Elevating student speaking skills through reflection

Reflection challenges in speech and debate

Idaho-based speech and debate teacher Marcy Curr has always valued reflection for herself and her students – who are 2024 Debate State Champions. However she faced a few obstacles when she asked her students to reflect on their speaking skills and debate performance.

Marcy began to observe a disconnect between the types of reflection she asked her students to complete and the nature of the course. “I’ve always struggled with asking my students to complete written reflections because this is a verbal communication course.” She tried giving students rubrics for self-assessment but felt they did not foster an authentic reflection experience. Time constraints also limited the amount of personalized feedback she could give students. “There’s not enough time in a day to give feedback to each of our students.”

Providing immediate feedback holds extra value in Marcy’s classes – she seeks to help students improve speech and communication skills that can be challenging to self-correct. “If I wait for the end of the speech to give feedback, they don’t remember what they did,” she explains. Overall, Marcy needed a more engaging and efficient tool for reflection and feedback.

A smooth experience leads to real progress

Marcy sees a direct connection between introducing MirrorTalk as a reflection tool and seeing an improvement in her students’ communication skills. “With MirrorTalk their next speech is better because they’ve taken time to reflect in between speeches on what they could improve on.”

With students reflecting and receiving feedback with MirrorTalk during class, she now has more time to review speech recordings with individual students and provide coaching to them. “MirrorTalk lightens the burden for teachers,” Marcy explains. 

MirrorTalk’s reflection feedback and scoring system also acts as a new source of motivation for her students, pushing them to meta-reflect on their own reflections and seek areas of improvement. “They’re watching their reflections to see where it’s says, ‘next time to improve your reflection work on this.’” This process of self-analysis, sparked by a desire to see their scores rise, has led to a deeper engagement with their reflection process.

Part of why Marcy and her students have adopted MirrorTalk so quickly is its ease of use. “The guided process was super easy,” Marcy explained, describing the reflection workflow. Getting acclimated to the tool was also a breeze for her. “It made me feel like anyone in my department could easily get started with MirrorTalk.”

Daily reflection and more feedback

Day to day, Marcy’s students use MirrorTalk to reflect on their speech and debate skills, identify areas of improvement, and refine their work. “I make them watch and evaluate videos of their speeches,” Marcy explains.

MirrorTalk allows her to shorten the time frame between when students learn or practice a skill, and when they reflect on it. During debate practice, students will deliver speeches, and then immediately go to their MirrorTalk and reflect. “We did a reflection after every single one of their speeches,” Marcy notes about a recent practice session.

When written notes from a teacher might be impractical, MirrorTalk has opened up new opportunities for reflection and feedback. “My students frequently have to get up and give a one minute introduction speech. I can’t type meaningful feedback in that time frame. Instead, I’m going to record them. Then, they’re going to use MirrorTalk to reflect.”

Marcy has already planned expanded use cases for MirrorTalk into her upcoming courses. “In my syllabus for next trimester, I’ve built in reflections a couple of times a week using MirrorTalk.”

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