In a conscious attempt during the last two or three years to include high impact teaching practices as part of the courses I teach here at MSU, I have my students write reflections on their individual assignments each week, team reflections for their three collaborative projects, and an individual semester reflection during Week 15. Here are the guidelines I provide each week to help individual students (or student learning teams) craft their reflections:
Guidelines for Writing an Effective Reflection and Self-Critique
- For your team-based project reflection that is part of this assignment – or individually written semester reflection — develop and refine two FULL pages in which you discuss the following:
- For you introduction, describe the project in general and your respective activities associated with it.
- Briefly describe the projects, process and skills you will talk about.
- Explain three aspects of the project that your team members found most enjoyable and why.
- Explain three processes used for the project described above. Describe how the processes were challenging and rewarding for your team members.
- What are one or possibly two things you might change about your contribution to the project in question. Why?
- Explain three skills your various team members gained or improved upon during the semester. These do not have to relate to what you have discussed already, but they can.
- Describe why you find these new or improved skills interesting, useful, enjoyable, and/or challenging.
- If there was a problem of some kind, how might you handle it more proactively next time around?
- In your conclusion, do not simply summarize what you have already said. Answer the implied “So, what?” question.
- Leave yourself (and your reader) with something to think about.
- Remember, this is not a forum to complain about other members of your team, assignments, the course, the instructor, or previous grades. Your team should reflect on its work habits, processes, and related choices made.
In addition to the guidelines above, I have also embedded a brief video from Essay Pro into each weekly course module, which includes additional explanation and examples of what reflective essays are and how to write them. Here is the link for those who might be interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH5W0iaayRo