Journey Summary
This session will allow you to use a Critical Friends Group (CFG) approach to reflect on your experiences in planning and implementing a Problem-based Learning (PBL) experience OR to reflect on your experience with selecting and implementing strategies to support the needs of learners. You will consider how the Critical Friends Group approach is appropriate for your students. You will also write a reflection for your “eMINTS Reflective Journal” and collect artifacts that support your story.
Curriculum-framing Questions
Essential Question
- How might reflection alter learning?
Unit Questions
- How can a Critical Friends Group support teachers in lesson design?
- How might the use of data and artifacts support lesson design and revision?
Content Questions
- What is a Critical Friends Group?
- What benefits could students gain from a Critical Friends Group?
Introduction
Self-reflection is an important strategy for both teachers and students to build upon our performance and expand our learning. Reflection facilitates both sense-making and metacognition (thinking about one’s thinking). Reflection helps us think abstractly about our learning by identifying patterns and making connections between ideas. Reflection around metacognition helps make the processes involved in thinking visible so that we are better able to apply higher-level thinking to new situations. A Critical Freinds Group (CFG) can be used in the planning phase of a lesson or after implementation to support the construction and application of quality learning experiences. Establishing and using group norms can ensure a structured and respectful environment for constructive feedback and collaboration.
Theory Behind Practice
All eMINTS materials are grounded in research-based best practices in K-12 education.
Digging Deeper
Agenda
- Opener: Dubious Doodling
- Sharing with Critical Friends
- Reflecting on an Experience
- Reflecting on Your eMINTS Journey
- Closer: Doodle Debrief
Classroom Visit w/Students
Ask your facilitator to observe a Critical Friends Group (CFG) experience in your classroom and participate in a reflecting conversation.
Classroom Visit w/out Students
Ask for assistance with selecting and implementing strategies to support the needs of individual learners. Seek help with saving and linking artifacts to your Reflective Journal.
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