Build Reflective Learning into the Portfolio Process

The cover letter or memo students submit with each portfolio requires significant reflection. It usually comes at the end of a portfolio process. Formal reflective writing like this can provide a capstone for what students have learned during a sequence or project. However, strong, thoughtful reflection cannot be expected without practice. Students need to develop a habit of reflection throughout the whole portfolio process. Habits can’t be forced, but they can be encouraged from early in the class. One way to encourage strong reflective habits is to build reflective talk, assignments, and class activities into the course schedule.

Reflective writing can be introduced in the first few weeks of the semester simply by asking students to describe and analyze their prior experiences with writing. After reflection is introduced, students can be asked to examine their understanding of writing as a matter of course — in class discussions, in freewriting exercises, and as part of assignments. Reflective talk forms a natural part of conferencing, peer group discussions, and class discussions of common experiences with writing.

In addition, try out a few formal or informal, in-class and ongoing reflective activities, like the ones that follow. The simpler activities can be used to build up to the more complex ones.

In-class guided reflections: Students respond in writing to a list of questions that encourage them to make connections with prior experiences, current understandings, and contrasting views. Often short guided in-class reflections can help to introduce class discussions. Likewise, guided reflections at the end of a class can help students consider how to incorporate class discussions into the ongoing theorizing of their own writing.

Modeling of reflective writing: After a collaborative in-class writing activity, the teacher might create a thoughtful reflection on the activity together with students.

Reflective Journals: Students may keep ongoing logs of their writing or research process, accounts of challenges/advantages of collaborative work, notes and comments on in-class discussions that could be shared with peers, posts in response to peer questions on a discussion board, brief responses to class readings and their relevance to students’ understanding of major course concepts or their own writing-in-progress, etc.

Heuristics for formal reflection: Lists of questions to prompt reflection can work well to give students guidance on the formal writer’s memos. How students can/should selectively use these questions to focus their reflection will need to be discussed in class.