REFLECTION

1. REFLECTION Jones, M., Shelton, M. (2011). Developing Your Portfolio--Enhancing Your Learning and Showing Your Stuff: A Guide for the Early Childhood Student or Professional, Second Edition. Routledge.

2. "The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action" John Dewey

3. Reflection: A Definition • The defining characteristic of a portfolio • Intentionally bringing to consciousness motivations, thoughts, beliefs, questions, assumptions, feelings, attitudes, desires, & expectations to gain insight as to meaning, connections to what is personally known, & in light of new experiences & information Jones & Shelton, 2006

4. Reflection • a disposition • a human capability • a cognitive skill

5. Reflection is a process of… • Thinking about thinking (metacognition) • Considering implications of past actions, knowledge, or current circumstances • Projecting into the future • Making connections across time • Writing as thinking (product) Reflection makes possible insights needed to learn from experience & alter habitual behaviors

6. Reflection: Purposes • Bring experience & knowledge together to produce new, personally meaningful learning • Connect theory to practice • Strengthen a critical reflection disposition • Provide insight into learning & personal or professional development • Manage emotions throughout the learning process

7. Reflection Enables Connections • Relate learning to standards/guidelines (theory to practice) • Examine impact of learning on personal views or behaviors (transformation) • Determine relevance & implications of the learning on future action (so what? & what now?)

8. Reflection Frames • Experiences as: • An observer of self and others • focuses on qualities & content of relationship • A critical reader of professional literature • focuses on engaging the literature, rather than simply being a consumer of it • An implementer of activities • focuses on the processes and products associated with your activities

9. Dispositions • Consistent & frequent patterns of behavior wherein the individual acts intentionally in particular contexts at particular times. • Ways of responding determined more by characteristics internal to the actor than provoked by the environment • “Habits of mind,” rather than “mindless habits” Katz, 1995

10. Some dispositions exercised in the portfolio process • Flexibility of thought • Intellectual curiosity • Perseverance • Risk-taking • Critical reflection

11. Steps in Reflecting & Connecting • Contemplate the meaning of specified learning experiences in relation to guidelines and practice (theory to practice) • Examine the impact of the learning on personal views or behaviors (transformation) • Determine the relevance and implications of the learning with regard to future action (so what? & now what?)

12. Reflective Writing “when viewed as a process and when done properly, [reflective writing] has a unique ability to develop the interior life of the writer…” (Fink, 2003, (p. 116).

13. The Role of Reflection • To make meaning: bring experience and knowledge together to produce new learning • To connect theory to practice – past, present and future • To transform the scrapbook into a portfolio

14. Reflection Continuum Summary of facts to limited reflection skills More insightful reflection Sophisticated, multi-level reflection           Concrete operations Formal operations

15. Prompts • _____ motivated me to… • I believed that… • ____ has made me question… • The question this raises for me is… • I assumed that… • _____ makes me feel like…   • I realized that… • _____ made me realize… • My expectation was that…  • My views on… have been…  • I imagined…  • It surprised me to find out… • _____ caused me wonder • _____ is important to me because…  • _____ has affected the way I think/feel about…