In modern world there are a lot of opportunities to get a plenty of new knowledge or be educated in different spheres. But still, the greatest education a person will ever receive is not the one he or she gets from a school or an institute of higher education, but the one they give themselves. That is why young people themselves, more than any other instructor, person or institution, are in charge of their education - which can either be good news or bad news for a youth worker.

From the previous chapters you learned a lot about concept of evaluation, its aims and objectives, evaluation models, actors, types and timing of evaluation, planning and preparing for evaluation, found out a lot about methods of evaluation. Although you already have made a lot of steps towards high-quality youth work, still a lot of work should be done.

To continue our educational journey we will focus more on reflection and its place in youth work and non-formal education.

The processes of reflection and evaluation are closely related and both of them are extremely important in determining the effectiveness of youth work. Evaluation and reflection present opportunities for innovation, educational change and improved participants learning.

Reflection is a strong tool in youth work and non-formal education that deserves a separate attention among evaluation methods in general. This is why for the best educational outcome young people don’t just read a book or listen to a lecture or watch a movie or go through an experience or go through the motions of a day— for the best they should always take the time to reflect and evaluate what they experienced that day so that they can learn from it and use that learning to propel themselves forward.

Hope you already have some general understanding of importance of reflection in youth work.

With the help of this part of the Module devoted to the topic of reflection you will find out what is reflection, what it brings to your youth projects and how to organize effective reflection in the frames of youth work to reach the  best learning outcomes.

And with the saying “Your two best teachers will always be reflection and evaluation”, let’s start this chapter.