The 15 Most Insightful Reflective Questions for Debriefing Learning

Successfully debriefing learning means having solid and meaningful reflective questions to use. No matter what you're teaching, every learner can benefit from asking reflective questions at the end of their journey. We have a list of 15 here that are pretty much the only ones they'll ever need.

If you know about Solution Fluency, then you know all about the 6Ds—Define, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, and of course, Debrief. The debriefing stage is one that is often overlooked, and yet it's probably the most important of all the steps. After all, the idea behind debriefing is to gauge how useful and beneficial a learning journey actually was, and to discern what could have made the journey even better.

In school, learning is debriefed for a number of reasons. These can include developing critical thinking skills, fostering lifelong learning mindsets, pinpointing areas for improvement, increasing self awareness, recognizing and exceeding limitations, and more. So it's very important to ask the best reflective questions possible as we debrief on products and processes.

All these reflective questions below are meant to be pondered deeply and discussed thoroughly. In a safe learning environment like yours, the insights gained will astound your learners. What's more, they'll also boost communication and critical thinking skills in the process of using them.

15 Reflective Questions Every Learner Can Benefit From Using

1. Define some of your most challenging moments. What made them so?
2. Define some of your most powerful learning moments. What made them so?
3. What would you say is the most important thing you learned personally? As a team?
4. When did you realize that you had come up with your final best solution?
5. How do you feel your solution relates to real-world situations and problems?
6. What do you feel most got in the way of your progress, if anything?
7. How well did you and your team communicate overall?
8. What were some things your teammates did that helped you to learn or overcome an obstacle?
9. How did you help others during this process?
10. Were your milestones and goals mostly met, and how much did you deviate from them if any?
11. What did you discover as being your greatest strengths? Your biggest weaknesses?
12. What would you do differently if you were to approach the same problem again?
13. What would you do differently from a personal standpoint the next time you work with the same group or a different one?
14. How can you better support and encourage your teammates on future projects?
15. How will you use what you’ve learned in the future?

No question about it—reflective questions like these take your learners to a satisfying conclusion on any educational journey. What's more, they apply to situations both in and out of school. In the end, though, it really is the quality of our questions that matters. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Oct 22, 2019, updated Dec 17, 2021