Monsieur Autio

I remember in my teacher education courses we had to write so many reflections on our mock lessons and experiences. Then, towards the end of the semester, we were asked to write reflections on our reflections! Since I was in music university, I often pictured myself as Mulan singing, “When will my reflection show who I am inside?” in jest and to make the repetitive task more bearable.

In one course, I remember getting cheeky and starting my reflections with “Dear Diary” in cursive script. The instructor cautioned me on my lack of professionalism and said if an administrator asked for a reflection this would not be appropriate; however, this small act was my way of adding a bit of levity and novelty to the task. I know now that my administrators would also find it humorous since they know me well.

Perhaps what I was truly looking for back then was a memorable structure for our reflections. More often than not, my responses were self-deprecating, ripe with flowery language and feelings to fill the page – a way to check boxes rather than gain insight. I can now admit, over 10 years later, that I would simply write a few things that I remembered went well and a few things that didn’t, but I rarely went beyond the surface. I thought the more harsh and critical I was on myself the better my mark would be – and it worked! This goes to show, good marks do not equate meaningful learning.

The Missing Piece: What? So What? Now What?

In my last post, I mentioned how my early career paralleled the early adoption of the BC Curriculum. During my third year of teaching, I attended a mentorship workshop where the facilitator introduced me to a simple-to-remember reflection structure that I continue to use to this day: What? So what? Now what? (sometimes called “What Cubed,” or W³ by Liberating Structures (n.d.)). This was one of those moments where I felt like I found the puzzle piece I had been searching for waiting to snap into place. Right away, I implemented the structure in my music lessons from Kindergarten to Grade 7, continued to use it as a Kindergarten teacher, and now continue to use it in Grade 5/6.

According to ModelThinkers (2025), the structure originated in the 1970s with Terry Borton and was later adapted by John Driscoll in healthcare education. The University of Edinburgh’s (2024) Reflection Toolkit notes that one possible limitation to W³ is that simply answering the three questions may not reach deeper levels of critical reflection unless sub-questions are included. Jacoby (2019) provides several sub-questions that may be useful.

What I love most about this structure is the simplicity of the language. In French it equally rings: Quoi? Pourquoi? Maintenant quoi? (Quoi³) This structure also works beyond reflective writing – for informational writing: defining (What?), analyzing (So what?), and proposing future ideas (Now what?) – which I integrate into French, Science, and Social Studies.

Rather than adding a new requirement, structures like W³ align with teacher values and become part of learning not an afterthought.

Going Deeper into Metacognition

Last post, I introduced my Three-Way Conference Pie and how it helped students, caregivers, and teachers align roles in learning during the Fall. One of my goals is to better integrate the ideas from this Fall conference into the Student-Led Conference in Winter so we can meaningfully track growth.

The Student-Led Conference is a natural progression: it places students in the driver’s seat while the teacher supports and fills in gaps. When I first started teaching Grade 5/6, my friend Ms. VanDeventer gave me the base version of our Student-Led Conference booklet. Over six years it has evolved, but the core structure remains. For many years, the reflection section was “Then and Now,” where students compared early-year thinking with their current thinking. I encouraged specificity and next steps – the essence of W³.

For a couple of years, students would go through their binders and list activities from each subject to support their “Then and Now” reflection – the “What.” Last year, I collaborated with my Teacher Librarian, Mme. Veilleux to introduce the iceberg metaphor, helping students go below the surface to find deeper meaning. The visible part of the iceberg is “What” we did, while the much larger part below represents why – so what? – it matters. As a class, students came up with ideas for deeper learning that they could then use in their “Then and Now” sections.

Even still, students sometimes struggled to write with the depth I knew they were capable of. So this year, I changed “Then and Now” to W³, supported with the iceberg visual. The hope is that students list three “Whats,” go deeper into each “So what,” and then write one overarching “Now what” to guide further learning in each subject area.

Bridging Reflection and Evaluation

These reflections not only invite agency and increasing depth, but also help me see students’ understanding much more clearly than a rubric alone.

Last spring, at a secondary Home Economics conference, I attended a workshop where the teacher, Lynette Earle, used Bloom’s taxonomy (University of Waterloo, 2025; Zakrajsek, 2023) alongside the proficiency scale to assess student understanding. This inspired me to align my assessments with Bloom and visualize proficiency as a spiral, connecting also to Bruner’s concept of spiralling curriculum (McLeod, 2025). I can now see how W³ naturally aligns with Bloom’s cognitive levels.

• The “What?” question corresponds to remembering and identifying.
• “So what?” moves into understanding and applying.
• “Now what?” opens pathways into analysis, evaluation, and transfer.

With clear rubrics rooted in curricular competencies, proficiency scales, Bloom and reflection structures, students articulate where they are in their learning and where to go next and gain personal insight. Final marks, then, are not averages but evidence of growing understanding, or proficiency, over time.

En français or In English?

For the past few years, I have increasingly invited students to complete reflective writing in English, even in French Immersion. This is because:

1. Students often express deeper ideas in English.

2. Parents can better understand reflections and reports in English.

3. Building metacognitive skills is part of the English curriculum and ties directly to Core Competency self-reflection, which is typically done in English.

What’s more, the transfer between languages reinforces learning.

Completing the Puzzle

Supporting students’ metacognitive growth requires structures, routines, systems, and consistency. W³ has been a missing piece in my own practice, but it is not the whole assessment puzzle. When combined with conferencing, tracking growth over time, and co-constructing goals, students develop awareness of their learning and take greater ownership and responsibility for their learning and I can better assess each student’s understanding.

I often remind students “I can’t think what you’re thinking or connect your neurons for you” but through structured reflective writing I can get a slightly better idea of their thinking and understanding than a product or observation alone.

In Part 3, I will share how students help write their learning updates (report cards), which I then input into the reporting system, so that the final snapshot genuinely reflects their voice and growth.

Autios! À la prochaine!

Where do you see yourself in this story? 

What reflection structures have shaped your own growth—as a student, teacher, or caregiver?

When have you felt “surface-level understanding,” and what helped you go deeper?

What reflective habits support your own sense of identity, agency, and voice?

References 

Jacoby, B. (2019).What? So what? Now what? Critical reflection model. Hood College Career Center. https://www.hood.edu/sites/default/files/Career%20Center/What%20So%20What%20Now%20What%20Critical%20Reflection%20Model.docx.pdf

Liberating Structures. (n.d.). What? So what? Now what? W3. https://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/

McLeod, S. (2025). Jerome Bruner and the spiral curriculum. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html

ModelThinkers. (2025). What? So what? Now what? W³. https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/what-so-what-now-what

University of Edinburgh. (2024). Reflection toolkit: What? So what? Now what? https://reflection.ed.ac.uk/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/what-so-what-now-what

University of Manitoba: Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. (2023). Experiential learning reflection models. https://umanitoba.ca/centre-advancement-teaching-learning/sites/centre-advancement-teaching-learning/files/2023-11/EL%20Reflection%20Models.pdf

University of Waterloo: Centre for Teaching Excellence. (2025). Bloom’s taxonomy. https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/blooms-taxonomy

Zakrajsek, T. (2023). Maybe we should stack Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. The Scholarly Teacher. https://www.scholarlyteacher.com/post/maybe-we-should-stack-bloom-s-cognitive-taxonomy