The Reflection Response is the most important part of this assignment. I explain to the students that “reflection is an important part of learning because it helps you to get a sense of your own progress, motivations, and interests. It will also help me to support your goals. Our mutual collaboration is essential for you to find success.” There are questions which cover all 10 of my practices by examining each of the three types of assessments. They tell me to what level have they met each of the standards (practices) and what their best evidence is.  I ask them to expound on their strengths and challenges in each setting (lab, checkpoints, and project).  (Here is a copy if you’d like to see it in detail). My favorite responses came from  the following four questions about their overall learning and progress:

1. Overall, what have you realized about yourself as a learner? What are your learning needs? How do you learn best? Where do you struggle?
2. Is there anything going on that is affecting your performance in this class? These might be things that you are proud of, causing challenges or distractions in your life, or things particularly in our classroom.
3. The assessment approach in this class is meant to give you the power and opportunity to earn whatever grade you are willing to work for. What grade have you earned so far, using the grade translation chart? Is it an accurate reflection of your accomplishments? Why or why not? If not, what should your semester grade be? Justify your answer with evidence. Be specific and bring the printed evidence with you to your conference.
4. What questions do you have for me? These can be requests for things I could do to help you better learn, they might be more personal questions or concerns… If I can answer, I will.

As it is very detailed and lengthy, I gave them some class time to work on this. Before I met with each student, I read over their responses, making notes about things I wanted to discuss as well as any areas where their evaluations disagreed with mine. While it was an investment in time on both my part and students, just reading what they wrote was interesting!  I especially enjoyed the responses to the last few questions, where they told me about their overall successes and struggles. I learned something new about nearly every student.

“One of the things I have realized is that I learn best when I sit with my friends. Although people may argue it is a distraction, me and my friends feel comfortable asking each other questions and we are all very helpful to each other. We teach one person how to do something when someone doesn’t understand. Additionally, I have learned that I do best when I go to extra help and go through problems at the pace I want to, asking all of the questions that I have. I have realized that as a learner I struggle with picking up definitions quickly, and it takes me a couple of weeks to really get them to stick in my head, but I am working on this by making quizlets and reviewing every couple of days.” [Sophie] 

“In the last couple months there has been a lot of struggle at home. My mother was recovering from a post-cancer surgery and my father broke his ankle. I had to step it up and help out a lot more around the house.” [Anthony]

And sometimes I found out about a misconception that needed to be addressed. During our face-to-face meeting, I was able to straighten out issues like this one, which is very common:

“The lack of a letter or number grade is affecting my performance as I’m used to having a number on Genesis that I can look at and know that I need to either improve and focus more on the class, or if I’m doing just fine and I can focus on other classes or after school activities. The lack of there being anything in Genesis for me to see consistently and actually understand what it means for my grade and how I’m doing in the class is preventing me from really focusing and knowing what I need to spend more time on.” [Rebecca]

This complaint is a common one, encountered by anyone trying to decouple grades from feedback. You may think that I am undermining my own claim to success by reporting this out, but I think that it is important to show how insidious this thinking is and how hard it is to shift the conversation. I was not surprised by the comment itself, but by who said it. I would never have thought that Rebecca was dealing with this confusion if I hadn’t given her the space and freedom to communicate with me.

When each student came for their meeting, we discussed their overall performance, both strengths and weaknesses. I specifically brought up the skills where our estimations of their achievement levels disagreed. Honestly, this didn’t happen often. When it did, sometimes I was convinced by their evidence and sometimes I wasn’t. Regardless, I showed each student how to use the grade translation (explained in detail on this blog post), discussed future goals, brainstormed next steps, and talked about their hobbies, clubs, and interests outside of class.

With each student, I discussed how to use the grade translation. Often, I had students walk me through so I could hear if they understood the process. With some students, it can be difficult to elicit more than a few words at a time due to shyness, insecurity, or anxiety. In those cases, I may take the lead to guide them through interpreting their current performance. Luke is a student with whom I have been struggling to connect all year. He speaks in a voice barely audible at times, and I was thrilled that he sat with me for five whole minutes! Here is an excerpt from our conversation. (Dialogue edited for clarity only.)

Naramore: What I’m going to do is when I have the rest of these scores, I’m going to see if they are below, meeting or exceeding the target levels. This column has the target levels. These two would be 1 below because they were supposed to be proficient and you earned Developing. So far you’re 1 below on these other practices and you’ve met this one.

Luke: OK 

Naramore:  So that would mean as of now, you have 7 practices at one below target level. In order to get an A in this class, you have to be on target for all of them. 

Luke: Right, that makes sense.

Naramore: So if you have earned one skill at one level below, that’s an A minus. And it scales down from there. So, using this chart, if you’re 6 to 10 skills at one level off target, which is where you are, that’s a B minus. If you can get four to five skills, that would be B. What do you think? Does that seem accurate?

Luke:  Yes, better than I expected.

Naramore: According to your own estimate [from his reflection page], you would be here [pointing to the goal setting chart] at the highest and this would be the lowest. You would get a B minus because you have earned one level off target on 6-10 skills.

Luke: OK, so I wanna get at least developing on all of these.

Naramore: So make sure you know what that is. Do you need clarification on how to do that?

Luke: Shakes his head no.

Naramore: I think you’ve come a long way, even in the past month. What’s your sense?

Luke: Yeah, I agree.

While this may seem like I was pulling teeth and very much leading the conversation (which I was!), this represented more words from Luke than I had ever gotten! As difficult as it was, it represented significant progress. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Brianna is a student who engages during class, usually comes prepared, and responds well to conversational prompts. I had a great time hear about her future goals. (Dialogue edited for clarity only.)

Naramore: And how’s physics been going? 

Brianna:  It’s been going, honestly, not terrible. It’s been going good.  I expected this year to be really hard. I was like, really nervous for physics because I did well in chemistry. But it has been better than I expected. 

Naramore: OK good. What were you thinking it was going to be like? 

Brianna: Honestly, I thought I wasn’t gonna understand the concept of everything but I feel like I’ve learned a lot like on it.

Naramore: Do you have any idea what you want to do in college?

Brianna: Yeah business and marketing probably. 

Naramore: So what makes you want to do that?

Brianna:  When I was younger, I had my own little business off to the side. And I really enjoyed it. It was like jewelry-making and then when COVID came out I started to make mask holders, like beaded stuff.  I had a whole Etsy thing, with advertising, and like I did pretty well. It’s something I like doing! 

Naramore: You stopped doing it?

Brianna: Yeah because school got too much in the way, and sports. During COVID year it was so free, there were half days of school and no sports, nothing really to do. So I did a lot, but then I had to stop it because school got overwhelming, and sports were like full time. But I I did it, it was good while it was going on. 

Naramore: That’s interesting because you’re actually going into it because you have already done a little, you have the experience. 

Brianna: Yeah, it was really fun and I’m excited about it.

Monica is probably one of my favorite students this year. She is cheerful, loves a challenge, and completely gets what I’m trying to do. It’s not easy for her, but she is always willing to try. When she is not confident in her attempts and finds that she was correct, she is ebullient! It is so contagious and adds a lot of positivity to the classroom.

Naramore: So how’s physics going? 

Monica: I think that I’m feeling a lot more confident about it. But definitely in the beginning of the year, I felt very uneasy about projects, labs and stuff. But I feel like now I’m coasting through. I feel OK! 

Naramore: So what changed? 

Monica: I think doing the prelab definitely helped me. I feel like I understand the units. I feel like it’s kind of gotten a lot easier to manage the workload and stuff. It’s kind of natural for me now. I feel like I can work the software during the lab and I  have become better at Excel. I just kind of like knowing what’s expected of me. It’s kind of easier to achieve that. 

Naramore: So you feel like you’re getting to understand the processes that we go through? 

Monica: In class, we know like this is what we do on this type of day and this is what we do on that type of day. 

At the close of each meeting, I asked, “Is there anything that I am doing that isn’t working for you? Is there anything I can do better, to better support your goals?” Most students paused, as if baffled that I would ask that question. They thought, and then responded by acknowledging that what I was doing was fine, but they needed to make some changes, at which point I would dig into why. Some of them listed some of their favorite things we do, such as Pear Decks, Kahoots, or projects, saying they were effective for them. Some would list things they were struggling with, like learning the vocabulary or interpreting graphs. I could give them suggestions as needed, or more frequently, reassure them that they were exactly where they were supposed to be and I would be providing assistance on leveling up during the next unit.  When I asked about the quantity of homework and how much time they spent doing physics at home, no one said that it was unreasonable. They appreciated the flexibility that this system afforded. Some did bring up the difficulty in motivating themselves to do homework when it isn’t graded. So then we discussed that issue and some possible strategies, such as setting a timer or doing it first thing when they got home instead of postponing until late at night. The conversations went in so many interesting directions, tailored to each student’s needs and concerns.  

Taking the time for this reflective practice is well worth it, for the students and for me.  I feel so much more confident about the direction that my class is moving in when I understand the students’ needs. Knowing the students more deeply as individuals enriches our relationship, and allows me to provide more differentiation. Starr Sackstein, author of Hacking Assessment, says:

“As we empower students to share their ideas about how and what they have taken away from different learning experiences, we gain a deeper knowledge of our practice and how to improve both instruction and feedback for every child. Once students have begun to reflect regularly, the level of their work naturally develops with the practice.” [2] 

In addition, it forces students to look at their body of work and see patterns. This supports their honest evaluation of their own learning over time, and they can see if their efforts are in line with and supporting their goals or not. Reflection leads students to take more ownership of their learning, more accurately reflect on their performances, and practice self-awareness and self-management. Accurate reflection can also lead to a more accurate appraisal of one’s abilities, leading to a more accurate self-perception.[3]  With all the talk of college and career readiness as the primary goal of high school, what could possibly serve them better?  Luke, referenced in the conversation above, wrote in his reflection:

“A few of these things we may have already discussed but I do want to reiterate them so we can communicate and understand each other more. I don’t work well when seated too close to the teacher, it makes me nervous and I can’t focus on work. I think your effort in trying to improve upon the schooling system is very admirable, self reflection and stuff is good. Some other teachers don’t do that.” 

This gave me a window into his thinking that no conversation could have, because I cannot get him to talk to me, beyond sentence fragments. Not only did I better understand why he was doing less when I moved his seat up front, I also saw that he appreciated and understood what I am attempting to accomplish. I would never have known either of these things. This has deepened our relationship, in my opinion; as evidenced by how he has begun to purposefully walk past me each day as he leaves the classroom, saying “Have a good day!” That one change makes it worthwhile, in my eyes!

Do you incorporate reflection into your classes regularly? What’s your experience? If not, what stops you from implementing such activities? Let me know in the comments below!