Kriss Jackson-Harper

5/19/15
Reflection Time is Powerful it Teaches Critical Thinking
Environmental educators race against the clock to complete multiple projects on time
that may include: designing and implementing lessons and assessments designed to measure
student learning growth especially during the week in S.O.P. (The School Overnight Program)
here at Islandwood. Environmental educators must prepare fun, engaging and meaningful
materials that promote a kinesthetic, hands on, safe, and an inclusive learning environment
for all learners. Environmental educators multi-task every single teaching week to ensure
these projects are completed. The most essential project that an environmental educator must
practice is to provide just the right amount of time for reflection after each lesson and
throughout each and every single teaching week.
Reflection is vital. Reflection is thinking about learning. When students are provided
with just the right amount of reflection time, students have the opportunity to practice critical
thinking. Critical thinking is the disciplined process of synthesizing and evaluating
information gathered from observation, personal experiences, cultural perspectives, and points
of view to make an informed, practical, and important life decisions (Elkins). Environmental
educators must create reflective activities because they promote critical thinking, which it is
an important life skill.
Critical thinking is an important life skill required for survival at life after graduation.
Students must apply critical thinking skills for their future endeavors so it is essential to
provide just the right amount of time for reflection. Reflection time can allow students the
time to process information so that they can advance to the next stages of higher levels of
thinking so they can understand a multitude of complex arguments, ideas, facts, opinions, and

varying cultural perspectives so that they learn how to make informed decisions that require a
strong critical thinking foundation. Essentially reflection is mandatory to develop mandatory
skills such as critical thinking. It is more crucial for environmental educators to implement
reflection activities correctly in the best way possible to best utilize its learning potential.
The first reflection activity is to create a culture of error. The culture of error is the
idea that says that is okay to make mistakes so that we can learn from them. The Culture of
error can apply with lesson design and with reflective activities because difficult to plan for
unplanned learning challenges that may arrive during a lesson that may include: students did
not understand the main idea of the lesson or that there was not enough time in the day to
implement a successful reflection activity. It is crucial for environmental educators to create a
culture of error especially when they implement these reflective activities.
The first reflective activity is to create a culture of feedback. Feedback is known as
constructive criticism. Constructive criticism it is an important skill that teaches students how
to examine facts, main ideas, and the overall learning experience to improve their critical
thinking skills. Feedback provides an honest assessment that measures the effectiveness of a
lesson on student learning growth while at the same time it holds individual students
accountable for their own education. Feedback allows students to set goals so that they can
learn how to measure their own individual growth by providing and receiving feedback to
increase their learning potential. Since feedback is important as a reflective activity, arts
integration is a powerful reflective tool.
Arts integration is another reflection activity that can improve the overall reflective
experience for S.O.P. students. Arts integration is a form of an applied teaching and a learning
approach that uses the arts as a pathway to learning. Arts integration it is a perfect opportunity

to develop critical thinking, which may include the development of these skills: to generate
criticisms for feedback, to understand a multitude of arguments, points of view and varying
cultural perspectives to make informed, important and critical life decisions.
Performance arts are an example of an artistic medium that can be utilized to develop
a powerful reflective activity. The brain dance is a performance art, which it incorporates
dance and theatre. Students create scenes to explain important learning concepts and to reflect
about the lesson so they can improve their critical thinking skills. Since theatre is a particular
example of an arts integrated activity, it is crucial to scaffold the information to improve
reflection time.
Arts integration is even more powerful when it is combined with scaffolding.
Scaffolding it is a technique that engages students personal interests within the lesson and to
expose them to a multitude of cultural perspectives, ideas, and points of view so it will push
students to move beyond their grade level standard and beyond their individual zones of
proximal development. When environmental educators scaffold the information, it allows
students to connect the lesson materials with their personal lives and to practice critical
thinking so students will understand the arguments from a multitude of cultural perspectives.
It is crucial for environmental educators to integrate cultural perspectives to provide
students with a powerful space to reflect. Cultural perspectives are the varying values,
opinions, ideas, and thoughts from various people living in a society. It is important to provide
students with a variety of information from a plethora of cultural perspectives to engage
student interests during the lesson to greatly improve their critical thinking abilities.
In conclusion, environmental educators must implement a combination of these
activities to improve their reflective practice. It will improve student learning to transform it

into student driven and student leadership focused when students are provided with just the
right amount to reflect with these essential tools in mind.

Bibliography
Elkins, James R. "West Virginia Network." n.d. The Critical Thinking Movement:
Alternating Currents in One Teacher's Thinking. myweb.wvnet.edu.