Dive Brief:

• Giving students a chance to reflect on what they did right or wrong on an assignment can help them boost their confidence and potentially improve their performance, writes Idaho high school teacher Anna Durfee for Edutopia.
• Durfee’s students at Compass Academy in Idaho Falls spend time talking about what they learned from a project, discussing what they think they could have done differently while learning from each other.
• The key is asking students to talk first about the work and how they completed it, and then ask them to scrutinize the end result.

Dive Insight:

Carving more time for activities during an already packed class period is tough. Teachers already feel pressured to pack enough learning material into the 40 or so minutes they have in front of students. Yet giving students the opportunity to reflect on their work may not only boost their academic performance, but their empathy for each other.

Students who express empathy are “less likely to bully,” according to the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common Project. In its guidelines, the project encourages schools to help students learn how to listen to their peers, as well as shift the school culture away from the idea of success and failure.

Curriculum administrators could adjust class schedules or make self-reflection a required part of curriculum. These sessions may not only boost retention but build a more empathetic learning environment for all.