{"id":77,"date":"2016-04-21T03:09:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T03:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/?p=77"},"modified":"2016-04-21T16:16:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T16:16:25","slug":"the-power-of-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/2016\/04\/21\/the-power-of-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"reflection\"<\/a>\u00a0This year I have learned the importance and power of reflection, both personally and professionally. I have come to the point of knowing that even if no one ever reads what I have posted, the simple act of reflecting on what I have been going through is both powerful and useful for me. It organizes and focuses my thoughts. Until I execute a thought by writing about it\u00a0or speaking about it with someone else that actively listens, I never completely clarify my thinking. Until I bump up against someone else\u2019s mind that is willing and able to push back, I cannot expand mine as far as I otherwise might. I learn how to remain in dialogue, no matter what is at stake. I have been deeply affected by both personal and professional challenges over the last year and have been on a journey to create useful learning and understanding from it. My driving question: \u201cWhy I have been so deeply affected?\u201d has led me to better understand who I am, what my values are, and what I most cherish. Here<\/a> is a list of the books that I have been reading. I think that I have some tentative answers, I definitely have many more questions, and I know I have much more learning and defining to do. I listen carefully to what is prompting me and I find a way to make changes that are sensible for me. I definitely feel that I am in a period of transition right now. It seems that all meaningful growth and learning is personal.<\/p>\n

By extension, if writing a reflection is a powerful and useful exercise for me, it can also be the same for others going through change. It certainly feels like there are powerful changes happening in the world of education, as has already happened in so many other industries over the last quarter century, all driven by technology and the realities of the new economy. Certainly the experiences that young men and women face throughout their adolescent years qualifies as a major period of change.<\/p>\n

Travis Fuchs (@TTHFuchs) and I have attempted to use reflection in the classroom as a way of having students learn about themselves, but mostly to think about how they learn best. So far, neither of us have been satisfied with what we have been offering as the vehicle for reflection or the process that students use to help themselves. Both of us feel that students complete the exercise out of compliance, not out of a personal desire to learn and grow from the experience. We intuitively believe that there must be a better way. As someone that has been immersed in science and technology for so long, I welcome more opportunity to learn how to include structured reflections across my courses. I am certain that colleagues teaching in the humanities, arts and languages have sophisticated and sensible ways of inspiring meaningful reflection from their students.<\/p>\n

When done properly, reflection is powerful, life changing, and intrinsically motivating. For me, it demands that I look at myself with brutal honesty to challenge my thinking and change my point of view, whether I like it or not. The power of reflection has never been more apparent to me as I seek to reach my goals and answer my driving questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This year I have learned the importance and power of reflection, both personally and professionally. I have come to the point of knowing that even if no one ever reads what I have posted, the simple act of reflecting on what I have been going through is both powerful and useful for me. It organizes … Continue reading “The Power of Reflection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":78,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classroom-reflections","category-face-2-face-sessions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mikearsenault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}