The Benefits of Self-Reflection

By Mr Nick Moss, Assistant Principal Curriculum

Self-reflection is an important learning strategy we encourage our students to practise at Radford College. Embedded within our long-standing Self-Regulated Learning Project, self-reflection is a metacognitive process that allows our students to think about their thinking. Importantly, this process extends beyond the content that our students learn (i.e., the ‘what’) and includes a deliberate focus on the learning skills and dispositions our students need to retain, master and transfer knowledge (i.e., the ‘how’). Research tells us that self-reflection has numerous other benefits. These benefits include allowing our students to:

  • Understand how they learn and to practise thinking critically. This includes empowering our students to recognise their learning strengths and areas requiring greater attention.
  • Respond to positive and constructive feedback.
  • Set realistic and achievable learning goals.
  • Monitor their learning progress.
  • Ultimately become more independent and take ownership of their learning.

At Radford College, we explicitly teach and support our Secondary School students to reflect upon the ‘how’ via a variety of mechanisms. These mechanisms include our interim Approaches to Learning (ATLs), hurdle tasks embedded in summative assessment, formal Nexus self-reflections completed upon receipt of marked summative tasks, Parent-Student-Teacher Conversations, and our recently introduced Learning Summary reflections.

As detailed in my previous two Bulletin articles, we continue to expand our interim ATLs. This semester, all Secondary School students have self-assessed and self-reflected upon three ATL strands within our Self-Regulation and Social Management categories. Parents and caregivers are invited to view their child’s interim ATLs by logging into Nexus and clicking on their child’s grades. An ‘Approaches to Learning’ assessment task will be listed under each course their child is enrolled in with the exception of Year 7 and 8 trimester courses and Year 9 and 10 Study Skills.

All Year 7-11 students have also completed their Semester 1 Learning Summary Reflection and recently discussed this with their mentors. This reflection is also available on Nexus in the ‘Grades’ section under the mentor group course name. With Parent-Student-Teacher Conversations set to occur on Tuesday, 12 September and Monday, 19 September, it would be beneficial for parents/caregivers to read both of their child’s self-reflections beforehand.

Parent-Student-Teacher (PST) Conversations

As you would have seen, the PST Conservation PTO portal is live, and parents/caregivers are invited to make their bookings. Please review the Nexus post from 30 August for details and contact the Secondary School main reception at reception@radford.act.edu.au should you have any questions or issues. Based on the parent/caregiver feedback from last term’s survey, I would like to clarify the format and re-advertise some changes that have been made to our upcoming PST Conversations.

Like last year, both of this term's PST Conversation evenings will be in person, and your child is strongly encouraged to attend. The latter is particularly important and will empower your child to share their self-reflections in terms of their ATLs and achievements to date. Each conversation will run for five minutes.

The format of upcoming PST Conversations has changed from Semester 1. The conversation evenings on 12 September and 18 September will run from 3-7.30 pm, and the default PTO booking system now includes a break between bookings. This means that parents/caregivers will have six minutes to move to their next conversation rather than managing consecutive conversations. Should parents/caregivers want consecutive conversations or an alternate model of conversations, please select the ‘manual’ booking method. Additional signage will also be displayed on both evenings, which will include a list of rooms each staff member will be located in. Please note, there is not a walkway between Level 2 Morison and Level 2 Mackinnon.

I look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Parent-Student-Teacher Conversations.

Reporting on student learning

As per the Nexus post on Monday, 4 September, I encourage all parents/caregivers to complete the embedded survey on how we provide feedback for student learning in Years 7-12.

Sources:

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