Our IB learner profile value for the month of November is “Reflective.” This value is described by the International Baccalaureate organization in the following way:
“They give thoughtful consideration to their own learning and experience. They are able
to assess and understand their strengths and limitations in order to support their learning
and personal development (IB 2017).”
As the 2017 school and calendar are coming to an end, we inevitably reflect on the year behind us. The yearly cycle offers an opportunity for us to take inventory on what went well and what could be even better as we set goals for the coming year. In learning and education, we have several of these cycles to take advantage of. The daily cycle, the weekly cycle, the monthly cycle, and the trimester cycle all offer opportunities for reflection.
Whether learning in an academic setting or in terms of personal development, having a growth mindset can allow us to consider our strengths and limitations within a balanced, open-minded context. With an emphasis on practice, effort, and skill acquisition, we can recognize that today’s limitations could be tomorrow’s strengths with the right attitude. By embracing challenges, we realize effort is the path to mastery and through feedback and reflection, we can always “upgrade” our strengths. This attitude and approach, in itself, requires practice and can contribute tremendously to our learning and personal development when embraced with an open mind.
From the field of Positive Psychology, we also know that understanding our strengths can assist us in harnessing our attributes to better serve us. The research shows us that if we understand and use our character strengths to tackle challenges, we tend to be happier and experience less stress. Furthermore, awareness and development of our strengths usually contribute to more confidence, faster growth, and more satisfaction (Psychology Today 2014. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/functioning-flourishing/201411/ten-reasons-focus-your-strengths). For example, if someone has the strength of Curiosity, they can utilize it to affect their mindset as they explore ways to approach a new task or project. Some of the character strengths we can identify include: kindness, honesty, bravery, humor, gratitude, etc. Knowing, understanding, and utilizing our strengths requires regular reflection as we attempt new challenges. To see a complete list of character strengths and to take a free survey to identify your own strengths you can visit the VIA Institute on Character’s website at http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey.
By utilizing reflection as a tool, we can constantly become better versions of ourselves in whatever we aim to achieve and we can model this for our children and students. With a growth mindset, armed with understanding of our personal strengths, we can reflect on any challenge or situation and evaluate what happened. Next, we can analyze and decide what went well and what could have been done differently. From here, we can devise an action plan and begin the cycle again (Gibbs 1998. Leeds Beckett University. Skills for Learning. Available at http://skillsforlearning.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/preview/content/models/03.shtml).
