Self-Reflection for Staff Development
Abstract
The larger purpose of this module is to create a learning climate that fosters the professional growth of development workers. This approach offers a subjective framework that encourages each participant to contribute to development of the educational environment. The key rationale for creating an environment that is conductive to learning is to allow the participants to step back from their field reality in order to reflect upon their work experience. The tools presenting emphasize the exploration of participants' existing knowledge instead of focusing on providing new information. The key objective is to develop a method that assists the participants in undertaking reflection and self-analysis in order to deal with issues of needs assessment, problem solving, and program planning.
This module is designed to provide a sequential outline for organizing a series of learning experiences for staff development. However, the implementation of the outline may require creative adaptation and the suggested framework of the sessions can be changed or adjusted based on the participants' expressed interests or felt needs. Since each cultural context in relation to staff development differs significantly from another, experiences suggests the importance of modifying the learning experience in order to more appropriately respond to different realities. This approach also acknowledges that each individual participant might not be comfortable with the activities recommended here. For example, a participant may not want to practice story writing or picture drawing. In that case, the facilitator is expected to offer an alternative activity that better fits the participant's interest. In short, individual sessions can be adapted or the sequential order of the training module can be altered in order to cope with different training realities.