This week’s Sustaining the Journey continues a review of the Reflecting Conversation Map. The focus will be on the first region, “Summarize impressions and recall supporting information/data.”

Summarize impressions and recall supporting information/data

Analyze causal factors

Construct new learning(s)

Commit to application

Reflect on the coaching processand explore refinements

We have found that reflection is often misconstrued as reporting. The intention of “Summarize impressions and recall supporting information/data,” is not to provide a detailed account of the event; instead the purpose is to give a general impression of the experience and to begin to examine data that supports that impression.

Some questions that might support that intention are:

How are you feeling about your lesson?

What are some things that come to mind when you think about this experience?

What things specifically tell you that it went so well/so poorly?

What data that you collected were most important to your understanding of this experience?

If the coach observed the experience and collected data, this would be the time to provide the reflector with that information. It might sound like:

Would you like to see the data I collected?

I have some additional data; here it is for your use.

This week, as you coach for reflection, notice how you invite others to examine their impressions using data.