Cultivating Authentic Reflection for Learning and Assessing

 

 

 

Do you want to increase students' learning, and intellectual growth?

 

Would you like to put students at the center of their own learning?

 

Are you interested in cultivating an atmosphere of inquiry, of instilling reflection as a habit of mind?

 

Would you like to use thoughtful reflections to further your practices, evaluate your program, and help students self-assess?

 

 

 

Authentic Reflection

 

The ability to foster authentic reflection helps to create a world of critical thinkers and active learners.

 

What Authentic Reflection Is

Authentic reflection is a method for getting participants to think more deeply about what they are learning, why this is so, and what they are taking away from their experience and thought process.

 

Authentic reflection is not a straightforward description of what was done. Through a three-step process it deliberately draws responders to a more thoughtful place, which in the end is much more useful to the learner.

 

Authentic is essential to the responder's learning process, but it is simultaneously of enormous use to the educator, who from the responses can discover what it is people are learning and whether or not this meets their original goals. Thus authentic reflection provides data for the educator that they can use to amend and/or augment their own teaching practices and/or the structure of the experience itself.

 

 

What Authentic Reflection Does

Using authentic reflection stems in writing, thinking, and facilitating allows you to get learners to

•     think more deeply (move to a deeper plane of thinking)

•     communicate and listen better

•     increase their problem-solving skills

•     deepen and extend their learning

•     move from understanding to action (It forces you to take stock before going on going on to problem-solving)

•     move from action to contemplation and integration of knowledge

•     improve focus

•     make better decisions and solve problems more readily

•     practice their literacy skills

 

 

Authentic reflection is a concrete skill that touches abstract issues. Using authentic reflection allows leaders to be better at facilitating others' growth.

 

Authentic reflection is a core skill to thinking about and viewing the world.

 

It is essential that any learner can take knowledge and think more deeply. Using authentic reflection gets people to survey, become attuned into core issues in regards to the environment, team, and knowledge.

 

 

Building a Case/What We See

•     Authentic reflection brings authentic rigor that you don't usually see

•     Authentic reflection supplies usable tools in varied ways

•     Every activity should have authentic reflection be built into the curriculum and thinking

 

 

Potential Audiences/Application

•     Students to deepen their learning experience and help them take initial knowledge to true understanding

•     Transformational workshops for staff; getting them to think in different ways about their own teaching processes as well as how to get students to reflect at a deeper level

•     Professional Development for upper management/supervisors so they can do professional development for their direct service staff (building professional staff)

•     Direct service providers for their work with young people