CAS STUDENT GUIDE 2019/2020 |
REFLECTIONS
Writing true CAS reflections that provide the reader with an insight into how participation in CAS is influencing your thoughts, does not come easy to many. Often students provide a narrative rather than a reflection. Perhaps doing an internet research on reflecting may help your ability to reflect. As well as looking through some examples here and some key statements:
What do we want as a reflection?
Consider the following ideas:
One could reasonably draw the conclusion that the following Learning Outcome’s were met:
'Increased awareness of strengths and areas and growth, Undertake new challenges, Engaged with issues of global importance, Worked collaboratively with others, and Considered the ethical implications of their actions.'
“I have a new appreciation for goats. Going into this project, I thought the idea of sending a family a goat was silly. I mean, come on, it’s a goat. Is it really that big of a deal?
However, I’m a team player so I eagerly began selling my box of chocolate to help raise the $120.00 needed to send this barnyard animal to a family in need. The money came quickly. Within two weeks,we had raised not only the $120.00 needed for one goat, but we’d raised enough for 3! I began to think about how three families would now be able to support themselves by simply having what some people consider a pet. Wow! When I thought about it that way, $120.00 doesn’t seem like much money at all. For me, that’s a pair of shoes.
I don’t know that I’ll ever see shopping the same way again. Do I really need to spend $50.00 for a pair of jeans when I could get another pair for less and then donate the left over money to someone who cannot feed their family?
Who knew a simple goat would make me rethink my spending habits? I feel as if I have grown as a person after completing this project. I have so much and give so little.
"When reflecting on the CAS programme as a whole it is easy to chart your progress if you reflect through the 8 learning outcomes. By doing this you are able to fully comprehend the impact you have had on certain projects and track your development."
- CAS Student
Writing true CAS reflections that provide the reader with an insight into how participation in CAS is influencing your thoughts, does not come easy to many. Often students provide a narrative rather than a reflection. Perhaps doing an internet research on reflecting may help your ability to reflect. As well as looking through some examples here and some key statements:
What do we want as a reflection?
Consider the following ideas:
- How you felt
- What you perceived
- What you thought about the activity
- What the activity meant to you
- What the value of the activity was
- What you learned from the activity and how this learning might apply more widely
One could reasonably draw the conclusion that the following Learning Outcome’s were met:
'Increased awareness of strengths and areas and growth, Undertake new challenges, Engaged with issues of global importance, Worked collaboratively with others, and Considered the ethical implications of their actions.'
“I have a new appreciation for goats. Going into this project, I thought the idea of sending a family a goat was silly. I mean, come on, it’s a goat. Is it really that big of a deal?
However, I’m a team player so I eagerly began selling my box of chocolate to help raise the $120.00 needed to send this barnyard animal to a family in need. The money came quickly. Within two weeks,we had raised not only the $120.00 needed for one goat, but we’d raised enough for 3! I began to think about how three families would now be able to support themselves by simply having what some people consider a pet. Wow! When I thought about it that way, $120.00 doesn’t seem like much money at all. For me, that’s a pair of shoes.
I don’t know that I’ll ever see shopping the same way again. Do I really need to spend $50.00 for a pair of jeans when I could get another pair for less and then donate the left over money to someone who cannot feed their family?
Who knew a simple goat would make me rethink my spending habits? I feel as if I have grown as a person after completing this project. I have so much and give so little.
"When reflecting on the CAS programme as a whole it is easy to chart your progress if you reflect through the 8 learning outcomes. By doing this you are able to fully comprehend the impact you have had on certain projects and track your development."
- CAS Student
Some helpful reflection sentence starters:
"I wanted to challenge myself. The first time I played singles I felt like quitting because everything seemed impossible for me. The court was too big for me to cover, I was not good at serving long serves and I was really out of shape. I could not run at all. All of this did not stop me though; it just pushed me to become better."
Further help how to write your reflections for your CAS Activities:
1. Pre-Reflection:
a. Increased awareness of strengths/weaknesses
- One thing I learned about myself............(positive or negative)
- If I were in charge of this activity I would..........
- One thing I liked(or disliked)............................
- This activity left an impression on me because....
- This activity was good because.............................
- The thing I enjoyed most was.................................
- I influenced...............................................
- I realised that....................................................
- I am pleased with..............................................
- Next time what I would do differently would be.....................
- My initial intentions were...........................................
"I wanted to challenge myself. The first time I played singles I felt like quitting because everything seemed impossible for me. The court was too big for me to cover, I was not good at serving long serves and I was really out of shape. I could not run at all. All of this did not stop me though; it just pushed me to become better."
Further help how to write your reflections for your CAS Activities:
1. Pre-Reflection:
- What goals do I hope to accomplish?
- Which learner objectives do you hope to meet?
- Did you meet the goals you set out?
- Why or why not?
- What learner objectives did you meet?
- Why or why not?
- If you could do this activity again, what would you do differently?
a. Increased awareness of strengths/weaknesses
- Did this activity humble you?
- Boost your self confidence?
- Why weren’t you aware of this strength/weakness before?
- How do you feel now that you’re aware of it?
- Why is it important for us to know our strengths? Our weaknesses?
- What was so challenging?
- Why was it challenging?
- Have you done anything similar before?
- How did you overcome this challenge?
- If you didn’t overcome it, why not and what will you do differently next time?
- How do you feel about having undertaken this challenge?
- Why is it important for you to undertake new challenges?
- How did you organise yourself?
- Are you usually an organised person?
- Did you discover any skills you hadn’t known or learned yet that you had to use for the planning and initiating of this activity?
- What was harder? The planning or the initiating? Why?
- Do you think planning or initiating anything in the future will be easier now?
- Why is it important to know how to plan and initiate activities?
- Is working with others generally easy or hard for you? Why?
- So, based on your answer to the above question, was this particular activity easy or hard for you to work with others?
- Did you have to work with anyone difficult? How did you handle it?
- Why is it important to be able to work collaboratively with others?
- What made this activity difficult where perseverance or commitment was necessary?
- How did that make you feel?
- Is it easy for you to commit to things? To be persistent? Why or why not?
- Why is showing perseverance and commitment important?
- What were the issues?
- Why are they important globally? How? Where? How did you know?
- How does knowing about global issues contribute to your personal growth?
- How does it make you feel now that you are aware of this global issue?
- How does your work in this CAS activity make you feel about that global issue?
- Do you understand what ethics are?
- How do you know if something is ethical? How did you learn that?
- What ethical issues were involved in this activity? Explain.
- Did the ethical issues affect you directly or indirectly?
- How did the issue make you feel? What was your opinion on this issue before this activity? Has it changed or stayed the same after this activity?
- What could you do to increase the awareness of others about this issue?
- Why is an ethical education important?
- What new skills did I develop?
- Why did you not have them before?
- How could this skill be useful to you in the future?
- How does having this new skill make you feel about yourself?
- Why is it important to learn new skills?
- Although it’s not about length, writing a few sentences is likely not going to be enough. It’s more about quality than quantity, BUT if you can’t give me quality work in a small quantity, then your quantity can make up for your quality!
- Video reflections are strongly encouraged and can be completed as a group. They are more personal and can share more information.
- The reflection is just as important as actually doing the activity and maybe even more so. If the activity served no purpose, then its a waste of your time?
- CAS is supposed to be meaningful to you and about personal growth. The evidence of this growth is the reflection. That’s HOW you make it meaningful. Pick your activities accordingly!
- Reflections should be more like journal entries; more about emotions and thoughts than a description of the activity.
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