Reflecting in five steps

• Step 1: choose an experience to analyze

  To reflect properly, students first need to choose a concrete example to analyze. This is usually a personal experience, such as a decision, a conversation, an unexpected event, or an assignment they worked on during class or at home.

• Step 2: look back at the experience

  Once an experience has been chosen, it is time to describe it in detail. To do this, students answer the following four questions thoroughly: 

  • What did I see? 
  • What did I do? 
  • What did I want? 
  • What did I feel?

• Step 3: becoming aware

  Step 3 is all about awareness. Here, the student tries to understand why they acted the way they did in this situation and what that means. This is a demanding step that requires considerable effort, but it also yields the most insights. It is important to take time and reflect carefully. To support students and give them something to hold on to, you can share the following questions for deeper reflection: 

  • What is the problem or positive discovery? 
  • What factors led to this? 
  • What did that mean for me? 
  • What does this say about my strengths and points for improvement?

• Step 4: set learning points for the future

  Once students have analyzed the experience thoroughly and arrived at insights, they look ahead. How can they learn from the experience going forward? Thinking this through enables them to work on improvement and growth. Ask your students to consider the following questions: 

  • What went well? 
  • In what other ways could I have handled this? 
  • What are the pros and cons of those other ways? 
  • What do I want to do differently next time? 

  This is where students make an action plan for how they want to handle a similar situation next time.

• Step 5: put what you have learned into practice and reflect again

  The final step is taking action. Here, students apply what they learned in the previous four steps. How did the new experience go when they put their learning into practice? Did it go as expected? Are there new insights? Was the intended result achieved, or is there more to be gained? Students find this out by going through the steps above once more. Growing and learning requires more than one moment of reflection. Encourage them to make these steps a regular habit, so that it eventually becomes second nature and they continue to work on themselves.