The positive impact of reflection on learning is a long-established and accepted reality in psychology. As Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick put it, “To reflect, we must act upon and process the information, synthesizing and evaluating the data. In the end, reflecting also means applying what we’ve learned to contexts beyond the original situations in which we learned something.”

Reflection allows us to take new and discrete educational experiences and meld them with existing knowledge and a complex web of experiences. Reflection helps us cognitively process new information and experiences so that we can recall, apply, and synthesize them. 

To put it simply, reflection is what allows us to use the knowledge that we’ve gained. 

There are many ways to formalize the reflection process including portfolios, journal prompts, and peer activities (such as the popular “Think-Pair-Share.”)

These are all worthwhile and meaningful strategies, but reflection doesn’t always need to be a formal “event.” It can also be baked into our everyday interactions and embedded into our daily thinking practices.

Homeschoolers have a unique opportunity to bring reflection into our practices organically and conversationally. After all, we usually aren’t trying to get 20-30 students with their own individual processes to reflect simultaneously and finish before the bell rings.

Many of us also have the added advantage of being able to reflect across disciplines because our work isn’t always as rigidly separated as it can be in more traditional settings. This interdisciplinary reality means that homeschoolers have increased opportunities to reflect on and connect ideas across subjects and experiences.

The bottom line is that you want to build reflection into everyday learning experiences in a way that doesn’t feel like “busy work” or a hurdle to leap.

You can do that with some simple (though not necessarily easy) questions to encourage reflective thinking.

1. What went well?

This reflection question is especially important (and sometimes difficult) for perfectionists. It can sometimes be easier for them to be critical of their own performance, but being encouraged to take space and find what went right is equally (if not more) important.  

2. What do I want to do differently in the future?

Asking the question as a reflection on what can be done differently in the future subtly brings in the benefits of a growth mindset and channels tendencies toward self-criticism into a more productive framework. 

3. What would I have done if I had more time? 

This is a question I regularly ask my students to reflect on because it can help showcase the impact of procrastination for those who need it, but it can also help rein in all-or-nothing thinking about project expectations. The reality is that we don’t have endless time for our projects. We have multiple demands on our limited time in a day. Reflecting on what decisions we made because of time constraints can help us set up more realistic expectations for future projects, avoid procrastination when it threatens to limit us even more, and map out reasonable timelines for steps in the process. 

4. How did this experience connect with other experiences I’ve had? 

Knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, but it can sometimes feel that way when we close one textbook or online tab and move to the next. Educational subjects are often taught in isolation — even in a homeschooling setting where students may be more likely to have consistency across settings and teachers. Asking learners to think about how these experiences connect to others invites recognition of interdisciplinary overlap and helps them synthesize new knowledge with things they already know and are confident using in the world.