Discovering Reflective Practice


Dewey (1933) identified the three characteristics or attitudes of people who are reflective as; open-mindedness, responsibility and wholeheartedness.
At a basic level models of reflection exist to provide guidance to help us look back over events that have happened and to turn them into learning experiences.
In essence models of reflection help us to:

Look at an event - Understand it - Learn from it


The models you will read about provide different ways of looking back over events and learning from them and aim to show us how to be reflective practitioners. As a reflective practitioner you will look at events in your everyday practice and think:  "How could I have done that better ?" You will be aware of the impact your preconceptions and personal beliefs have on your understanding of events and on your reaction to them. You will action plan in preparation for future events.


There are lots of models which describe how we should/could look back over our experiences and learn from them. Each model outlines a number of steps. Some think a 1-stage model (simply that experience alone is sufficient for learning) is adequate for reflection to occur, others outline in great detail a range of steps that should be gone through. Most involve a cycle where by an action is undertaken, reflected upon, reviewed, improved then back to the beginning with a refined action.

Discussing literature

In your work include what you see as key quotes/diagrams from the literature you have read, you might provide a brief commentary on individual quotes or you might use them to illustrate discussion points or to evidence the source of your approach. Whatever the reason is your should ensure it is clear to the reader why individual quotes are included. You should also draw on your participation in online community discussions about reflective practice to reinforce or illustrate your arguments.

Choosing reflective models

Your choice of reflective models is not restricted to those devised by the authors around the lake on the map or on the table below; these are a few key illustrations to help develop your understanding.

Read through the brief introduction to some key reflective models below or on the map then use the internet or other sources such as libraries, search engines etc. to find further information in particular about the two reflective models you will explore in more depth then apply in your work practice in LA3. Share what you have found and discuss reflective practice models with your peers in the online communities and your colleagues at work. Telling others what you have found out and listening to what they have to say is a great way of consolidating your learning.

Greenaway

 

Greenaway outlined three simple steps to help learn from experience - these are 'plan-do-review' and are seen as a reflective cycle.

 
Burton translates
this as; 'what-so what-now what'.

To you, as practitioners working with critical incidents
the initial 'PLAN' element may not apply; you will probably start with 'DO'.


1. DO - have an experience
2. REVIEW - review what happened and what can be learned
3. PLAN - plan a way to approach the next round of experience

Baud

Baud's model of reflection draws heavily on the realm of feelings; the model is cyclical with the product of a cycle being the 'outcome'.

As practitioners working with
critical incidents, you might:
Describe your experience
Reflect on your experience
Consolidate your experience

Schon

Schon identifies two kinds of reflection
1. Reflection-in-action - this is reflecting on the hoof, where you reflect on your actions during an event....this isn't going well; what can I do now to improve things ? This is going well; how can I maintain the momentum ? You are hawk like; sharp eyed, making informed decisions based on intuitive split second reflections.
2. Reflection-on-action - this is retrospective reflection, you reflect on actions that have already occurred, usually, but not always, fairly soon after the event.
Things that didn't go well; what can I do next time to improve things ?
That went well; how can I make use of what I have learned ?
You recall incidents and chew the cud, ruminating in depth on how you can improve your practice. You may mull something over spontaneously while traveling or resting or you may put specific time aside and formally structure your reflections.		 As Practitioners you might try and record an event where you are aware of reflecting in action, then also apply retrospective reflection to the same event, this would provide a comparison and assist in analysing the value of Schon's thoughts.
Gibbs identified a series of 6 steps to aid reflective practice, these elements make up a cycle that can be applied over and over.
Description - what happened ?
Feelings - what were you thinking and feeling ?
Evaluation - what was good and bad about the experience ?
Analysis - what sense can you make of the situation ?
Conclusion - what else could you have done ?
Action plan - what will you do next time ?
Unlike many other models (with the exception of Boud) Gibbs takes in to account the realm of feelings and emotions which played a part in a particular event.
Kolb
Kolb suggested that experience alone does not provide a sufficient learning experience in many situations, "there are many examples where experience alone is not sufficient for meeting particular learning goals.  In such situations, it seems to work better if the raw experience is packaged together with facilitated exercises which involve thinking, discussing, or creatively processing cognitions and emotions related to the raw experience".
Kolb suggested greater structure in reflection: "This model suggests that a participant has a Concrete Experience, followed by Reflective Observation, then the formation of Abstract Conceptualizations before finally conducting Active Experimentation to test out out the newly developed principle" (Neill, 2004).
Lydia Arnold 2005 Ian Tindal 2006

 

References

Neill, J (2004) Experiential learning cycles viewed at http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/elc/ExperientialLearningCycle.htm