Reflectiveness

In Ed 221, every class period we take what Dr. Pillsbury likes to call "Think time". She poses a question to the class and then gives us time to reflect before we respond. Then we share our thoughts with a partner, and use them as a sounding board of sorts to bounce ideas off of in an attempt to deepen/broaden our own understanding. Finally, we come together as a whole class to share what we have discovered. In the first few classes we did not really know what to do during these discussions/reflections and we spent a good portion of the think time just sitting there awkwardly, but by the end of the term it felt like we never had enough think time because there were always other things to think/talk deeper about.

I think that part of the problem is that as students we were never really taught to reflect. We are rarely given time or effective prompts to reflect upon. In junior high we were given EXTENSIVE amounts of time to "reflect" but we were not given interesting prompts that were worthy of our time and consideration nor were we ever lead through the process of reflecting in a meaningful way. We would run out of things to say and think about in the first couple minutes and then we would goof off for the rest of the time. In high school, many of the questions were interesting enough but we were not given enough time to think beyond the sallowest level of understanding.

One of the brilliant parts of Dr. Pillsbury's think time is that she started out with very short periods of time so that we would not get off topic or goof off when we felt we were "done" reflecting. She also walked us through some important though provoking questions and let us discuss our thoughts with a partner to help deepen our understanding and provide us with an opinion other than our own. As the term went on, she continued extending our alloted think time, and by the end of the term, even with the extended think time we would usually have to stop our discussion before we were done talking.

I hope to be able to incorporate Dr. Pillsbury's think time techniques into my own classroom. Reflection is a way of growing in your own mind, of knowing yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin. We should constantly be asking ourselves, and each other, questions that are thought provoking and make us reconsider our preconceived notions and perceptions.

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” -Peter F. Drucker

"Seeing within changes one's outer vision." -Joseph Chilton Pearce