Middle Years

Learning from reflecting on experience  

This week the Year 8s successfully completed their first "You Only Live Once" (YOLO) day, surfing and stand-up paddle boarding, and the Year 9s completed their first Year 9 Experience in the Grampians (a slightly modified version due to weather conditions). While both groups completed different activities with different outcomes, both year levels were encouraged to reflect upon their experiences to learn from these out-of-classroom activities.  

“We do not learn from experience …. We learn from reflecting on experience.” -  John Dewey, educational theorist

Allowing students time to reflect upon their experiences allows them to step back from what they are learning and develop their critical thinking skills by analysing their experiences to improve on future performances. 

Being a reflective learner makes learning a more conscious and efficient process. It helps students become active learners by encouraging them to ask questions and think critically about their experiences. While this can be a private process it can also be encouraged by making the reflective process specific and explicit. Below are a series of questions we used with both the Year 8 and Year 9 students this week: 

1. What happened during my experience? And why did it happen? 
2. What was my role in the success/failure of the experience? And why did I adopt that role? 
3. What were my feelings during that experience? And why did I feel that way? 
4. What were my thoughts during that experience? And why did I think that way? 
5. How do I interpret what I experienced? 
6. What might this experience mean in the context of my program (YOLO or Year 9 Experience)? 
7. How might others interpret my/our experience? 
8. How can I learn from this experience? 

I do hope that all Year 8 and 9 students not only had fun this week, but that they were also able to learn from their experiences through reflection.