Portfolo Assessment: Reflective Utterances

In my last post, I detailed the types of non-reflective utterances my students made while presenting their portfolios to me last month. This post is all about the types of reflective utterances they made.

1. Process – Reflective Type - The student reflects on his own personal process in completing the assignment. "This is my character sketch and this was a really difficult assignment for me. I had a lot of trouble starting and thinking about what I wanted my character to be like." This differs from its non-reflective counterpart in that it discusses the student’s own process and the student reflects on the positive and negative experiences he had with the piece of writing.
2. Criterion-Based Assessment – The student compares his work to criteria discussed in      class. "I did well on my character sketch because I was able to show how my character was mean instead of telling the reader he was mean." He may or may not point to evidence in the text; being able to point to specific examples in the text that correspond to the criteria is preferred and considered more reflective.
3. Growth Over Time – The student compares two different pieces of work and shows how one is better by comparing it to a previous piece of work that was not as good. "You can see here that I did better with my freewriting because this first piece of freewriting in September I couldn't write nonstop, but in December you can see that I wrote non-stop for the entire 15 minutes."

Like I said in the last post, all students made non-reflective utterances to some degree. But, the more reflective a student was during the presentation, the more likely he made utterances that corresponded to the above.  

My next step is to develop lesson plans that I can give my students in June in preparation for their second portfolio presentation. Here lies a conundrum – I can teach them to speak more reflectively, but can I make them more reflective learners? In other words, if a student isn’t thinking about his work and what he’s learning to begin with, will he ever be able to speak reflectively? One would assume not.

If that is the case, I can help the emerging reflective learners (I’ll post later about types of reflective learners) talk more reflectively and give words to what they see in their work. But, how do I help the non-reflective learners do the thinking and reflecting in the first place. Is that something you can teach?  

The issue seems related to making students more “student-y” (a word of my own creation). When they are teenagers, can a teacher reverse the pattern of resisting learning and school? What does it take to do so? Surely there is anecdotal evidence to say that we can. I can think of a couple of students who’ve turned it round and became more student-y. But, I have more stories of students who never did that. What conditions have to occur for it to happen and what obstacles are in place against those who never make that transition?

Will a student ever learn to be more reflective when he doesn’t care about school or learning? It seems like a prerequisite. Or, perhaps helping students to do more reflective thinking about their work will help them care more about school and learning.  Perhaps the problem is that they are so detached from any kind of learning that occurs in the class that it’s no surprise they don’t care.  Maybe teaching students to be more reflective and look at their learning can help the resistant students be more engaged in what’s going on.

Comments

[Bronwyn G]

Yes you can, Mr Frederick. Of course you can. Many many teachers have had great successes in making students more student-y, and helping teenagers not resist school so much.

I agree: when you reflect on the process of a task, it does make you care more. It can make you proud and happy because you realise you never had that in you before. And it leads to more learning and more effective learning.

I would love to see all their portfolios and maybe make comments. Do they do work more frequently than the folios indicate, or do they select their best work, or work which best shows their development?

[Nani]

This post and the last are very interesting. I hope you don't mind if I share them with my colleagues. You've given me a lot to think about!

[GEB]

Thank you for both of your posts on reflective learning. It reminds me of the importance of being reflective myself about my own work, and modeling that reflective thinking for my students. Bronwyn's comments are most meaningful. Is Bronwyn a student in your class?

[Bronwyn G]

Hello Geb!

As you might see from clicking on my blog if you can, I am actually in Australia.

It would be nice to be a teacher assistant in Mr Fredrick's class.

I look forward to reading much more about reflective learners and comparing and contrasting my own practice, and picking up tips so I can be a more reflective learner for life.

[graycie]

I agree with Nani and Bronwyn, wholeheartedly. I would like to use the analysis of comments with my kids, and have them write a short response to one of their own pieces. May I?

[Stephen Lazar]

Tim - Thanks for taking the time toput this together. Your data set has been incredibly helpful for my thoughts about teaching reflection. I posted more on my blog.