This week's tip comes out of an article from The Educationalist: Let's Pause for a Moment. In the article, Alexandra Mihai describes a number of ways to pause for reflection with students, from verbal pauses in class to multimedia reflections (An idea I love- why not let students reflect via video/audio recording?). I know that when I started teaching the idea of incorporating metacognition, along with all the content I had to cover, felt intimidating. After a few years, however, I found ways to incorporate reflection into the flow of my class, and use it as powerful tool. In addition to the ideas in the article, here's some ways I've had students reflect over the years in my writing classes:

Having students write an in-class reflective letter at the beginning of the semester
short, ungraded written reflections at the beginning of class
"thinking pauses" to consider a question before discussing with a partner or the whole class
time to re-read drafts in class, and write notes to themselves for revision
time to write brief, reflective notes on drafts before turning them in (what was the easiest/hardest part of writing this paper? Strongest/weakest part? Any questions for me?)
Time to go through notes/small assignments before starting a final draft
Small, low-stakes assignments that asked them to connect concepts from our readings to their real-life experience
Mid- or end-of-semester reflections on strengths, weaknesses, and areas of growth.

Happy Reflecting!

Abby Machson-Carter

Salem State Instructional Design Team

Center for Teaching Innovation

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