Reflection on Reflection

Reflection on ‘REFLECTION’

Reflection …first time I heard this word when I was in 7 th std. Do you know what is reflection ? Reflection has different meanings according to the context or subjects. In my context , reflection means serious or critical thinking process about our work. We are familiar about one experience,that  is our image is reflected when we are in front of mirror. Mirror tells us about our personality or look. It  never lies. It  tells about good and bad things as well. It  gives us solutions too. It  makes us  think about ourselves what is looking nice ? and what is not . Then we try to correct  over all lacunas and try to look more beautiful and smart .Isn’t it ? It means we try to improve or fulfill our gaps . It happens only when we reflect. Now think about our day today life. Do we reflect evenonce ?  No. Because  we don’t have that much time. Or some of us don’t know what itis ? Reflection plays vital role in our life. I surely tell you without reflecting we can’t improve ourselves. We  can ‘t achieve our goals. We  can’t get success. So if we want to grow  we have to reflect. It’s a universal truth.Beyond that I would say being a human being we should be able to reflect on our activitieseveryday.We ought to  reflect on what we said and did in a particular situation during or after the event.  It’s a golden opportunity to improve ourselves.So, don’t miss the chance.

What is reflection ?Lets have a look….  

As far as I amconcerned ,reflection is  self evaluation,self observation  of our work. It is a process of looking back on ones work to identify ones areas of improvement and  looking  forward to improving our professional practice. It is  nothing but critical analysis of what we have done . It is a way of understanding  our strengths and weaknesses. Reflection is the process of learning through our own experiences to improve quality of work. It is a type of   trial and error method.Reflection is one of the most important feedback that weshould know how progressive we are in learningprocess .

In a nutshell, reflection means to reflect on our own actions and experiences to evaluate, analyseand refine the ideas for better prospects. Reflection is very much connected to professional development.

Once the lesson or an activity or our work is finished , we must sit s back and think over the whole process. We should think critically about our work. For this we have to  ask the following questions to ourselves.

What did I do?

Did it go well? 

What went well? 

Did it achieve your goal? 

What didn't go well? 

What's the reason behind it?

 What should be done differentlynext time ?

How to implement it ?

Besides , some practical questions we can ask ourselves.

How do we  reflect?

We do something in our daily routine.  Then we think about it. We draw some conclusions about it. And in light of those conclusions, we adapt the changes.After adaption  we do it again to see what happens as a result . And then we think about that new experience, and we draw new conclusions. And perhaps, adapt the changes once more.  This is a process of learning from our experience .

David Kolb, who is an American educational theorist, born in 1939, and living in Ohiodeveloped a cycle of reflection on the basis of above ideas. It is useful for everyone. It consists of four stages. First one is concrete experience for the doing stage. Second stage is reflective observation for the thinking stage. Third is abstract conceptualization for the concluding stage. And fourth stage is active experimentation for the adapting stage. We should remember, this cycle of reflection is  drawn from  real life scenario of experiential learning. In real life mostly we reflect on our decisions , occasional event etc. Same thing applies here. In short , we should think about our work ,then come on to specific conclusion and then adapt. It means , doing-thinking-concluding- adapting – doing again…At last we should retry same thing in a different manner. Then the cycle goes on…

  In my opinion , reflection is a skill of learning. It is a very logical way of learning and improving ourselves. This skill gives us strength to overcome challenges. It builds up our confidence. It helps us to develop critical thinking skill as it covers analyzing,evaluating and creating. It is needful,helpful and useful throughout  life. I have improved my way of teaching and living as well by reflecting myself.

Being a teacher, I have to reflect on my lessons. I have learnt about this concept from British council trainings. It helps me a lot. I am doing online course named ‘Becoming a better teacher’.  From this course I have learnt about reflection deeply. It helps me to get new ideas of teaching while working in Tejas project.  I reflected while doing various activities in this project. As a result, I am able to understand myself and my students better.It encourages active engagement .It makes me realize my role as a teacher. In my view,we should also develop this skill in our students. As a learner they should look back on their activities and assess themselves. It is very effective tool for them to improve themselves by themselves. It gives them bright career and future. Do spread this term to everyone so that everyone gets benefit from it.

Now a days I keep online reflective journal to note down the points. I got an idea from online course. A reflective journal is a learning tool that can help you to keep a record of useful information, ideas,links etc. from our teaching and learning in general. There are so many apps available online to maintain it. It’s a better way to collect important information and data.I strongly suggest to everyone to keep reflective journal if possible and do reflect. For this what should we do?

1.     Download online app for keeping reflective journal or keep anotebook to note down reflective points.

2.     After finishing every activity or lesson ask questions to our self as I mentioned above.

3.     Do think on it. Find solutions to overcome the lacunas.

4.     Make a draft of summarizing points.

5.     Plan new strategy and apply it.

     So friends, let’s try and share your experiences. I ensure you it will give you lots of benefit.

-         Kalpana Bansod

SARP, Chandrapur.