After completing a unit of instruction, it is very important for students to be given an opportunity to reflect on their performance. A successful reflection opportunity enables a student to identify how they have grown, as well as what they can to do to improve their achievement.
When reflecting on their own work, an individual becomes more responsible for that work. When feedback is given to you, you can look at the feedback and consider it. When an individual sits back analyzes his/her own performance work and reflects on ways that they could have done better, he/she has the opportunity to consider the relationship between self-belief, performance, and personal goals. In most cases, someone else's critique of your work means less your own reasoned evaluation.
The reflection opportunity in this lesson is my effort to help my students feel better connected to their learning. It is my goal to help my students become reflective learners who care about their work and want to improve their work continually. For this reason, in today's reflections I will highlight the important role that intrinsic motivation plays in the learning process.
Today, I will have my students complete a Self-Assessment of their performance on the unit assessment. This data driven reflection will be followed by a reflective essay.
The final piece of today's lesson is for students to write a brief goal setting essay describing ways in which he/she can do to improve his/her performance in mathematics as a new unit of instruction begins.