The following is an excerpt from: (Zoul, Jeffrey. 2006. Improving your school one week at a time. pp. 51-53).
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” Ancient Chinese proverb
“Teach a child content and he will pass a test. Teach a child HOW to learn all content and he will pass ALL tests.” Beth Richardson
A good teacher teaches students how to become their own teacher. Remember that the highest level of learning is evidenced by being able to teach someone else. We not only need to deliver content to students, but also to teach them how to learn the content. Helping them identify strategies for learning teaches them to be lifelong learners. This is teaching them how to learn anything that comes their way in the next 50 years.
One way to help students is to teach them how to self-reflect on their own learning.
How do we do this?
1. Guide the students in asking them to discuss questions with each other like:
- Did I make the grade I wanted?
- Did the learning stick?
- Do I need to do something else for myself to make the knowledge stick?
- Could I use this strategy at home when studying for a social studies test? Science test? French test?
2. Attach a self-reflection sheet with each assignment:
- Describe the learning objectives of this assignment
- How did you meet these objectives?
- What areas do you need to improve on?
- What strategies will you implement to improve in this area?
(Zoul, Jeffrey. 2006. Improving your school one week at a time. pp. 51-53).
If you use strategies that encourage formal self-reflection on learning in your classes, please share here. If you do not use this strategy yet, please offer a way that you hope to encourage future self-reflection on learning objectives by students.