What are Reflections?
What are Reflections?
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Being reflective is one attribute of the IB learner profile: “We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.” (IBO.org)
Reflection is central to building a deep and rich experience in CAS. Developing a culture of reflection helps students recognize and understand how to be reflective as well as deciding the best methods and appropriate timing. Student learning is enhanced by reflection on choices and actions. This enables students to grow in their ability to explore skills, strengths, limitations and areas for further development.
Through reflection students examine ideas and consider how they might use prior learning in new contexts. Reflection leads to improved problem-solving, higher cognitive processes and greater depth of understanding in addition to exploring how CAS experiences may influence future possibilities.
Having established an effective understanding of the four elements of reflection, students develop higher order thinking skills by critically examining thoughts, feelings and actions, thereby synthesizing their learning. The theory of knowledge (TOK) course provides students with critical thinking skills to develop and extend their reflections. For example, during TOK (ways of knowing) they consider their emotions, ability to reason and how to use language.
Students can be encouraged to move forward through deeper questions. For example:
Describe what happened: retell memorable moments, identify what was important or influential, describe what went wall or was difficult, explain how you worked through obstacles, and celebrate your successes.
Express feeling: articulate emotional responses to your experiences.
Generate ideas: rethink or re-examine choices and actions made. This helps increase awareness about the self and responses made in different situations.
Ask questions: question processes or issues to prompt further thinking and ongoing inquiry
Methods of Reflections
Methods of Reflections
Reflection can appear in countless forms. CAS students should be able to identify forms of expression that have personal meaning and best enable them to explore their experiences. For example:
• A student might take photographs while hiking and use these to reflect in writing. • A student could create a blog about their CAS experience. • Two students could compose a song describing how they helped children at a shelter. • A student might dramatize a poem to capture a feeling of creative endeavor. • A student could produce a short video summarizing a CAS experience. • A group of students create a poster highlighting aspects of a shared experience. • A student could choreograph a dance capturing the emotion behind a clean-up experience.
• A student might take photographs while hiking and use these to reflect in writing. • A student could create a blog about their CAS experience. • Two students could compose a song describing how they helped children at a shelter. • A student might dramatize a poem to capture a feeling of creative endeavor. • A student could produce a short video summarizing a CAS experience. • A group of students create a poster highlighting aspects of a shared experience. • A student could choreograph a dance capturing the emotion behind a clean-up experience.
Tennis lessons: A narrative…. (NOT WHAT WE WANT)
Over the past few weeks we focused on serving. We practiced first with the ball toss, and then the arm action. We had to do it over and over and it was boring. The coach just kept saying “do it again”. In the end I did manage to get more serves in.
Tennis lessons: A reflection… (WHAT WE EXPECT)
My coach has been pushing me to practice more, however we just keep doing the same drills. I think we would learn faster with variety in the drills – it would become less boring. I know that in basketball I learnt dribbling much faster because the coach used lots of different types of drills. He also gave us a lot of feedback about what I was doing right and wrong, and this made me think about my skills. My tennis coach never really gives me feedback like that. I want to suggest something to him but I’m too shy. Would it be right to ask Mom to say something to him (but what does she know about tennis?).
Evidence: Documentation in the form of pictures, videos, programs, and so forth
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