As institutions increasingly adopt project based learning (PBL) into their curriculums, understanding its key objectives is a must. Project based learning objectives are achieved through an experiential learning environment. This environment cultivates qualities like self-directed research, communication, and teamwork.

Some standard objectives of a project based learning curriculum are:

• Motivate better student engagement
• Create intrinsic motivation
• Allow students to practice 21st-century life skills
• Result in deeper student understanding of content and its application

However, even the best designed PBL experience can be ineffectual if it lacks one essential element: Reflection.

What do I Mean by Reflection?

Reflection is any mental process by which an experience is recalled, evaluated, analyzed, and applied in later action. Referring to the acronym READ can help to clarify the hierarchy of reflective thinking:

1. Recall – “What did I do?”
2. Evaluate – “How well did I do it?”
3. Analyze – “Are there any patterns? What can I learn from this?”
4. Direct – “How will I apply this moving forward?”

Note that reflection is different from analysis. Analysis is directed towards something outward, such as a course or concept. Reflection is directed inward, towards a learner’s reactions throughout an experience. It’s the difference between “How did this film portray poverty?” and “How did my opinions about poverty change as I watched the film?” The first question initiates analysis. The second question motivates reflection.

We can categorize reflective thinking into four types: outward-looking, inward-looking, backward-looking, and forward-looking. This list of 40 reflective questions provides clear examples of each type. The basic premise is:

• Backward-looking – what happened?
• Forward-looking – what will I do in the future?
• Inward-looking – how did I feel about this?
• Outward-looking – how did the material, people, and I interact?

Lesson plans have traditionally used reflection sparingly, and often provide a one-way flow of information. Student feedback forms come to mind, which aim to tell teachers how a course is comprehended and processed. Within a PBL classroom, however, reflective exercises carry a new level of importance.

Why is Reflection Such a Powerful Learning Tool in a PBL Environment?

Since project based learning is experiential, the reflective process can be applied to skills outside of the core curriculum. The teamwork, communication, and project management that students must practice provide more opportunities to learn from reflective exercises.

Exit Tickets, sometimes called “Out the Door Tickets,” are one of the most easily implemented tools an instructor can employ. Better still, Exit Tickets can create instant results! An Exit Ticket is a short, ungraded prompt that asks students to reflect on a recent learning experience. They come in many variations, from rigorous to quirky. Here are a few ideas I’ve seen implemented in classrooms:

• Pick an emoji from the list that describes how you feel about your team’s progress this week. Explain why you chose that emoji.
• What, Why, and How: What part of the project was easiest for you? Why was it easier than other parts of the project? How will you take this knowledge and apply it to future work?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, rate your own performance on today’s task. How have you improved from last week? Submit your score through the Google Form.

As you can see, there are many different ways to approach the assessment. Yet the common objective should be the same. A good Exit Ticket will walk a student through the four steps of reflective thinking. The golden rule when implementing Exit Tickets is that they will yield results only as good as their design. You get what you put in. Superficial and vague questions will yield superficial and vague answers. An example of a superficial question would be:

“What did you learn?”

Remember that this is an ungraded assessment, and it is often the final barrier between a student and freedom from class. How much incentive does a student have to go deeper than regurgitating a few vocab words? Instead, you could ask, “What did you learn the easiest and what does that tell you about yourself as a learner?”

The above example directs students towards a deeper analysis of their experience. These types of structured questions are especially helpful in the beginning before students develop their introspective skills. After a while, you may find that a general question is enough to provoke insightful responses. Ultimately, enough repetitions of good reflective exercises will create a classroom culture of personal awareness and self-directed learning. Sounds like the dream, right?

So what tools are available for the 21st-century educator to optimize their lesson plans for reflection?

Albert has a suite of learning tools that can be instrumental in creating, organizing, and tracking the results of your Exit Tickets and other reflective exercises. These are some ideas for how to leverage Albert’s technology to elevate the reflective culture of your classes.

Exit Ticket: Which explanation cleared up your biggest confusion? How will you use this type of reasoning to solve future problems?

Explore Individual Learning Styles

Albert utilizes a variety of interactive study methods. Highlighting text and multiple correct answers allow students to explore questions in different ways. Additionally, every right and wrong answer comes with thorough explanations.

Which questions does a student answer best? Which explanations are most effective in clearing up misconceptions?

These questions are important for students to understand how they can study more efficiently. Albert allows students to comment on why they think answers are right or wrong. They are also able to assess how useful the explanations are, what they learned, and what they still find confusing. This process introduces a reflective quality to every instance of studying that could have easily been mundane! Better still, all of this data is received by Alberts best-in-class support team and leveraged to adjust the platform to your classes needs. This takes the time-intensive preparation off of the instructor, allowing them to do more of what they do best – teach!

Exit Ticket: Which explanation cleared up your biggest confusion? How will you use this type of reasoning to solve future problems?

Easily Organize Students by Levels of Mastery and Strengths

For many instructors, learning about their students and assisting at the individual level is the best part of the job. It’s hard to understate the sense of gratification when you are mid-explanation to a student and, suddenly, you see all of the lights turn on. We all strive to make a lesson plan where we can meet each student’s individual needs and make those breakthrough discoveries together. But how many teachers actually have the time for this?

This is where I want to introduce one of my favorite tools within Albert’s platform is Insights for student results tracking. Intuitive interfaces categorize students into different levels of mastery by subject. It also instantly compiles data like commonly missed questions and learning gaps.

Just like that, instructors have insight like they’ve never had before into each of their students’ progress!

Less time grading and organizing results create newfound time in every day to engage with students and make those breakthroughs. In a project based learning classroom, these insights allow instructors to organize teams of students based on their level of mastery. You can bring students of similar levels together and assign different projects that challenge them. Alternatively, you can evenly distribute different levels within each team. This allows some students the opportunity to become mentors, and others the opportunity to be inspired and catch up.

Albert’s Assignments feature allows instructors to, at any time, pull questions from the platform’s programs and create quizzes or assignments. These can be graded or simply ungraded assessment tools. Use these tools frequently to keep a beat on the pulse of your classroom. The instant insights make it simple to adjust your courses on the fly.

Exit Ticket: What was your unique contribution to the team exercise today?

Move Straight to Higher Level Reflection

I’ve mentioned the intuitive data tools available on Albert. Another application of these insights is to cut straight to higher-order reflection. Instant assignment feedback means teachers can move right past the topical questions such as, “Where are you struggling most?” This information is at their fingertips, allowing them to move straight to the important “why” and “how” questions. This is what Albert Teacher Stephanie Stone has to say about it:

“I really love the overview where I could see how the students were doing, who was struggling, and passing. That was so nice to see in different areas, and I use that data when it came time to review. I try and do a month before, and it helped me help the students focus on their weaker areas, and they and I was able to pick about two to three topics where they were [struggling].”

That’s higher level reflection for each student, in less time.

Exit Ticket: What contributed towards your biggest improvement between today’s quiz and the one from two days ago?

High-Interest Topics let Students Discover new Passions

We know students are at their best when they are interested in a subject. So why do so many lesson plans stick to outdated topics that, rather than engage, send students straight to “the zone?” (That’s the zone where their eyes have glazed over.)

The solution lies in high-interest topics. They all too important to keep students engaged. Albert crafts study tools around high-interest topics that are relevant to today’s fast-changing cultures and industries. Students simultaneously study core curriculum and explore the background of digital currencies like Bitcoin. It gives them constant exposure to new and exciting ideas that they can dive further into as part of their PBL curriculum. They can see for themselves what topics inspire their learning, and run with it on their next project.

This self-directed, intrinsically motivated learning is exactly the type of experience that leads to early career interests and tapped hidden talents.

Exit Ticket: Which recent topic have you found most interesting? What about it do you want to learn more of?

New Motivation with Gamification and Collaboration

Every successful person needs to know how to get motivated. Because the truth is, motivation is not a guaranteed gift when we wake up every morning.

So what do we do every day to get ourselves ready to win?

Some people seek praise. Some people get an altruistic high from helping others. Others love the adrenaline rush of competition. Albert addresses this through gamification with leaderboards opportunities for student collaboration. With a little probing from their instructor, students can start thinking about which aspect of this learning environment gets them motivated. Do they want to be at the top of the leaderboards? Or do they feel better about helping their friend move up three ranks as a result of a single study session?

Exit Ticket: Of these options, which makes you feel the best? I helped a friend move up three places on the leaderboard – I moved up three places on the leaderboard – I finally understand something that I was confused about – Other

Faster Feedback, Fresher Reflection

Here’s a big one. Have you ever tried reflecting on an experience that happened a week ago?

How about two weeks ago?

The details get hazier over time, so it’s easy to understand why a reflective exercise is most effective soon after the experience. Yet, traditional test grading on top of other responsibilities can easily take one to two weeks. With Albert’s instant feedback on assignments and tests, students can reflect immediately, while the information is still fresh.

If your school is encouraging PBL lesson plans, then you’ve likely found yourself in an exciting and challenging new kind of teaching position. This is great for your professional development and, more importantly, your students’ education. Leveraging regular, well-designed reflective exercises can maximize the benefits of your PBL class. Eventually, a classroom culture where students feel the importance of introspection is created.

Exit Tickets are an easy-to-implement tool that can have immediate results within your class. A good Exit Ticket uses only a couple of very focused questions that lead a student through the reflective thinking process. These reflective thinking exercises are especially important in a PBL environment because there are many more interactive experiences to learn from. Exercises in communication, leadership, and different learning styles all require reflection. This is where Albert’s versatile technology can help you create, organize, and track the results of your Exit Tickets and other reflective exercises.

Ready to change your classes learning experience? Request a free Albert demo today!

By: Jacob Clark