Reflective practice
What is reflective practice?
Reflective practice is the process of taking a step away from the work environment and thinking about your practice, consciously analysing the decisions you make during your practice and drawing on theory, relate it to what you do in practice (The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, 2016).
With analysis and evaluation, you can mull over your existing knowledge whilst also helping to create new ideas and gain further knowledge, as a result, you may make subtle to large changes in the way you conduct your actions, behaviour, treatments and learning needs, taking time to write down reflections can help clarify the thought process, as opposed to thinking over them, having a pen and paper can help
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Gibbs cycle
Gibbs’ reflective cycle encourages you to think thoroughly about the phases of an experience or activity, using the headings of the Gibbs’ cycle, you can use them to structure your reflection (Brookes.ac.uk, 2016).
The reflective Gibbs’s cycle (Gibbs 1988)
> 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 (if it arose again, what would you do?)
Using Gibb’s reflective cycle is a really useful method of going through all the phases and experiences of an activity or experience one has been part of (Brookes.ac.uk, 2016).
Reflective journals
Using a reflective journal is a useful tool to implement into your life, whether it’s on paper or computer to write down any feelings, observations, visions and ideas can be a great way to focus your thoughts and develop new ideas. Reflecting upon past events and beginning to understand the processes behind them and the experience gained from it can be one of the most effective ways to evaluate yourself (Macbeth,
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Learning the art of reflecting while an activity is taking place, or after it, is a skill that requires several steps of progression. Ultimately understanding the process of reflection can help coaches refine their coaching strategies and incorporate those strategies at each stage (becoming a better coach through reflective practice, 2016).
Pro’s and con’s of reflective practice
Pro’s
Using reflective practice comes with many benefits to not only the coach’s coaching ability, but to their overall development as a learner as well as a teacher. Improving confidence and competence is one of the biggest benefits of using RP, also to learn new information and learn from others to expand knowledge. Becoming more aware of the coach’s strengths and limitations helps organise the coach’s priorities and set new developmental goals in which the coach can progress with their
Reflection, as explained by Moon (2013), is the process of looking back on an event or experience and thinking about it and learning from it. Reflection, which is learning through experience, is not a new concept. As humans, we naturally reflect on our surroundings and experiences on a day to day basis in order to make sense of them. (Norman, Vleuten and Newble, 2002). In a professional context, reflation is vital for a practitioner to learn and improve their practice. By using their own experiences, practitioners are able to analysis, and in turn, adapt or improve specific areas of practice
Reflection is turning experience into Learning. Reflection is a conscious, dynamic process of thinking about, analysing, and learning from an experience that gives insight into self and practice.
Reflection is a key element of the human learning process. It can be used to justify aspects of practice and legitimise the knowledge gained from it, as opposed to traditional forms of learning.
A suggestion made by Schon (1991) states that there are two fundamental forms of reflection: reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action. He further defined Reflection-in-action as a means of examining one’s own behaviour and that of others while in a situation (Schon, 1995, 1987). However, Grant and Greene (2001) and Revans (1998), defined reflection-on-action as focusing on identifying negative aspects of personal behaviour with a view to improving professional comp...
“Reflecting” entails us to ask ourselves countless questions. How well am I interacting with the students? Are they understanding the concepts? Am I creating an adequate learning environment? How effective are my teaching techniques? Etc. This newly acquired knowledge on “Reflecting” has helped me growth as a teacher and has
The way I reflect on work activities is by firstly looking at the way the situation or work was approached, then considering the effect of it and then making an honest assessment of the quality of work that I produced. Regular reflection is carried out by using a structured approach such as keeping a reflective journal, by asking myself reflective questions the activities are descriptive, I analyse and make a theory of the situation or activities always seeking
One reason for Reflection being used is to give practitioners the chance to change an aspect within their setting, which they feel can be improved in order to help the development of children within their practice. Reflective practice is about improving practice and coming up with theories to support the improvement (Holmes, 2011, p.7). Reflective practice using critical reflection will allow the practitioners to identify what they do well and what they need to improve on within their Early Years settings. It can also give practitioners the opportunity to develop their professional identity, and work at improving their working environment (Forde et al, 2006, p.65, 66). By allowing practitioners the chance to improve their working environment, it can have a huge influence on the children and their development within the Early Years. For example, a teacher looking back and being reflective over their lesson, will allow them to make amelioration for when they teach that lesson again, thus leading to further learning development of the
...hat has worked and what hasn’t. If a student for example is taking blood for the first time and something goes wrong, they don’t find the right vein. Reflective practise would help that student to understand what he/she done wrong while carrying out the procedure and how they could stop that from happening again. Not is only reflective practice good for pointing out the bad factors of something but can also be there for when a procedure goes exceptionally well. If a health professional finds a certain technique works better than what’s in place already, reflective practise is a good way to shear the information you found with other colleges so they can carry out that particular producer. Gibbs 1988 is an example of reflective practice, he uses six stages when doing reflective practice which include Description, feelings, evaluation, analyse, analyse and actions plan.
According to Driscoll (2000), there are three processes when reflecting on one’s practice. They are: ‘What?’, ‘so what?’ and ‘Now what?’ Using Driscoll’s reflective cycle will enable me to link theory to practice.
The ability to become reflective in practice has become a necessary skill for health professionals. This is to ensure that health professionals are continuing with their daily learning and improving their practice. Reflective practice plays a big part in healthcare today and is becoming increasingly noticed.
Reflection is a process that begins with looking back on a situation thinking about it, learning from it and then using the new knowledge to help you in similar situations in the future. We need to evaluate through reflection to examine whether change is needed. We can then decide what action is needed and what we would do the next time we are faced with a similar situation. It might not necessarily be something you have done wrong, it may well be you were happy with the outcome of a situation you had some input into and would do again. It may have been something you did differently that had a positive result and
Without agreement on what reflective practice is, it is difficult to decide on teaching‑learning strategies. Reflective practice may be a developmental learning process (Williamson 1997), may have different levels of attainment (Wellington 1996), and may be affected by a learner’s cognitive ability (James and Clarke 1994), willingness to engage in the process (Bright 1996; Haddock 1997), and orientation to change (Wellington 1996). However, there does seem to be some agreement that critical reflection consists of a process that can be taught to adults. Brookfield (1988) identified four processes central to learning how to be critically reflective: assumption analysis, contextual awareness, imaginative speculation, and reflective skepticism.
According to Sandars (2009, 685), reflection is a process of turning back thoughts in order to
Reflection within early year’s settings and schools allows for the practitioner to think about the work that is being completed either whilst doing it or after it has occurred, the reflection allows for seeing how the work has gone or whether it needs to be changed for future practice. Schön is a key writer about reflection and illustrates the differences between reflection in action, reflection on action and reflection whilst completing the task. The above critical skills help all practitioners to develop understanding as they hugely impact on others lives, if this skill is not engaged in then practice could be effected (Leeson, 2004).
The intention of reflective practice is to help the teacher/learning coach evolve and develop the quality of their teaching by the continuation of personal development. Although most teachers have done this for years, reflective modelling or methods have formulized a structure which can be followed and adapted to best suit their methods. It is an ongoing process which takes feelings and emotions into consideration and so it will not always have a definitive answer/ending. Since most models of reflection require subjective and objective thinking then there is a willingness to be honest to engage constant self appraisal. It asks that the teacher become flexible analytical and socially aware when addressing their chosen model of reflection.