What I See In Reflection

            In a week and a half we will be engaged in our superintendence test and most of us will miss some problems.  If we were given the chance to go back and look at those problems, I would normally come to the conclusion of why did I pick that one?  It is the same feeling that students in our classes have when they miss an “easy problem.”  Being reflective is the closest this we can get to the old saying of “Hind Sight 20/20.”  Having the ability to look back on decisions and foresee out comes from those decisions will affect your decisions in the future for the positive.  Being reflective also allows for you to revisit that prior knowledge for the future and thus creating greater storage of memory.  Leadership is very cognitive.

            I would complete a course assignment and then complete my blog over the assignment and then reflect and then I would change some of the assignment.  Many times your reflections come out a lot better than the assignment is and sometimes your reflection does not represent how well you completed an assignment.  I also found that doing some of the assignments felt like busy work until I started to reflect on the data and then the learning began.

            Blogging is a reflective activity in itself.  You are posting to the world what your thoughts are and sometimes pictures and the list goes on and on.  If you are not a reflective blogger then you will post something that you are not proud of and your digital legacy will be tarnished.  Blogging is a good practice for leaders who are quick to act and sometimes do not think about the decisions they make and how they affect others.  Abraham Lincoln always wrote 2 letters, one you meant and one you sent.  If you are reflective about your actions and the cause and effect of your actions, it will help you not make a quick decision.

            I went through three superintendents during this year and each one had a different leadership style.  My supervision was very hands on and was very hands off.  I did make reflection a large part of my campus logs.  I did my reflection from the seat of the superintendent and it was very interesting sitting in three different superintendents seats and analyzing the decisions being made.

            I did a better job at answering questions on the assessments by copying them onto word and reading them from my desk and then going onto the computer and clicking the correct answers.  This allowed me to highlight and make marks and really take over the page which you cannot do on the computer.  I often looked back at questions I missed and some that I did not.