You Say Reflection, I say Busy Brain! Why should we look back on our experiences?

I am a self-diagnosed "busy brain". My thoughts are on a continuous cycle within the walls of the vessel on top of my shoulders. It holds so much that one could compare it to Mary Poppins bag of endless and useful items.

John Dewey has stated, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” The Learning Cycle, developed by David Kolb, based Dewey, Piaget, and Lewin, is based on the belief that deep learning (learning for real comprehension) comes from a sequence of experience, reflection, abstraction, and active testing.

I could not agree with the above mentioned gentlemen more, we have to not just experience life, but reflect on it. During that reflection process we are able to grow through reviewing the lessons that we intended to learn and, more specifically, the ones we did not. We are able to grasp a deeper learning experience when reflect.

1- Have the experience and go into it with a growth mindset

2- Reflect on the experience with that same growth mindset

3- Learn from the experience

4- Try out any new ideas that grew from the reflection and learning cycles

We have to teach others (our students) to attempt to do the same with their experiences. If they start now they will be able to grow so much as the travel through their academic journey and into adulthood. This idea of reflection is and should not be new to them, but maybe they haven't been taught reason why it is important to go through the reflection process.

In order to better serve our students we should have them start an ePortfolio to guide their reflection process voyage. ePortfolios will put an ease on them and allow for growth as they self assess what they have gone through and their creative outputs. By viewing them again and again students learn what areas they have strengths in and where they need to grow. They learn what they like and dislike through reflecting on what abilities they have.

Overall, reflection through ePortfolios are a great way to grow exponentially both academically and in a social, emotional way.