Teacher resources » Reflect and connect
Overview:
Reflection deepens understanding and creates connections to student learning across contexts and fosters higher level thinking skills. In this simple activity, students create a video to reflect on a learning moment.
These reflections can happen as part of an assessment portfolio, as part of a showcase at the conclusion of a unit project or inquiry based project, or simply as an ongoing, informal check for understanding. This activity integrates into any age and grade and helps make student thinking and learning visible throughout their learning process.
Keywords: Getting Started, Reflection, Assessment
Good for: Individual work, teams, first video projects
Grade level: K-12
Skill Level: Beginner
Student Instructions
Copy and paste the information below directly into the description box when creating your student assignment, or, use it as inspiration to make your own!
Using a webcam recording or a screencast, create a video that reflects your understanding of our [lesson, activity, project, or assessment] in a creative way. Before you begin:
- Think about the purpose of the video: what am I going to share about what I learned?
- For your video start by introducing yourself, then, state your purpose - why am I making this video.
- Then, share your thinking or your understanding of what you learned.
- After you have finished, go back and listen to your reflection. Record again if you need to!
- Drop your video into the editing timeline and submit your assignment.
Tips to help your instruction in this activity or help to get you started!
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If you have not used video for reflections this is a great activity to help unlock new and creative ways your students are able to express themselves, make their thinking processes visible, and learn from others.
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What could students reflect on? Projects, assessments, activities, portfolio pieces, daily classwork, homework, collaborative experiences.
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Providing question stems or questions for reflection helps to scaffold this activity for students who have trouble coming up with a script on their own. Using question stems or full questions for students to answer can also provide a kind of script for students to write beforehand. Check out some of these resources below.
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Create a visual for students to follow - can be a simple checklist or just displaying the questions you want students to answer.
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Make it collaborative! Pair students up and have students discuss their reflections with each other before recording.
Technical SkillsStudents Will… |
Academic SkillsStudents will… |
21st Century SkillsStudents will… |
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Getting Started: The variable nature of this activity will allow you to embed these quick assessments into your daily routines and practices to help both you and your students integrate video creation as an everyday objective for your class.
Reflection: Reflection is a powerful teaching and learning strategy that can be integrated into any classroom environment for the purposes of making student thinking visible in a creative way. Making reflection a routine part of your learning environment is essential to helping progress your students through activities, lessons, or units and help them on their way to mastery of a concept.
Assessment: This activity fits perfectly as an informal, formative assessment to give you an idea about where students are making or are not making progress in a lesson, activity, or unit. Depending on the topic and the subject matter area, this can help inform your future lessons to help your students along in their learning.
Other resources
Some example question stems for reflection: