I, like most everyone else teaching in higher ed, have had to grapple with the shifting engagement patterns of our students over the last few years. To be clear – it’s not that I think students are disengaged; it’s simply hat they’re often engaged in things other than schoolwork. They need money; they’re caregivers; they are worried about the environment; they are acutely aware of international and domestic politics, and all of these things are pressing and immediate, as opposed to abstract in the way that so much learning can (unfortunately) be.

I don’t grade or take attendance in my classes, and I don’t have participation points, primarily because it’s so tricky to enforce the latter in ways that are accessible to all my students. But I do want students to co-create their learning environment, and find a way to take ownership of the things we cover.

So, I put in place reading reflections after every piece of homework. The reading reflections are hosted as a Google form, and they are required, even as they’re ungraded. (Students have not, in the several years I’ve been doing this, opted out of this process, but in fact complete it diligently. And if someone doesn’t answer the reflections for a couple of times in a row, I know there’s something I need to follow-up on with that student.)

The reading reflections ask the same questions every time. I first have a question about how much reading the students did – they indicate the amount through bubbles like “25-50%” or “all of the reading.” I make it abundantly clear in word and action that I don’t ask this question to be punitive, but to make it possible for me to prepare to teach on days when most of the class got 50% of the reading done.  I then ask:

1. What new things did you learn from the reading?
2. What do you think it’s important we talk about today?
3. What left you confused? What questions do you have?
4. Is there anything else you want to share?

Here’s a screenshot of the reflection page:

Here’s what’s key: I schedule the reading reflections to be due with enough time for me to review them and use them to shape my lesson plans for each day. (I do not grade them or offer comments on them.) That establishes a feedback loop: my students see that their questions and ideas shape each class period, and they get answers to the things that sparked their curiosity. I also get the opportunity to see how deeply they’re probing the readings, and where they may need help thinking more critically about texts. The reflections are also retrieval practice, which means that the information the students recall will stick with them much more easily.

I don’t dictate the form in which people answer the questions, except to say that one or two lines is insufficient.  People write whole paragraphs, or have bullet-point lists. Some students even take notes directly into the form. What’s key is that they’re thinking ahead, and we all come to class with a series of the important issues we want to discuss.

At the end of each week, I also have students do a ‘look back’ at the week before they start the homework for the next one. It’s based on the same principles, but simply asks for the three most important things they learned from class in the past week. It’s a good recall tool for them, and it’s a great way for me to track if they’re understanding the concepts and ideas I want them to get.

Feel free to borrow the questions I use and, of course, to come up with questions better suited to your discipline / institution / class sizes!