Lets start with recap on Content and Process Method.
Every work has a number of aspects to consider. These aspects are:
- What is the goal, what is to be achieved?
- Which assignments or tasks do we need to complete in order to reach the goal?
- Which work processes or models will help achieve the goal?
- Who are ’we’ that shall reach the goal?
- How can we measure the end result?
- How do we know we have achieved the goal?
- How will we evaluate?
- Concerning goals, tasks, processes and results
Now let us get right to the Reflection.
Reflection is a cool tool to have in your bag. Reflection is done individually and then can be shared with the group. Here I will give you some tips that you can follow and then all you have to do is to practice this tool a lot. Every night just spend 5 minutes on Reflection and You yourself will feel a difference and Change in your life. This is a 3 step process that I use myself.
- Reflection in a group paves the way for collaborative learning as everyone shares their experiences of the previous events and days with each other.
- The dialogue in the reflection provides you with the opportunity to reinforce your experiences but also to get a chance to access other perceptions from the rest of the group.
- This helps you to alter deep-seated thoughts, attitudes and experiences.
The three points above shows us how Reflection works and the outcome of the Reflection with in a group. Similarly you can do Reflection in your day to day life. It will have a same result.
Like in my previous blog posts I have a Model for Reflection. The model is called Well of Knowledge. It consists of 4 parts Repeat, Refer, Review and Reflection. So until today you might be doing Review while thinking that you are doing Reflection. Now you can differentiate between these 4. There is a fine line between these 4 and I want you to pay attention on the following description.
Repeat
- What has happened or been said. It includes repetition of facts as they were perceived.
This is just a repetition of the facts of event or the day’s work. It is good to discuss this at the end of each day with your group. As a teacher of manager you can do a small 5 minute exercise at the end of each day where you ask your students or employees to write down in one word that they have learned today.
Refer
- Reproducing a summary of events that have taken place.
- This might lead to documentation without evaluating what has happened and integrating it into the participants’ own mind.
Remember that this is where you are summarizing the whole day and you are not evaluating when you are doing this.
Review
- It involves looking at events with a purpose of evaluating them. This may lead to assessment of things; good or bad.
This is where you evaluate the day’s work with in your group.
Reflect
Reflecting involves considering, thinking about and exploring what the event mean to me (Reflection is an individual act so that is why I used ‘me’), how I relate to what has happened, what I experienced and how I feel about it. What does this mean to me? All this is for the sake of your group and environment/climate of the group. In simple words Process Facilitation is incomplete without Reflection.
I encourage you to do Reflection individually and then share with your group. The sharing part is not compulsory. It is all up to you to share or keep it to yourself.
Result:
The impact and power of reflection, appears when ’adaptation’ takes place; when we Change our patterns in relation to the experience and knowledge and actually apply it to a new or a similar situation.
Finally I am giving you some questions that are related to Reflection and that I have used in my previous posts. Have a look and feel free to practice.
Example questions to support the Reflection:
- What happened that affected me?
- What did/do I feel about this?
- What did I learn?
- about myself and/or my behavior
- about other people and/or other people’s behavior.
- about groups and/or the behavior of groups.
- How can my behavior or the behavior of others make it easier for the group to achieve effective learning?
- How can my behavior or the behavior of others hinder the group to achieve effective learning?
- What did I hold off from doing/what stopped me?
- What can I do to take more out of this? For myself/others?
- How can I apply what I learned in other situations?
That’s it folks. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Now go ahead and subscribe to my blog and then start sharing, commenting, reflecting. Next is about Feedback. This is a huge topic and I am thinking that I will post it into 2 or 3 blogs. Get ready to read about Feedback in my next posts to become a great feedback giving person without fear of doing mistake. See you then and signing off.
/Imran