Until now, i haven't always been aware that i had been using reflective practises in my profession, however after a particularly challenging day I do always think how i could have done it better or what i could have changed. I rarely reflect on why things went well and how i can repeat that situation. Which i now realise this is what i need to do more of.
Reflective practise is the ability to reflect on an action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practise reflectively and reflexively. - Wikipedia
I am now going to research more into the findings of four reflective theory practitioners Dewy , Schon, Kolb & Moon I can then see what information and ideas i can take from their theories and implement in my own work.
Views of Dewy
Dewey defined reflective thought as ‘active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends’ (Dewey 1933: 118). He set out five phases or aspects.
Dewy believe that it is best to learn from a situation rather that to try and pre-empt what may or may not happen.
These states of thinking are as follows:
1. Suggestions, in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution.Drawing different ideas from the day and how you could use them to improve your work.
2. An intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity that has been felt (directly experienced) into a problem to be solved. By recognising what difficulties were faced can be the first step to finding a solution.
3. The use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis, to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material. Exploring all options before deciding which method would be the most effective, I find this to be quite a good idea as it triggers connective ideas which you may not have thought of.
4. The mental elaboration of the idea, or supposition as an idea or supposition (reasoning, in the sense in which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference). Building upon then new found ideas I would then use these ideas to see what other problems i could overcome.
5. Testing the hypothesis by overt, or imaginative action. (See Dewey 1933: 199-209). Trying to see how the ideas would work in reality, I feel i would need to have a fair few back up plans dependent on the mood of the children, rowing upstream is much harder than going with the flow of children.
Text in red taken from - http://infed.org/mobi/reflection-learning-and-education/
I use this after most classes to ask the children what they have learnt in the session, what they need to remember for next time and what they need to improve for next time. He explains in the 5 stages that you need a starting point in which to reflect from, you can then elaborate on the idea to reflect on byt making it much bigger which can then lead to any problems being solved.
Views of Schon
'The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation'. (Schön 1983: 68)
I feel this relates very much to the what if? method of reflective technique which i used in my journal. This wasn't my most favoured technique, I felt it focused on too much of what could happen rather than what actually happened. However I do believe that you can reflect whilst you're in a situation which is also a view of Schon, I think you need the ability to recognise when something isn't quite going to plan and change it, you can then reflect later on why that change needed to happen.
Views of Kolb
Kolb's experiential learning style theory is typically represented by a four stage learning cycle in which the learner 'touches all the bases':
-http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html
I really like Kolbs theory of reflection, when i reflect i use a similar process, i find it hard to summarise a situation as a whole by breaking it down into stages makes you think about the finer details which you may have missed when evaluating the whole situation. It makes you also think why things happened the way they did from 'concrete experience' meaning the actual situation rather than what you think happened or what would have been the best situation to have happened.
I also like that the 4th stage is actually trying out what you have learnt, from this you can start the process over again, it would be interesting to do this over a half term at school on the same lesson to see if the problems i was having at the beginning were solved and had then progressed into something else. This could also be liked the Dewys theory of elaborating an idea.
Views of Moon
Jennifer Moon, has a more up to date approach on reflecting I can relate to her as she is using students as her examples
| Stage 1: Noticing | The student has to register the topic, event or incident as being interesting or important in some way. |
|---|---|
| Stage 2: Making sense | The student thinks more about what they have noticed and tries to understand it better. |
| Stage 3: Making meaning | The student starts to ask questions and to connect ideas together. |
| Stage 4: Working with meaning | The student makes links with other ideas and events. They would probably refer to literature and other research. At this point, reflection on the learning is likely to be taking place. |
| Stage 5: Transformative learning | The student has reached the point where they can formulate new ideas of their own. They know what they would do if a similar situation arose in the future. |
I also like how like Kolb she has used different stages and followed a process in order to reflect. I am going to research further into Moon's theories as I find her very relatable.
Moon (2004 p82), has coined the term ‘common sense reflection’ to describe one basic level of thinking: - https://reflectivepractice-cpd.wikispaces.com/Definitions
I think that you need a certain element of common sense to be able to deal with the situation in hand, especially with children you need to think on your feet to diffuse a situation or to build upon the class if it isn't quite going to plan!
After reading the thoughts and theories of these practitioners, I have realised how much i do actual reflect on what has happened in my day, i need to distinguish the difference between this and over thinking my day, i need to then use the theories of Kolb and Moon to turn what I'm thinking into a beneficial process which i can use to improve my work.
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