Reflection

Service Reflection Toolkit

Produced by the Northwest Service Academy, Metro Center, Portland, OR

Why Reflect?

We do not learn from doing, we learn from thinking about what we do. Research shows that reflection has some positive impact on the attitudes if the volunteers regarding service. However, the lack of reflection has a strong negative impact on the volunteers’ attitudes about service and service activity.

Reflection is a crucial part of community service, which allows volunteers to look back on, think critically about, and learn from their service experience. Reflection may include acknowledging and/or sharing of reactions, feelings, observations, and ideas about anything regarding the activity. Reflection can happen through writing, speaking, listening, reading, drawing, acting, and any other way you can imagine.

Benefits of Reflection

• Can help volunteers understand the limitations and opportunities of the service site or community organization
• Relieves tension and provides re-energizing and renewal (especially important when
  service is emotionally challenging)
• Can create a sense of accomplishment that is crucial, especially where there are
  limited external rewards
• Can integrate service into the rest of one’s life – developing a “spirit” of service and civic mindedness
• Can improve service – as volunteers examine the effects of their behavior, they
  discover ways to improve the quality and quantity of their service.
• Can create a sense of closure, especially important after a long service period, project,
  or emotional experience
• Fosters life-long learning skills – develops an ability to learn from positive and
  negative experiences
• Guards against reinforcing inaccurate perceptions/biases
• Creates shared understandings, open communication, and better teamwork through
  group problem solving
• Encourages volunteers to do higher level thinking, as they look for root causes of
  complex issues
  

What? So What? Now What?

This is a well-used and successful model to assist you in designing the reflection activities. Although you can derive learning from each question, focusing on all three will provide broader insights and keep participants from getting stuck on only the facts or just the feelings.

1. What? (Report objectively what happened.) Without judgment or interpretation, participants describe in detail the facts and events of the service experience. Possible questions include:


• What happened?
• What did you observe?
• What issue is being addressed, or what population is being served?
• What were the results of the project?
• What events or “critical incidents” occurred?
• What was of particular notice?
• How did you feel about that?


2. So What? (Analyze what was learned and what difference the event made.) Participants
   discuss their feelings, ideas, and analysis of the service experience. Questions can be focused
   on the meaning or importance of the activity to specific groups or individuals, such as:


• The Participant: Did you learn a new skill or clarify an interest? Did you encounter anything that surprised you? What feelings or thoughts seem most strong today? How was your experience different from what you expected? What struck you about that? How was that significant? What impacts the way you view the situation/experience? (eg, what lens are you looking through?) What did the critical incidents mean to you? How did you respond to them? What did you like/dislike
  about the experience?
• The Recipient: Did the “service” empower the recipient to become more selfsufficient? What did you learn about the people/community that was served? What might impact the recipient’s views or experience of the project?
• The Community: What are some of the pressing needs/issues in the community? How does this project address those needs? How, specifically, has the community benefited? What is the least impact you can imagine for the project? With unlimited creativity, what is the most impact on the community that you can imagine?
• The Group (group projects): In what ways did the group work well together? What does that suggest to you about the group? How might the group have accomplished its task more effectively? In what ways did others help you today? (and vice versa) How were decisions made? Were everyone’s ideas listened to?


3. Now What? (Describe how you will think or act in the future as a result of this experience.) Participants should consider broader implications of the service experience and apply their learning. Be open to both realistic, reachable goals and spontaneity and change. Some questions include:


• What seem to be the root causes of the issue/problem addressed?
• What kinds of activities are being done in the community related to this project?
• What contributes to the success of projects like this?
• What hinders success?
• What learning occurred for you in this experience?
• How can you apply this learning?
• What would you like to learn more about, related to this project or issue?
• What follow-up is needed to address any challenges or difficulties?
• What information can you share with your peers or community volunteers?
• If you were in charge of the project, what would you do to improve it?
• If you could do the project again, what would you do differently?
• What would “complete” the service?

Whereas the “What?, So What?, Now What?” model focuses on group processing and discussion, ideal reflection activities allow the participants to reflect publicly and privately, utilizing a variety of forms of expression.

Designing a Reflection activity: Tips for Success

An effective reflection activity should:

• Have an outcome in mind (i.e. leadership, team building, improved critical thinking, acknowledgment)
• Be appropriate for the team (age, culture, etc.)
• Happen before, during, and as soon after the service experience as possible
• Be directly linked to the project or experience
• Dispel stereotypes, address negative experiences, increase appreciation for community needs, increase commitment to service
• Be varied for different learning styles, ages, etc.
• Actively involve the service recipients for a really compelling reflection session
• Be facilitated well for maximum participation, creativity, and learning

Facilitating a Reflection activity: Tips for Success

An effective reflection facilitator should:

• Seek a balance between being flexible to address member’s needs, and keeping the process consistent with the theme. In other words, if some notable incident happens during the day, or has been forming for some time, it will probably be on the member’s minds enough to prevent their presence in any other conversation. Thus, even if you have an outcome in mind, what needs to get said may be the most important thing to discuss or reflect upon. Similarly, the conversation cannot be allowed to veer with no focus; reflection questions often lead to other questions, which lead to other questions. While these diversions can lead to great discussion, they can, as easily, go all over the place with little value for participants. Maintain focus by bringing it back to the theme or significant topic, and presenting “so what, now what” questions before leaving a decent topic.
• Use silence: People need some silence to reflect internally, some more than others do. Ask the question then wait.
• Ensure that all participants have an equal opportunity to become involved.

Journaling: A Primer

Journaling is one of the best reflection tools. Ideally, a community service program or project
would allow for a ten to fifteen minute period every day for the volunteers to journal; preferably at the end of the day or during/after a debrief. It is helpful if staff or the project leader provides substantial structure to insure quality, conscientious journaling; and it is even more helpful if the person leading the reflection activity keeps a journal themselves!

Regardless of the time allotted, it is important to encourage participants to write whatever comes to mind, and to not worry about grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. This entails a commitment to confidentiality, that nobody will ever share what the have written unless they want to. You should also be definite and clear about the time allotted (five to fifteen minutes), and let them know when it is almost finished.

A Few More Reflection Suggestions:

• Question discussion: Randomly, or in a circle, each person responds to a posed question (such as “What was the project highlight?”).
• Snapshot: Create a silent snapshot of the service project. One person starts with a pose or action related to the project, everybody else joins the “snapshot.”
• Senses: Before activity, project, event or even before the first day or service, ask participants to share what they expect to hear, smell, see, touch and taste. Then follow up after the activity with what the participant actually sensed.
• Parables/Stories: Read a piece of pertinent literature and have participants respond and draw correlations to service experience.
• Object sharing: Each person brings in and passes around an object, and shares how the object is like them or like a specific project they were involved in. The object can be something found in nature, a type of food, a book, etc. (Pick one!)