I was recently working with a teacher who wanted to post some visual prompts in her classroom to remind students to remain curious and open-minded when engaged with service learning, when reflecting and when making connections between the Sustainable Development Goals and community assets/needs. In response to our conversation, I created some posters she could print and post in her classroom, and I wanted to make those same posters available here. If they are useful and you'd like to use these in your classroom, please feel free. Screenshots of the posters are featured above, and you can download the posters as A3/11x17 files by entering your email address in the space below. Please feel free to pass these along to colleagues who might want to post visual reminders for students in their classrooms, too!   :)

Reflection is a key, foundational component to service learning and global citizenship education. When we ask students to pause and reflect on what they're learning, we give them opportunities to synthesize and process their learning experiences, and to understand themselves and the world in deeper and more meaningful ways. That's why reflection is the stage of service learning that surfaces everywhere in the 5-stage cycle. If we're purposeful, we can embed meaningful reflection tasks into all of our service learning and global citizenship experiences.

And what can meaningful reflection look like? We might immediately think of journalling as a reflection tool, and journalling can definitely be valuable. But if it's the only strategy we use, students may disengage with it because of over-exposure. Also, students who have alternative learning strengths (kinesthetic, visual, etc.) may miss the opportunity to reflect in ways that help them maximize their ability to think deeply about something they have just experienced. 

I have found most teachers want to grow in this area so they can offer a variety of reflection tasks and prompts that appeal to a wide variety of learners and keep students fully engaged during all reflection activities. Enter your email address below to download a guide I have created featuring ideas for written reflection, oral reflection and kinesthetic reflection. Please feel free to use it and share it, and I hope you find the ideas add value to what you are doing in your classroom. 

I'd love to know what your favourite reflection prompts/activities are, too! Please share your thoughts in the comments.