Community Jaatre – Reflection

Community Jaatre… imagine a group of families coming together to explore various aspects of open learning on a sunny and cloudy Sunday morning. Reflection is an integral part of our open learning journey, so we decided to understand it more. All ages participated to understand REFLECTION.

WHY Reflection

We began with a game – find as many (english) words within these words – Dictionary, Intelligent, Aluminium, Denominator, Furnishing, Moderate, Reduction, Satisfactory, Unbalanced.

Then we reflected on the game using these questions:

• What was exciting?
• What was difficult?
• What strategies helped?
• What else can you do in future?
• How did you use teamwork?

SOMEREFLECTION

Time limit and speed was exciting.

One said ” I don’t believe in future”.

To find words within words was Challenging.

Didn’t expect to play a game in a session

Rapid fire was challenging

Didn’t think of team work

Doing is fun, sometimes pausing to strategize is a good idea.

etc.

WHY one would reflect? –We go for a movie…we talk about it. We go for a holiday…we talk about it. We have a fight … we think about it – that is reflection. But is that SUFFICIENT? Sometimes one can do more than what we do normally (talk, share, think)

WHY? WHAT are BENEFITS of REFLECTION?

Course correct/ modify or Improvise/ do better next time

Organize thoughts

To connect with inner thoughts and feelings/ self awareness/ feeling

Understand better

Different ideas from different people

Feeling good/ bad, remember

Go back and Replay…identify own patterns/ strengths/ weakness/ unknown

Reflection is like a practice

Get to know and learn more

Opinion/ pre conceived notion gets enlarged. More perspectives

A chance to acknowledge

Discover/ reliving/ clean muddled up thoughts leading to more clarity

Enriching life experiences

Helps in imagine a lot (re-living)

Helps in sharing the thoughts

Are these enough reason for one to reflect?

Apart from a natural process it can also be designed process we can also use

REFLECTION on specifics ( pre decided, proactively). Reflection can be from many windows like

What is important? (for example reflecting on Honesty, or physical agility in my day etc)

What requires development? ( for example reflecting on ability to remember.)

What has not been considered? (for example reflecting onkindness after a =game of football)

What is interesting? (for example reflecting on colors after doing my artwork)

WHEN to REFLECT?

End of the process (after watching movie)

During the process (like strategic time out during matches)

Everyday, Weekly, Monthly … Any interval

Before doing the task (in advance)

HOW to Reflect (other than just thinking in mind)

Sharing – with peers, blogging, meditating

Writing thoughts / Journal, seek feedback, theatre, poetry, song, debate, letter writing, role play,

Using tools – photos, videos, questions,

Different mediums – doodling, collage, painting, dance, movement, sketching, colours

Qualitative – Guided visualization, feeling charts, Rubrics, Metaphors, Keywords, Word maps,

Quantitatively – maps and charts, data collection,

Tools like trash bin, Visuals – relate with a visual, thinking hats, price hats

Often reflection is associated with self discovery, for some it is not a very joyful experience as reflection ends up with guilt or feeling unsatisfied. But sometimes the act of doing in many ways helps in being open up to reflection and it brings various different aspects.

Reflection is a conscious process … One can add tools and techniques to add up value and makes it more meaningful.
Some links for tools

http://www.aarohilife.org/home/content/tools-reflection

http://www.aarohilife.org/home/aarohi-resource-type/tools

For some it was fascinating, while some got new perspective, some got more clarity, some looked at reflection as a more meaningful process. If we allow reflection to happen, it can open up many ways to measure self and self discovery.

So let’s REFLECT