The Value of After-Class Reflections

How a tool intended to help my students became a gauge for my own performance

I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of assigning weekly journals in my class before. Despite preaching to my students every year that they should journal to bolster their learning capacity, I’d never formalized it as a learning tool within the course. This year, in an attempt to show them the value more formally, I decided to experiment by implementing a weekly reflection assignment that students have to fill out within a few days of class each week.

When the students submitted their first journal entry, I was eager to see whether or not the students were engaging deeply with reflection. After reading through a few of them, however, it quickly occurred to me that reflections were highly valuable feedback for me as an instructor. The students’ reflections were a way for me to get honest opinions about my teaching style and course material that I could incorporate into future sessions.

This feedback also addressed another issue I’ve had with online teaching. When I ran my first virtual classroom in 2020, the thing I missed most was a tactile way to get a sense of student engagement and satisfaction. Scanning faces and hearing audible engagement during breakout groups is practically impossible with most…