Reflection snowballs

Last updated on August 30th, 2019 at 08:08 am

I’m working on the content for the first week in a class on Adult Learning Theory. It is the first time I’m teaching the class, so I’m doing a lot of exploration for both reading materials but also different ways to engage students in learning.

One idea that is key in my classroom is that of reflective learning. I’ve always found that when I spend some time reflecting, I retain a lot more information. Reflection is an important part of how I teach as well. We reflect a lot – sometimes to the point that students get sick of it. Anyways, this class, being a fair bit more theory oriented, will have more reflection. I’m looking for ways to bring reflection in beyond writing in a weekly journal.

One of the articles I came across by Tricia Whenham on 15 Ways to spark student reflection in your college classroom, had an excellent activity that I’d love to try called reflection snowballs (see number 3 in the article). The challenge I have is that I teach online. I cannot think of how I might do the same activity in an online context. There is something important to the keeping each one separate, and each one being its own storyline, and the randomness that comes with the throwing of the snowballs across the room.

Any ideas? Any thoughts on how one might do this in an online context?

Feature image photosteve101 via Flickr