High Tech Reflection Strategies

When reading about George Mayo I was immediately drawn to his use of blogging to help his students practice their writing skills. He talked about the importance of his students being able to track and reflect on their own growth and progress. So much so that it had an impact on one student named Sam. Sam had asked if he could continue to use this classroom blog for his own personal use which was Mayo’s goal from the beginning….to have his students use this technology and reflecting process to build a deeper meaning. He said that it helped him to see how he changed as a writer. Reading about this reminded me of a middle school experience when I had learned about how to use power point in science class. Using this technology in school made science fun and motivating. It made me want to use a computer and definitely helped to build my confidence in science.

Thinking back to that experience and reading this article as an adult, still a student, and a teacher it all feels very relatable. Boss discusses so much of the importance of reflection and what it means to learn something. She goes on to ask, if a student just does a project and doesn’t reflect on it what does it tell you the student learned. Unfortunately she also notes that when teachers are crunched for time they take out a reflection portion to meet their own requirements or move on to something new. She states how critical a piece reflection is to learning. As an undergraduate student my focus was in psychology where I read theoretical research and wrote papers. After graduating I always felt that it didn’t prepare me to use the research in my everyday life or career. As a graduate student at Bank Street, I feel the complete opposite. Bank Street understands the different learning styles that we all have as learners and educators and welcomes them. In every class I have taken it has been a required part of an assignment to reflect on the process and how it helped me or didn’t. It is discussing these experiences that bridges what I learn in class at Bank Street to my own classroom as a teacher.

As someone who has always struggled with the writing process and what is correct, class discussions have always been much more beneficial and just easier. The high tech approaches that Boss discusses are definitely tools that I would have benefited from as a student (still probably could) and would think to use in my classroom as an educator. She talked about the use of “video confessionals” which while I was reading thought of reality TV before she even mentioned it in the next paragraph. I think that this would be a fantastic tool for so many students who struggle with writing. Speaking as a teacher and from personal experience, a reflection should come from within and really address the process and end results of learning. These high tech strategies really help students to focus on just that and not let another form of expression (such as writing) interfere with their process. I think that more and more teachers should really try to understand the benefits of technology based reflections and implement as many of these strategies as they can.