7 Exercises for End-of-Year Reflection

Feeling introspective? These activities for students and teachers are perfect for the final weeks of school.

For Students

1. Create a hashtag. Whether it’s indicative of your last unit or the school year as a whole, a hashtag can be a fun way for students to remember what matters and flex their creative muscles at the same time.

2. Charting the highs and lows. Challenge students to identify their best memories and some tough times — with the discussion of what they learned from them and how it helped them improve overall.

3. Give advice for future students. This energetic activity will help current students reflect, and future students thrive. Ask your class to share their tips for success on paper, then take the best ones to create a handout for next year.

4. Conduct an interview. Pair up students with a set of (non-hokey!) reflection questions to help them learn more about each other and themselves. What’s the most important thing you learned this year? What are you proud of? Bonus: Use the end-of-year hashtag to tweet out answers.


For Educators

1. Write a philosophy of teaching statement. Do this at the beginning and end of every year. Have your statements changed? Why?

2. Identify your regrets. Rutgers’ Maurice Elias suggests challenging yourself in an uncomfortable way: “Take a moment and reflect on what you hoped would happen as we started the school year. Now take a moment to consider which of these has not happened as you hoped."

3. Write it down. We all know journaling can help us sort out our thoughts, but so can recording yourself or blogging. Consider documenting your reflection for the greater good of educators everywhere, or keep it private as a team or grade level exercise.