Taking time to Process

This year I am trying to focus on student reflection and processing time. I think this a piece of the pie some of my lessons have lacked. We can give students information in lecture format or have them do activities and labs. But no matter how they get the information, if they don't have time to process and reflect are they really getting it? It seems like common sense, but yet how many times do I find my students rushed to finish a lab and there is no time to debrief? One activity I started this semester seems to be working. Once or twice a week I do something called power write. The students are given two words to choose from. Then they get 2 minutes to write about that word. I've been doing this with vocab words, but I also stared doing topics or critical thinking questions. The students count and record the # of words. I usually do two to three rounds. The number of words doesn't really matter but for some reason it makes them work! It creates energy and competition in the room. I don't grade for content. I glance grade for participation and to check for whole class understanding. Its a great quick way to find out if students got what you wanted them to get out of the lesson! There are lots of other reflection and processing activities. But I tried the power write and found it to be really powerful in my classroom! As the students write frantically you can practically see the gears in their heads turning. And the best part it takes less than 10 minutes!