I have fallen into a rut of sorts lately. I have gotten so caught up in the mundane day to day tasks of being an administrator that I have been forgetting to learn. Well actually I have been forgetting to process what I learn. A while back I posted about balance in one’s life and I have not been taking my own advice.
When I go into a classroom to watch a lesson as an administrator, I always look for opportunities in the lesson for the student (and the teacher) to be reflective about what they are doing. The might reflect on the lesson in general or on a specific learning objective, but the reflection piece is where the processing happens and when processing is allowed, students are able to transfer knowledge form one class to another. Too often this important piece of the learning process is forgotten in favor of “moving on.”
In all fairness, it is incredible hard these days to get everything accomplished in a lesson while you are trying to navigate a classroom of 25+ kids who all have different needs and who all learn at a different pace. However, there is a question that is consistently asked whenever a group of educators get together to discuss learning and that question is, “why don’t the concept we are teaching in one class or during one year, transfer to the students other classes and tranfer into succeeding years?” One of the most plausible answer that I have hear is that there is no time for processing and if there was time for processing information, most kids don’t have the skills nessecary to do it effectively for themselves.
So how do we teach kids how to be reflective?
First we must model the behavior and be reflective ourselves. Secondly, we need to provide them with opportunity and authentic activities that promote and teach reflective behavior.
Reflection is part of a process and along with providing opportunity to be reflective and the tools to do it effectively, we as educators have to consistanly explain the importance of the process of learning.
