Reflective thinking involves “consideration of the larger context, the meaning, and the implications of an experience or action.”^[1] In other words, reflection doesn’t just mean jotting down what you did or plan to do. It means considering why what you did or plan to do matters; it means writing to help you better understand something; it means exploring emotions, feelings, reactions, and knowledges; and it can even mean catharsis. Think of reflection as exploring the “so what” instead of just the “what.” Let’s look at an example:

A lot of college students take four or five classes per semester while juggling many other responsibilities. So how do you maximize your learning in these classes? One way is through reflection. Take a lecture-based science class for example. A teacher can talk to a class for fifty minutes while students take notes, and students can study those notes in preparation for the test. But what too often happens in these instances is rote memorization of information in order to perform well on an exam. Some students with good memories may recall certain information down the road, but much of it probably gets lost over time.

What if, though, students were asked to use reflection to apply or further consider the knowledge, which is how many scholars insist students learn best. A scenario might look something like this: