In-Class Values Reflections

Time Required

^{Prep: 30 min}
^{In-Class: 15 min}
^{Out-of-class: 75 min}

Context

^{Academic Advising}
^{UT Austin}
^{1-30 students}

Author(s)

^{Theresa Dickinson}

Other Contributors

^{Eric N Smith (Editor)}
^{Anita Latham (Reviewer)}

Practice Overview

Twice over the term, students complete a worksheet where they pick their top values, then write a quick reflection connecting those values to learning.

Downloadable Resources

✍️ Personal Values Writing Activity 1 (docx)

✍️ Personal Values Writing Activity 2 (docx)

My Story

This was my first semester teaching in a university setting. Learning about growth, belonging, and purpose mindsets made me reflect on my own experience as an underrepresented group in Engineering and prompted me to ensure my students would not feel the same sense of uncertainty that I had in undergrad.

I felt it was particularly important to encourage first-year students (who might not have thought critically about the values they bring into college) to spend time identifying what truly matters to them. I hoped this could help them identify how their current major and career goals align with those values, or how to better align them in the future. I believe that making these values salient could help students focus on why they are taking hard classes or what they could do when they feel stressed or not like themselves.

What does this practice look like?

During two class periods, I handed out a list of values. In each activity, students were instructed to select 2-3 values that are most important to them (selecting from 14 in activity 1, and 38 in activity 2) and write a few sentences on why. The first list of values were activities or groups of people they value. It was a smaller list to help them get used to the idea of thinking of values. The second activity had a longer list of values that were more abstract values. This activity was done later in the semester and had allowed more time to pass since being on their own in college. I introduced the second list as one they might need to think more about.

Before the first activity, I was very intentional about how I introduced it and gave them ~10 minutes to reflect and write. I said:

“I am interested in your values. What do you like to do? What brings you joy? I will give you a handout that has a list of values on it. Do not put your name on the paper.

Please take a few minutes to review the list of values. Then circle 2-3 things that are MOST important to you. Write 3-5 sentences describing why these things are important to you. Focus on your thoughts and feelings, and don’t worry about spelling or how well written it is.

I challenge you to mark what is important to you, not what is important to other people. If you were to fill this out for what you think others would want your values to be for yourself vs what your values for yourself are, then it would be different values circled."

Afterwards, we had a brief discussion on whether these values do or don’t align with how they spend their time, using the following prompt:

“Think about how your values correlate with your life and time at UT: Classes, major, organizations, free time. Is there anything that you are not doing that you need to make time for? How do your behaviors reflect your values?"

How did it impact students?

Students were receptive to doing the activity. I was impressed with how reflective they were on why their values are important to them. Most things we do in class are open discussion, but the values activity allows for a chunk of individual time for self-reflection and private journaling. My TA told me it gave students time to pause when things were particularly tough during the semester. It was a de-stressing activity and allowed them time to reflect on why they are at UT. The activity also allowed students to see how their values change throughout the semester. Doing this twice seemed valuable because the experience of starting college and living on their own could influence their values.

Implementation Tips and Resources

I told the students not to write their names on the paper, so they remained anonymous. I emphasized for it to be their values, not what someone else would want their values to be. I always kept an “Other” option that they could fill in their own choice to ensure they could be free to go beyond the list provided to them.

This resource was produced as part of the MM4SS Fellowship. You can find additional resources provided as part of these Fellowships at the MM4SS Canvas Site.

This resource is adapted from an activity developed by Cohen et al. 2006, 2009.