After a major assessment or exam, invite students to reflect on their preparation and performance using a short set of prompts. The key is helping students understand that self-regulation — assessing their own strengths, weaknesses, and strategies — is part of learning in any subject. A wrapper helps them connect their performance to specific actions they took (or didn’t take) and plan adjustments accordingly. Keep it short, specific, and flexible. Wrappers work best when used regularly and adapted to different disciplines, helping students see that different tasks require different kinds of preparation.
Ask students to consider questions such as:
- When I got something wrong, why did I get it wrong?
- What were my biggest challenges during preparation or the assessment?
- How did I actually study or prepare? What strategies did I use?
- What might I try differently next time?
- Where could I seek help or support?
You can also tailor the wrapper to the type of task. For example:
- For a paper: How much time did I spend reading, drafting, editing, or researching?
- For a problem set: Did I review examples? Practice? Memorise key concepts?
- For a performance: Did I rehearse, reflect, experiment, or seek feedback?
You can find a Cognitive Wrappers template with question prompts to personalise at: teachingnaked.com/handouts
