“What’s the point of this reflection?” “Why do we have to do this?” Common questions that I’m sure that many teachers hear on a daily basis. One term that was reoccurring in my mind following last week’s session was that of “reflection.” Interestingly, I ended up having a conversation with one of my Grade 11 students this week about the “purpose/value” of reflection and how it relates to authentic learning. As a Visual Arts teacher, I have always used reflective pieces/artist statements, etc. as a means of gathering additional insight into a student’s journey using The Creative Process. In Photography in particular, I feel that by having students reflect on, justify, explain their creative decisions/motivations/reasoning, I can obtain additional data when evaluating their work. However, this week, when asked by a student “why do we reflect?,” I had to take a minute before I delivered my answer.
I wanted to bring this back to the C21 hive brain. Why do learners need to reflect? What is the benefit of proposing “next steps?” Why should we hypothesize as to “what we would have done differently?” Truthfully, I found that throughout last weekend’s face to face session, I spent a lot of time reflecting on similar questions. And coincidentally, following the session, I felt energized, fulfilled and confident that I had actually learned something along the way. While my response to my student centred around the fact that “reflecting is a core component in the process of learning,” this interaction prompted me to think more about what actually happens in our brains when reflecting on what we do/are doing. I’ve attached a quotation that resurfaced from my days teaching philosophy. 
Happy Saturday, everyone!
d
If for no other reason it might just be that reflecting upon our involvement in an experience may be the only thing that helps us to feel that we were an active participant in the experience as opposed to having been merely a recipient of the experience. Instead of being but a pebble, we become the river itself when we acknowledge our own role in what happens to us, even when we didn’t design the experience at the outset.
Thanks for this, Leslie. I can’t help but think of a potential thought experient: “if an experience occurs, and nobody is able to reflect on it, does it actually occur?” 🙂
Thanks for this, Leslie. I can’t help but think of a potential thought experiment: “if an experience occurs, and nobody is able to reflect on it, does it actually occur?”
Hey Derek,
Let’s all plug into this idea of reflecting. @hprosser, @lfarooq and @vwade and I are all interested in this integral part of education. I’d like to propose that the four us – and counting! – meet during our F2F to chat more about this and how we might make an action plan for this!
In the meantime, check out their blogs on this topics!
Vanessa Wade: https://cohort21.com/vanessawade/2018/10/25/the-6-ps-and-formal-student-leadership/
Leslie Farooq
https://cohort21.com/lesliefarooq/2018/10/28/on-scaffolding-mint-reflection/
Hilary Prosser
https://cohort21.com/hilaryprosser/2018/10/29/the-beginning-of-my-journey/
Exciting!
garth.
@dmonson,
Reflecting on reflecting. Meta-reflection. The new gold standard by which all 21st century students will be weighed by. A difficult sell, for sure.
My experience is a quote I’ve taken to heart from Sandra Herbst, who said, “students value what we evaluate”. In other words, if you don’t give marks for it, or some sort of assessment value (levels, lines, quadrants… ha!) then the relative importance dwindles. Developmentally I don’t have a problem with this. I’m all for intrinsic motivation, but first we need to build up educational confidence through the idea that students have permission to be authentic progress participants (APP- I just coined that now!!!).
As @gnichols mentioned above, there are many people in the Cohort universe ready and willing to help you engage with strategies throughout this charming challenge.