best practices:
- Engage the student in continuous reflection as it allows them to get the most out of an experience.
- It is important to connect the reflection back to an experience or learning outcome so that students are able to contextualize their learning.
- Model the reflective process yourself so that students are able to learn from you and recognize that it is an important process in the workplace.
- In many cases, employers and organizations use the same reflections tools as staff and faculty to allow for comparison and consistency. View the reflection tools available for our staff and faculty online. Using these tools or connecting with us can be a good place to start.
- Show students what is expected of them if a reflective assignment is to be evaluated. Using rubrics can be helpful in this situation. The AAC&U value rubrics are a great resource for this.
Reflection tools:
