Why a Reflection Tool? Why reflect? We draw conclusions everyday from our experiences. Are our conclusions reasonable and helpful to us as we plan future experiences? How can we know? Through reflection we can assess our conclusions, actions and work process itself to further our personal and professional development.

The Tool. The reflection tool is designed for you to reflect on aspects of your teaching and thinking in just a few minutes time. The first question of each series, or question set, is listed below. When you click on the question, you are taken into a series of four or five questions, the first of which is the question you clicked on. The intent of the exercise is to help you bring what you care most about into your work thoughtfully and with understanding.

Find out more about how the tool works.

Choose Your Reflection Space

General Reflections on Education

What are we doing here? The following sets of questions can help you articulate your philosophy of education. When you are done, you can save your responses to the notepad in your backpack, e-mail them, print them, or share your thoughts with other teachers.

• What is education and who is it for?
• Who am I teaching?
• What should we be teaching?
• Why teach?
• Who teaches?

The following sets of questions can help you think about the atmosphere and design of your classroom.

• How do I want students to interact in my classroom?
• In what ways is it important for students to interact with the community in which they live?
• What resources should be available to my students?
• How can I use the wall space in my classroom to further active learning?

The following sets of questions can help you think about your work this week and this year ... What have you learned this week? What have you taught this week? How are you doing in your work? The questions posed in this section are designed to provide you with some space in which you can consider your own professional development.

• What was the most important thing I tried to teach my students this week?
• What is/are the most important thing(s) my students will learn from me this year?
• What did I learn from my students this week?
• What was I thinking?