What is Reflective Practice?
Reflective Practice can be an informal part of your daily routine, or even a required element of a job or class. In one informal type of reflective practice, a person can use the moments just before sleep to recall events of the day. This type of reflective practice can help a person to decide what the priorities for the coming day should be for example. In this way, reflective practice is a means to organize actions and reduce the stress of daily life.
My relationship with Reflective Practice
In my profession, there have already been a few times where I have used ‘critical reflection;’ mainly in my previous studies. Many times I’ve had to put reflection into practice. In dance for example, I would have instantly reflected on something I had just done: Why didn’t I land my pirouette securely? Even, when looking at a watch for example, you might think, ‘how long did I just spend in that shop?’ This is a basic form of reflection. After reading “Reader 2” I have learnt many different ways of reflection and theories too. I’ve realised that in everyday life we all reflect in one way or another without noticing.
When I was in college, part of my contextual studies was based upon reflection. I needed to keep a journal of my week, recording information of my classes and learning. One part of my journal was to make note of all corrections I was given in class and reflect on them; How could I improve? What plan of action would I use to make my improvements? I needed to learn from my experiences and keep a log of my mistakes. I was required to reflect when writing critiques on productions I had seen; also, when I was required to write essays on my experiences whilst rehearsing and performing.
Others uses of reflection in life
Journal writing
People use journal writing as a form of reflection in many different professions and adult education. Jenifer A.Moon has written about Learning Journals (Moon and Dawson, 2006, Moon, 1999) People that use reflective practice are those whose job is to be involved in a process of change. Nurses, Teachers, Architects and Artists. Some individuals may practice more formal journal writing as a part of counseling or treatment.
Exploring Different Theories
Howard Gardner, looked further into the idea that people had different ways to
engage with understanding and learning. He introduced the idea of multiple
intelligences (Gardner, 1983). He said people are intelligent in a number of ways. Personally, I agree with his theories. Everybody has their own way of learning and thinking. There are people that I know who learn differently to the way I do. They engage and reflect to other world experiences by using other tools for learning. Do you agree that there are different types of learners - multiple intelligencers? Do you know friends that are ‘Logical - mathematical thinkers’ for example?
John Dewey & Donald Schön
John Dewey used the term ‘reflective thought’ to talk about ways for us to be aware that we are having an experience, ways to find links it to other experiences and ways to find meaning for ourselves.
Donald Schön (1987) introduced the idea of reflection-in-action, and reflection-on-
action. Dewey also makes this temporal distinction, looking at how the time impacts on how you engage with new ideas, ‘Present’ or ‘future’ being two distinct and different ways
to engage with experience. (Jackson, 1998; Dewey, 1934) Both of their theories are quite similar. I definitely reflect in action. It’s part of what I do, if I see that children are finding a routine difficult that I am teaching in class, I immediately reflect on what I see and change the routine for example. I often use this method of reflection-in-action, it is essential when dancing, acting, singing and teaching, quick adaptation is essential. Which type of reflection do you do, in action or on action? I feel this completely depends on what kind of work you do. Writers and chefs are professions that require ‘reflection-on-action.’ Robert Kottcamp says that reflection-in-action is harder which is understandable considering that he works as a writer and academic and therefore is used to thinking back on things.
I feel that there are so many different theories about reflective practice. There are so many different ways of doing it too, consciously and sub-consciously. Everyday we are reflecting and learning from our experiences. It’s up to you whether you choose to reflect by writing a journal or reflecting before you fall asleep at night, it is always helpful in life even when you don’t realise. I know that as of tomorrow I will think differently when reflecting-in-action especially, now I will be aware that I am “reflecting”. I will mentally make note of my quick adaptations when I’m dancing, changing direction to avoid other dancers or a hazard in the space. I will try to do more Journal Writing Reflecting as I believe this will help me to look back on my experiences and learn from them; I will be able to improve and learn from mistakes and difficulties I may face in my work and day to day life.
I’ve have learnt a lot about reflective practice from Reader 2 and by doing some further research online.
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