Assignment on Reflective practice- Modes and means

                                        Assignment on

Reflective practice- Modes and means

                          

      Submitted to : Simi teacher                                 Submitted by : Rajasree C.R

                                                                               Submitted on:18.09.2014

INTRODUCTION

Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and become a more proactive and qualified professional. Engaging in reflective practice should help to improve the quality of care you give and close the gap between theory and practice.  Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where individuals learning from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal teaching or knowledge transfer, may be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. Further, it is also an important way to be able to bring together theory and practice; What is important about reflection throughout your practice is that you are not just looking back on past actions and events, but rather you are taking a conscious look at the emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that to add to your existing knowledge base to draw out new knowledge which will help to improve quality of the performance. Learning is a dialectic and cyclical process consisting of four stages: experience, observation and reflection, abstract re conceptualization and experimentation. While experience is the basis for learning, learning cannot takes place without reflection.

CONTENT

Reflective practice is a process by which the person: stop and think about his practice, consciously analyze his decision making and draw on theory and relate it in practice. Critical analysis and evaluation refocuses the thinking of existing knowledge and helps generate new knowledge and ideas. As a result, the person can modify his actions, behavior, treatments and learning needs.

Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where individuals learning from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal teaching or knowledge transfer, may be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. Further, it is also an important way to be able to bring together theory and practice.  What is important about reflection throughout the  practice is that it is not just looking back on past actions and events, but rather  taking a conscious look at the emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that the existing knowledge base to draw out new knowledge, meaning and have a higher level of understanding . As such the notion has achieved wide take-up, particularly in professional development for practitioners in the areas of education and healthcare. The question of how best to learn from experience has wider relevance however, to any organizational learning environment. In particular, people in leadership positions have a tremendous development opportunity if they engage in reflective practice.

History and background

Reflective Practice was introduced by Donald Schon in his book The Reflective Practitioner in 1983, however, the concepts underlying reflective practice are much older. John Dewey was among the first to write about Reflective Practice with his exploration of experience, interaction and reflection. Other researchers such as Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, William James and Carl Jung were developing theories of human learning and development. Marcus Aurelius Meditations has also been described as an example of reflective practice.

Dewey’s works inspired writers such as Donald Schon and David Boud to explore the boundaries of reflective practice. Central to the development of reflective theory was interest in the integration of theory and practice, the cyclic pattern of experience and the conscious application of that learning experience. For the last 30 years, there has been a growing literature and focus around experiential learning and the development and application of Reflective Practice. Reflective practice also contributes to learning and expressing our own and others' stories .

Donald Schon’s 1983 book introduces concepts such as ‘reflection on action’ and ‘reflection in-action’ where professionals meet the challenges of their work with a kind of improvisation learned in practice. Reflective Practice has now been widely accepted and used as developmental practices for organisations, networks, and individuals.  Reflective Practice can be seen and has been recognised in many teaching and learning scenarios, and the emergence in more recent years of blogging has been seen as another form of reflection on experience in a technological age.

 

Different methods to do reflective practice

·        Keep own diary or journal is an easy way to get started.

·        Try working on it with colleagues, doing peer review, clinical supervision or mentoring.

·        Use support tools to help  reflect on significant incidents from practice

Models of Reflective practice

The concept of Reflective Practice centers around the idea of lifelong learning in which a practitioner analyses experiences in order to learn from them. However it is important to note that events experience and events retold hold their own importance. When experiencing something (reflection-in-action), we are learning, however it can be difficult to put emotions, events, and thoughts into a coherent sequence of events. When retelling/rethinking about events we are better able to categorize events, emotions, idea, etc. and be able to link our intended purpose with the actions that we carried out. Only from here can we remove ourselves and your direct emotional attachment from an action, and look at it from a critical standpoint; when retelling it is as if we are taking ourselves out of the action and are telling a story of a sequence of events  Reflective Practice is used to promote independent professionals who are continuously engaged in the reflection of situations they encounter in their professional worlds. Several models of reflection exist and are used to draw lessons out of experiences.

Argyris and Schön 1978

Adaptation of the single and double loop learning model by Argyris and Schön

Adaptation of the reflective model by Schön

Argyris and Schön pioneered the idea of single loop and double loop learning in 1978. The theory was built around the recognition and amendment of a perceived fault or error. Single loop learning is when a practitioner or organisation, even after an error has occurred and a correction is made, continues to rely on current strategies, techniques or policies when a situation again comes to light. Double loop learning involves the modification of personal objectives, strategies or policies so that when a similar situation arises a new framing system is employed.

Based on the works of John Dewey, Schön derives the notions of “…reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action, responding to problematic situations, problem framing, problem solving, and the priority of practical knowledge over abstract theory. Reflection-in-action can be described as the ability of a practitioner to ‘think on their feet’, otherwise known as ‘felt-knowing’. It revolves around the idea that within any given moment, when faced with a professional issue, a practitioner usually connects with their feelings, emotions and prior experiences to attend to the situation directly. Reflection-on-action on the other hand is the idea that after the experience a practitioner analyses their reaction to the situation and explores the reasons around, and the consequences of, their actions.

Kolb 1975

Adaptation of Kolb’s reflective model

Kolb was highly influenced by the research conducted by Dewey and Piaget in the 1970s. Kolb’s reflective model highlights the concept of experiential learning and is centered around the transformation of information into knowledge. This takes place after the situation has occurred and entails a practitioner reflecting on the experience, gaining a general understanding of the concepts encountered during the experience and then testing these general understandings on a new situation. In this way the knowledge that is gained from a situation is continuously applied and reapplied building on a practitioners prior experiences and knowledge.

Gibbs 1988

Adaptation of Gibb’s relective model

Graham Gibbs discussed the use of structured debriefing to facilitate the reflection involved in Kolb's "experiential learning cycle". He presents the stages of a full structured debriefing as follows:

·                     (Initial experience)

·  Description:

"What happened? Don't make judgements yet or try to draw conclusions; simply describe."

·  Feelings:

"What were your reactions and feelings? Again don't move on to analysing these yet."

·  Evaluation:

"What was good or bad about the experience? Make value judgements."

·  Analysis:

"What sense can you make of the situation? Bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you."

"What was really going on?"

"Were different people's experiences similar or different in important ways?"

·  Conclusions (general):

"What can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken?"

·  Conclusions (specific):

"What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or way of working?"

·  Personal action plans:

"What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time?"

"What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?"^[11][12]

Gibbs' suggestions are often cited as Gibbs' reflective cycle or Gibbs' model of reflection (1988), and simplified into the following six distinct stages:Therefore, offering constructive vital questions to assist in structuring reflection of learning experiences (Finlay, 2008).

·   Description

·   Feelings

·   Evaluation

·   Analysis

·   Conclusions

·   Action plan.

Johns 1995

 

Johns’ model is a structured mode of reflection that provides a practitioner with a guide to gain greater understanding. It is designed to be carried out through the act of sharing with a colleague or mentor, which enables the experience to become learnt knowledge at a faster rate than reflection alone

Brookfield 1998

Critically reflective practitioners constantly research their assumptions by seeing practice through four complementary lenses: the lens of their autobiography of learners of reflective practice,the lens of learners eyes,the lens of colleagues' perception and the lens of theoretical, philosophical and research literature.^[16] Reviewing practice through these lens makes us more aware of the power dynamics that infuse all practice settings It also helps us detect hegemonic assumptions-assumptions that we think are in our own best interests but actually work against us in the long run. To become critically reflective Brookfield thinks that the four lenses stated above will reflect back to us. 

Rolfe 2001

 

Adaptation of Rolfe’s reflective model.

Rolfe’s reflective model is based around Borton’s 1970 developmental model. A simplistic cycle composed of 3 questions which asks the practitioner, What, So What and Now What. Through this analysis a description of the situation is given which then leads into the scrutiny of the situation and the construction of knowledge that has been learnt through the experience. Subsequent to this, ways in which to personally improve and the consequence of ones response to the experience are reflected on.

Ganshirt   2007

Based on Schon's theory and writings of Otl Aicher, Christian Ganshirt proposes the concept of the Design Cycle to describe the reflective and repetitive structure of design processes, assuming that this structure is underlaying all such processes. The Design Cycle is understood as a circular time structure, which may start with the thinking of an idea, then expressing it by the use of visual and/or verbal means of communication (design tools), the sharing and perceiving of the expressed idea, and starting a new cycle with the critical rethinking of the perceived idea. Anderson points out that this concept emphasizes the importance of the means of expression, which at the same time are means of perception of any design ideas. These means or design tools enable and structure the visual and verbal design thinking. 

Importance of Reflective practice

 

Reflective Practice has been described as an unstructured approach directing understanding and learning, a self regulated process, commonly used in health and teaching professions, though applicable to all professions.^[24][25][26] Reflective practice is a learning process taught to professionals from a variety of disciplines by practitioners, with the aim of enhancing abilities to communicate and making informed/balanced decisions. The practice has historically been applied most in the educational and medical field. When reflection in action and reflection on action described by Donald Schon are utilized in practice and when practitioners are able to identify these actions they become better at reflective practice. Professional Colleges such as the College of Nurses and College of Dental Hygienists are recognizing the importance of reflective practice and require practitioners to prepare reflective portfolios as a requirement to be licensed, and for yearly quality assurance purposes.

Education

In education, reflective practice refers to the process of the educator studying his or her own teaching methods and determining what works best for the students. It involves the consideration of the ethical consequences of classroom procedures on students.

The appeal of the use of reflective practice for teachers is that as teaching and learning are complex, and there is not one right approach, reflecting on different versions of teaching, and reshaping past and current experiences will lead to improvement in teaching practices.Schon’s reflection-in-action assists teachers in making the professional knowledge that they will gain from their experience in the classroom an explicit part of their decision-making.

According to Paterson and Chapman (2013), reflection and learning from experience is key to staying accountable, and maintaining and developing aptitude throughout your practice. Without reflection, as a practitioner are not able to look objectively at your actions or take into account the emotions, experience, or responses from your actions to improve your practice. Through the process of reflection teachers are then held accountable to their teaching practice to students, parents, administration, and all interested state holders; to the standards of practice for teaching - commitment to students and student learning, professional knowledge, professional practice, leadership in learning communities, and ongoing professional learning. Reflection is a vital process of learning from experience that allow to evolve as a practitioner; through learning from past experiences, it allows you to develop a more through schema for practice. Through reflective practice a teacher ca  committee  himself to students and student learning; he can looke back on his practice and reflecting on how he has supported students through treating them “…equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning”. By this, he can ask himself, that whether the best of his abilities supported student learning, and provided all of his students with an entry point into learning. Through reflective practice teachers are reflecting professional knowledge and professional practice;  looking at how they teach and the information and forms of learning to his students.  Here teachers are looking at and trying to recognize where they  need to enhance their own learning so that it had a bigger benefit to student learning. In addition, teachers are the leaders in their learning communities; it is from their cues and attitudes that their learners develop from. Through reflection, and sharing this with learner, teachers  are showing strong leadership because it shows that they are willing to learn from their  mistakes and improve their practice for all of those affected by it. Reflective Practice moves teachers from their knowledge base of distinct skills to a stage in their careers where they are able to modify their skills to suit specific contexts and situations, and eventually to invent new strategies. In implementing a process of Reflective Practice teachers will be able to move themselves, and their schools, beyond existing theories in practice. Teachers should “resist  establishing a classroom culture of control and become a reflective practitioner, continuously engaging in a critical reflection, consequently remaining fluid in the dynamic environment of the classroom”.

Benefits to Reflective Practice

·Increased learning from an experience for situation

·Promotion of deep learning

·Identification of personal and professional strengths and areas for improvement

·Identification of educational needs

·Acquisition of new knowledge and skills

·Further understanding of own beliefs, attitudes and values

·Encouragement of self-motivation and self-directed learning

·Could act as a source of feedback

·Possible improvements of personal and clinical confidence

Limitations of Reflective Practice

· Not all practitioners may understand the reflective process

· May feel uncomfortable challenging and evaluating own practice

· Could be time consuming

· May have confusion as to which situations/experiences to reflect upon

· May not be adequate to resolve clinical problems 

CONCLUSION

 

Reflective practice is, in its simplest form, thinking about or reflecting on what you do. It is closely linked to the concept of learning from experience, in that you think about what you did, and what happened, and decide from that what you would do differently next time

Thinking about what has happened is part of being human. However, the difference between casual ‘thinking’ and ‘reflective practice’ is that reflective practice requires a conscious effort to think about events, and develop insights into them. Once it become a habit it is useful both at work and at home.

 

Reflective practice has huge benefits in increasing self-awareness, which is a key component of emotional intelligence, and in developing a better understanding of others. Reflective practice can also help you to develop creative thinking skills, and encourages active engagement in work processes.

In work situations, keeping a learning journal, and regularly using reflective practice, will support more meaningful discussions about career development, and personal development, including at personal appraisal time. It will also help to provide with examples to use in competency-based interview situations.

REFERENCES

1. www.participatorymethods.org/method/reflective-practice

2. www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/reflective-practice.html

3.www.brightknowledge.org/knowledge.../what-is-reflective-practice