5 Questions That Help Build Our Reflective Capacity
Building reflective capacity starts with asking better questions about your own practice, not doing more of it. Working from Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral's Teach, Reflect, Learn, I use five of my own: how aware I am, how intentionally I plan, whether I know my actions worked, how I respond, and how often I reflect.
Two nights before kicking off a new school year, I am overwhelmed at the daily schedules, curriculums, management plans, procedures, passion projects, spelling programs, grading, testing, homework, positive incentives, etc. While these are the "things" of teaching that take up so much time to prep and organize, it is the questions surrounding the goal of helping students learn that keep me up at night. As Henry Ford once said, "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it." I think back to my days as an athlete, and I realize that if I wanted to be good at anything, I had to practice, to pay attention to skills that I was lacking, and I had to have repeated exposure to skills to create that muscle memory. Teaching follows the same philosophy. To be good at anything, one must be thoughtful, intentional, and reflective. Going through the process to become a National Board Certified Teacher, I learned work relied heavily on my self-reflective tendencies. The process pushed me to read, question, create, try new things, and critically examine my practice on a regular basis to deepen knowledge, expand skills, and incorporate new findings into my daily practice. To build my capacity for success, I needed to take charge of my learning and not wait for others to tell me what to do or what to learn next. It was my job to apply the new approaches I learned, and if I still needed support, it was up to me to access my administration, my peers, coaches, and mentors. I also needed to understand the purpose. I spent a long time with the question, "Why am I a teacher?" Another question that really took some thoughtful reflection included, "Why am I doing what I'm doing?" I found that by linking my work with my purpose, I could take control over my own growth, development, and improvement.
When I am overwhelmed, I find that when I take time to process and plan, I feel more in control, more productive, and more successful. This helps me stay out of survival mode and move into thrive mode. To continue to thrive I focus on 5 questions of my own, drawn from The Reflective Cycle, as explained by Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral, authors of Teach, Reflect, Learn (ASCD 2015) as I process and plan.
Before the Questions: Where Are You Starting From?
The five questions are the work. Knowing which one to start with is a different question, and it's the one Hall and Simeral answer with their other tool, the Continuum of Self-Reflection. The Continuum sorts teachers into four stages based on how they currently think about their own practice, and each stage suggests a different next move. A teacher running on habit doesn't need a more sophisticated assessment strategy. That teacher needs to notice the connection between a teaching decision and what students learn.
The four stage names below are Hall and Simeral's, taken from the chapters of Teach, Reflect, Learn devoted to each. The descriptions and suggested next steps in the table are our reading of what the stages mean in a classroom, not the authors' wording.
| Stage (Hall & Simeral) | What it can look like | A possible next step |
|---|---|---|
| Unaware | Teaching runs on habit and routine. The link between a teaching decision and a student outcome isn't visible yet. | Start noticing. Pick one lesson and ask what your students actually did with it. |
| Conscious | You can describe strong practice and you know your own is inconsistent. The gap is visible and frustrating. | Narrow the focus. Choose one strategy and use it deliberately enough to judge it. |
| Action | You plan with intention and gather evidence about whether it worked. | Widen the evidence. Add formative checks that show thinking, not just answers. |
| Refinement | Reflection happens during the lesson, not just after it. Adjustments are automatic. | Make it visible to others. Coach a colleague through the same questions. |
#1 How Aware Am I of My Students, the Content, and Pedagogy?
A teacher with awareness is knowledgeable about each and every student. They know individual academic levels, interests, learning profiles, instructional needs, and every aspect of class instruction (Tomlinson 2014). To be aware means teachers know what kinds of prerequisite skills are necessary, what misconceptions students may have, and which instructional practices match a student's readiness and interests to get maximized learning from each student. I have learning-challenged students, students who come to me for part of their day from a transitional classroom, students identified as gifted, and as a result, I need to plan my teaching around their needs. Some will be set off by asking them to do a lot of writing; some will talk and visit and not engage if I do not plan a movement-based activity during the lesson. With this particular group, I've found engagement drops when I present new material for more than about 10 or 11 minutes. I will need to chunk the information to engage my students more effectively. By focusing on this question before I plan my lessons, I am able to create more productive, efficient, and powerful lessons for my students.
RELATED - 10 Questions to Tackle in Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
#2 How Intentionally Do I Plan and Deliver All Aspects of My Teaching?
The next step is for a teacher to take intentional steps to affect student learning. A teacher will look at individual readiness levels and pair that with research-based instructional strategies and teach the concept deliberately. Did I think through the purpose of my lesson, my learner outcomes, plan effective learning activities, and use strong management strategies to maximize learning in the classroom? To plan stronger learner outcomes, I choose different Total Participation Techniques (Himmele, 2017) to help affect student learning. By using these techniques, I am better able to plan effective learning activities to maximize learning throughout the lesson.
#3 How Do I Know Whether My Actions Affect Student Learning?
I have planned and delivered purposeful instruction, and my next question needs to analyze whether or not this lesson resulted in the desired outcomes. Assessment tools must be varied and matched to the task and the purpose. I find myself using ongoing student observations, performance assessments, quizzes, varied writings, and I couple those with formative assessments using Think-Pair-Shares, Chalkboard Splashes, and Quick-Writes to assess whether my lesson outcomes are being met or not.
RELATED - 11 Ways to Make Every Student an Engaged Learner
#4 How Effectively Do I Respond to the Results of Ongoing Assessments?
A reflective teacher is constantly using ongoing data throughout a lesson to make adjustments, change a teaching method, regroup and modify, clarify misconceptions, address holes, increase engagement, and sometimes even stop and start over with a lesson. By intervening in specific and calculated ways, teachers can get and keep students on track. I love to use the online Pensieve from Daily 5. This helps me keep track of all my conferences, observation notes, next steps, and touch points from conferences I have had with students. I also use the Quick-Writes and other participation techniques that help me see my students' thinking as we are learning content in the lesson. The thumbs Up/Thumbs Down quick response check-in really helps me gauge how students are understanding the lesson. I love to use this in math when presenting the material. They will let me know how much they are taking in and when they need more time to process the information. I can then pause, give them a prompt, and let them Pair-Share to try to better process the content.
#5 How Often Do I Reflect About My Teaching and Student Learning?
Reflective teachers are hyper aware of the realities in their classrooms. They know which students have triggers, which students need a concrete model before an abstract one, and they know which students need manipulatives and which students need more extensions. Reflection is a habit, and it requires practice in order for it to become one. Reflective teachers are doing this constantly, and they do not wait for someone else to ask reflective questions; instead, they are making decisions intentionally, assessing the impact of the decisions, and they take action to adjust when necessary.
RELATED - 8 Questions to Tackle in Designing Student Assessments
We have a limited number of instructional days each year to impact our students with our teaching. There is urgency in our profession that comes from that timeline, and we must take advantage of every second we are blessed with our students. We must use this Reflective Cycle to help ourselves develop our reflective habits, our self-directed learning, our analysis of students, and our critical examination of our belief system in teaching. By continuing to reflect and think about our own thinking, students can be the ones to benefit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Reflective Cycle?
It's one of two self-reflection tools Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral present in Teach, Reflect, Learn (ASCD 2015), alongside the Continuum of Self-Reflection. Rather than telling teachers what to change, it turns attention back onto their own practice. Building reflective capacity is the point, not producing a document. The five questions in this article are my adaptation of that idea, not the authors' own list, so read the book if you want their version.
How is the Continuum of Self-Reflection different from the Reflective Cycle?
The Continuum tells you where you are. The Cycle tells you what to do. Hall and Simeral introduced the Continuum in an earlier book for coaches and administrators, then rebuilt it in Teach, Reflect, Learn so teachers could place themselves. Knowing your stage keeps you from reaching for a strategy that assumes habits you haven't built yet.
How often should I reflect on a lesson?
Often enough that it stops being an event. Formal written reflection after every lesson isn't realistic in a full teaching week, and it isn't what the fifth question asks for. What it asks is whether reflection has become automatic, which looks less like a journal entry and more like noticing mid-lesson that the room has stopped following you. It's also worth asking some of these questions before a lesson rather than after it.
Do I need National Board certification to build reflective capacity?
No. National Board Certification, awarded by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, provides a structured process for sustained reflection, which is why I credit it above. But teachers do not need that certification to use these reflective practices.
Is National Board Certification the same as a teaching license?
No. National Board Certification is a voluntary national professional certification and is separate from state-issued teacher licensure. Whether and how NBCT status affects license renewal, advancement, endorsements, or compensation varies by state, so check with your own state's educator-licensing or credentialing agency.
- Reflection is a skill, not a mood - it responds to practice and repetition the same way an athletic skill does.
- Start where you actually are - the Continuum of Self-Reflection sorts teachers into four stages, and each has a different useful next step.
- Awareness comes before intentionality - planning around students you haven't studied closely produces a lesson that fits nobody.
- Evidence closes the loop - Think-Pair-Shares, Chalkboard Splashes, and Quick-Writes make student thinking visible while there's still time to adjust.
- Purpose sustains the habit - linking the work to why you teach is what turns reflection from an assignment into something you keep doing.
Reflective practice is easier to sustain with structure around it. Depending on the state and the role, teachers may also pursue graduate study or an additional state-recognized endorsement or credential. The sponsored programs listed on this page include options built for teachers who are already in a classroom full time.
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