Self-reflection of teaching development over time and how this relates to future goals

Modern society is becoming more complex, information is becoming available and changing more rapidly prompting users to constantly rethink, switch directions, and change problem-solving strategies. Thus, it is increasingly important to prompt reflective thinking during learning to help learners develop strategies to apply new knowledge to the complex situations in their day-to-day activities. Reflective thinking helps learners develop higher-order thinking skills by prompting learners to a) relate new knowledge to prior understanding, b) think in both abstract and conceptual terms, c) apply specific strategies in novel tasks, and d) understand their own thinking and learning strategies.

It is important to prompt reflective thinking in middle school children to support them in their transition between childhood and adulthood. During this time period adolescents experience major changes in intellectual, emotional, social, and physical development. They begin to shape their own thought processes and are at an ideal time to begin developing thinking, learning, and metacognitive strategies. Therefore, reflective thinking provides middle level students with the skills to mentally process learning experiences, identify what they learned, modify their understanding based on new information and experiences, and transfer their learning to other situations. Scaffolding strategies should be incorporated into the learning environment to help students develop their ability to reflect on their own learning.

When students are faced with a perplexing problem, reflective thinking helps them to become more aware of their learning progress, choose appropriate strategies to explore a problem, and identify the ways to build the knowledge they need to solve the problem. The KaAMS model of PBL incorporates various components to prompt students’ reflective thinking during the learning process. The lesson plans:

-Provide teacher questions designed to prompt students to identify and clarify overall and subordinate problems.
-Provide many opportunities to engage students in gathering information to look for possible causes and solutions.
-Provide ideas and activity sheets to help students evaluate the evidence they gather.
-Provide questions that prompt students to consider alternatives and implications of their ideas.
-Provide questions and activities that prompt students to draw conclusions from the evidence they gathered and pose solutions.
-Provide opportunities for students to choose and implement the best alternative.
-Encourage students to monitor and reevaluate their results and findings throughout the entire unit.

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