Helping students reflect: lessons from cognitive psychology.

The challenges of teaching students to reflect on experience and, thus, learn from it, are better understood with the application of constructs from cognitive psychology. The present paper focuses on two such constructs-self-schemas and scripts-to help educators better understand both the threats and opportunities associated with effective reflection. Emotion is presented as an important accompaniment to reflection. Suggestions are presented, using the notions of self-schemas and scripts, to help students manage the emotion associated with reflection and to enhance the value of that reflection.