Enhancing students’ reflection through writing tasks and guided teachers’ support

Deep reflection supports the development of critical thinking, yet students often need guidance to move beyond descriptive accounts of their experiences. Guiding students’ reflection is challenging for teachers, as reflection is largely an inner process and students often struggle to articulate their thoughts. To enable teachers’ support, students’ internal reflections need to be made explicit. This study examined the effects of a Collaborative Teacher Reflection (CTR) program on teachers’ guidance practices and the depth of students’ written reflections. Eight secondary school teachers and their students (N = 135) used a framework combining a cyclical process model with a depth model. Written reflection tasks were collected at the start and end of the program. Results suggest increases in the depth of written reflections across classes, with the largest gains observed among students whose teachers had less prior experience with guiding reflection. Differences between classes point to the influence of how the framework was enacted. Teachers reported increased confidence in guiding written reflections and drew on the framework to structure their approach. The study contributes to reflection research by integrating process- and product-oriented perspectives and introducing five literature-based teacher actions to support students’ reflective competence.