Reflection within PAR

This week, we will complete our discussion on the PAR framework by talking about the reflection, or final, portion. Reflecting upon material allows for better retention and can encourage further learning on a topic. One of the main goals of the reflection phase is to allow for students to become autonomous learners, meaning that they become self-regulated. Once students begin to become autonomous learners, they are better at monitoring their level of comprehension throughout the readings and can alter their reading style to compensate if necessary. The reflection phase also allows for students to focus on communication, critical thinking, and critical literacy.

Often times, reflection can occur within groups. A common misconception lies between simple group work versus cooperative learning. While doing typical group work, the student works with others to complete a set of goals dictated by their teacher. Working in a cooperative learning holds students responsible for their own work but also responsible for making sure everyone in the group is getting the material. The effectiveness of cooperative learning lies in several different strategies: rehearsal, elaboration, organization, comprehension, and affective strategies.  These different stages can be achieved through several different activities discussed within the chapter.

Think-pair-share is a strategy that works as a rehearsal step. Students work individually with thought provoking questions then work with a partner to discuss their answers to these and maybe more questions in depth. As a group, the class then gets together to discuss what has been learned. Students are allowed to elaborate through activities such as paired reading and three-step interviews where they talk about a specific section of reading with a designated to help others learn about it. Graphic organizers are a great way to keep what has been read organized. Comprehension can be monitored through activities like rally table and numbered heads together. Rally table gives students an open-ended question and a paper is passed between the students giving everyone an opportunity to put an answer down for the question. In numbered heads together, students are given a number and asked a question. The students are placed into groups based on their numbers and the teacher will then call out a random number and call on a student given that number to answer the question. Lastly, some affective strategies include paired readings and discussion groups.

This chapter presented us with several different activities to use within the classroom to help students reflect on material that has been learned in the lesson. By following the full PAR framework, students should be able to grasp just about any information that has been presented to them. Visit the link below for another popular reflection strategy that was not discussed within the textbook.

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/student-goal-setting