@learnteachtech might you have anything to stress the difference between summary and reflection?my #avid students don't get it.
In the AVID classroom, where I'm lucky enough to guide middle school students, we talk a ton about reflection. We also do a fair amount of summarizing.
One summarizing activity that we do is GIST (its in the Tutorial Strategies book). Basically, we take a topic and sum it up in 20 words after the activity or discussion. It can also be a good discussion starter to do the GIST first. The 20 words can be Wordle like (just words) or a couple of sentences.
I also have them write Tweets (w/o computers) on notecards. They get 140 characters. I like GIST and Tweets because it's short but complex to get a main idea into a few words.
Summarizing is main ideas. What is the point? What was it about?
Reflection is thinking about what happened. What did you do well? What specifically did you learn? How did your group operate? What could the teacher have done better? Where did your group go wrong? If you could change the activity, what would you do?
I've talked about meta-cognition in AVID: thinking about thinking. I tell my students that adults, especially teachers, do this all the time. We don't leave a training without spending a few minutes thinking about the learning and what we take away from it, how it could be better, or what the best part was. I tell them that feedback for the instructor is important. What can you tell me that would make me a better teacher. They seem to enjoy telling me what I could do better.
Reflection v. Summarizing. Two very specific things. My one piece of advice: give starters for each or give guiding questions for each. Students will eventually figure it out.

