![\"year-end](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/reflection.jpg\")
<\/a>This past spring, a small group of Stowe Middle School students gathered to help their teachers and peers solve a problem. As students worked on independent interest projects, they periodically reflected on their learning. All were interested in finding ways to make this reflection meaningful, for both students and teachers.<\/span><\/p>\nBut what does meaningful reflection look like? And how can we scaffold exercises that create<\/em> meaningful reflection?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Making thinking visible allows for just-in-time supports from teachers, peers, and mentors. It helps move the work forward by establishing next step goals. For example, Stowe students use this Reflection Brainstorm: what, so what, now what?<\/a>\u00a0to help direct them toward meaningful thinking. In addition, they reflect midway through the project by creating screencast videos answering these reflection questions:<\/p>\n Students and teachers were willing to commit to reflection as a key component of self-directed learning, yet were struggling with the tool adopted by the school, Blogger, as a means for students to share their thinking. A possible solution: using the digital portfolio tool Protean to capture, share, and celebrate process.<\/p>\n I set out, after being inspired by this post on the why, what, and how of Reflecting for Learning <\/a>\u00a0to dive into reflecting upon reflection.\u00a0The crew and I started our work by looking at this image and asking ourselves:<\/p>\n Finally, together we discussed this John Dewey quote. Was it an assumption all of us at Stowe Middle agreed upon?<\/p>\n Reflective learners assimilate new learning, relate to what they already know, adapt it for their own purposes & translate thought into action. Over time learners develop creativity, think critically & use metacognition. (Dr. Jeni Wilson)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We agreed the above definition got at the core of what we were aiming for.\u00a0 So, to get us primed to think about active and reflective thinking, I was inspired by Sylvia Tolisano\u2019s post <\/a> where she argues we have to start looking for and capturing our own learning, and sometimes we need help doing so:<\/p>\n “It reminds me of the FedEx logo. It was not until I read\u00a0Daniel Pink<\/a>\u2018s book \u201cA Whole New Mind<\/a>, where he pointed out the white arrow pointing towards the right that is part of the logo.<\/em><\/p>\n Same thing might happen when we reflect on learning. Sometimes it is invisible to us, unless someone else was able to make it visible for us, then it becomes crystal clear and we wonder how we did not see it before?”<\/em><\/p>\n We approached thinking about thinking by looking together at the following optical illusion. We shared our processes for seeing differently, and asked:\u00a0how can making thinking visible help us a collaborators of learning get the most of a learning experience?<\/p>\n We immediately confronted the notion that to share our learning, we needed to not only reflect, but also had to share artifacts or \u2018hard evidence\u2019 of learning to invite others into our thinking process. In the past, in Blogger, students wrote or recorded voice reflections, some of which might not be grounded in documented evidence. But when adding a \u201cLearning\u201d into your Protean account, the first step is to upload evidence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The intent of documentation is to explain, not merely display. Documentation is an action<\/em> in process, not aproduct. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And the questions we grappled with now shifted to include:<\/p>\n What should learning look like? We need to do a better job in knowing what to look for, how to capture learning, reflect on what we see (or the lack of), share these artifacts and amplify the learning with the world. #documenting4learning<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/lGMuzcAwGD<\/a><\/p>\n — Documenting4Learning (@doc4learning) April 12, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nMeaningful reflection is visible reflection<\/h2>\n
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Our challenge<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Stowe-Protean-300x225.jpg\")
\nA group of ten 6th & 8th grade students gathered weekly to\u00a0help test drive Protean<\/a> with the goal of providing feedback about how well it met the goals we established. The outcome would be a recommendation to the district technology director, the principal, and ultimately the faculty about adopting the tool school-wide.<\/p>\nOur journey<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Thinker.jpeg\")
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Next, I shared these quotes, and asked students to silently reflect upon them.<\/h4>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Dewey-Reflection.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nEncouraging reflective thought & action<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/langwitches.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/fedex_logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>I had never been aware of that arrow before, until Daniel Pink had made it visible for me.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/langwitches.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/fedex_logo_-_Google_Search.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a><\/p>\nOptical illusions<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/angel-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe importance of evidence<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Protean-Evidence-1024x201.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/documenting-learning-1024x579.png\")
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