Reflective Practice * Paula Nottingham: note some slides repeated from 2013 presentation to CILIP

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Reflective Practice

“Reflective practice can enable practitioners to learn from experience about themselves, their work and the way they relate to home and work, significant others and wider society ad culture…

It challenges assumptions ideological illusions, damaging social and cultural biases, inequalities, and questions personal behaviours which perhaps silence the choices of others or otherwise marginalise them” (Bolton, 2010, p.3).

Reflecting upon practice

Making the time to start the journey.

Reflective practice in professional life

Adult learning and social learning theory based on critical reflection to improve what you do

Reflection using contextual and situated knowledge

Experience of practice

Using Reflection

insideinterior personal

exterior professionalwith others

The journey

Allowing critical reflection to guide present and future action.

Stargazing

Schön

Reflection-in-action practice is when practitioners think about practice while they are doing it. Reflection-on-action can happen after the encounter. It is about using tacit knowledge and treating experience as ‘unique’ versus solely using technical rationality.

“It is the entire process of reflection-in-action which is central to the ‘art’ by which some practitioners deal well with situations of uncertainty, instability uniqueness, and value conflict” (Schön, 1983, p. 50).

Honey and Mumford

We learn in different ways

– Activist - learning by doing– Reflectors - learning by observing– Theorist - learning by thinking through in a logical manner– Pragmatist - learning through putting ideas into practice

and testing them out

“Honey and Alan Mumford developed their learning styles system as a variation on the Kolb model…” (Infed, 2013, online).

Experiential models for reflection

Kolb and others developed models of experiential learning practice that include developing learning from doing. Learning from experience is a variation of this practice.

Experiential models for reflection

http://www.ldu.leeds.ac.uk/ldu/sddu_multimedia/kolb/kolb_flash.htm

What is Reflective Practice?

Boud in ‘Creating a Work-based Curriculum’, Work-based Learning A New Higher Education (Boud and Solomon, 2001) p. 55.

“Critical reflection is important… because it is only through deeper critique that work situations can be improved, workplaces transformed and productivity significantly enhanced. It is about noticing and questioning the taken-for-granted assumptions that one holds and that are held by others. While it can be discomforting process, it is necessary in all situations that do not involve perpetuating the status quo.”

Dewey

John Dewey introduced a practical way of thinking saying that experience was key to understanding.

“Reflective thinking is always more or less troublesome because it involves overcoming the inertia that inclines one to take things at face value ; it involves willingness to endure a condition of mental unrest and disturbance (1910, p.13).

“Unconsciousness gives spontaneity and freshness ; consciousness conviction and control” (2010, p. 217).

The journey

Seeing the realities of practice. Allowing the process to clarify and articulate needs.

Using Reflection

Personal goals that can be

played out at work and home to develop a

work/life balance and

utilise informal learning

Where do you think the process of reflection might help you improve or develop more useful practice?

Job descriptionWhat is your roleWhat do you do?

Reviewing an incident using Kolb

Take an larger significant incident from you own professional working environment and apply the thinking form the Kolb cycle. Discuss this with others.

Doing…

Reviewing…

Concluding…

Planning/trying out…

What did you do?

How did it go?

What ideas would you keep or do differently?

When we you try out the new version after reflecting on the outcomes?

Learning Log exercise

What was the task for the learning?What have I learned about the focus/task?How can I be more effective? What needs to be done and why? e.g. acquiring knowledge, feedback/discussion with peers?What have I discovered about myself? e.g. strengths, points of view, values…

Fill out the sample learning log using a small and focused experience from your workplace. This could be done in your reflective journal.

Date

Using Reflection

What did you learn

about yourself?

What did your learn about your workplace?

Experience of practice

Using Reflection

What are your ideas?How can you action your ideas?

Following up on the critical reflection - making a difference to practice…

Using reflective practice with others

Leading others along the wayGuiding service users in reflective practice.

Communities of Practice (Wenger)

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger, 2011, online).

Mapping your CoPs

Using the 3 elements as guides map and describe and map your communities of practice and the elements of coherence they might have.

Your network of practice

See if you can map your communities of practice – then we will discuss how you can use reflective practice in these groupings.

Your network of practice

How can your reflective practice to think about activity within your professional communities of practice?

Can everyone think of 3 ways that reflective practice can be shared within your various communities? Try to action these as you develop your community networks.

Work role 1

Professional communityPersonal

or voluntary Work role 2

Adding to or making a start

Use today’s exercises to develop a sense of where you need to apply critical reflection in your practice.

Add to your portfolio

Add to your portfolio where you can continue to explore the practices discussed today.

Personal journalWork logConcept drawingsCollecting evidence

Digital blogWork based identityParticipating in online Forums

Reflective Practice ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough’

Indicative Bibliography

Bolton, Gillie (2010) (3rd Ed.) Reflective Practice Writing a& Professional Development, London: Sage Publications Ltd.Boud, David and Solomon, Nicky (2001) Work-based Learning A New Higher Education A New Higher Education, SRHE, Buckingham: Taylor and Francis Inc.Infed (2013) reflection Infed (2013) (online) reflectionhttp://infed.org/mobi/reflection-learning-and-education/; ‘david a. kolb on experiential learning’, Available fromhttp://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm; ‘Schon’, Available at: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htmInternational Review of Open and Distance Learning (2011) (illustration of CoP) (online) Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/204/286Kolb, David A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Kolb’s Learning Styles (2011) (illustration and text) Available from http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htmMurillo, E. (2011) "Communities of practice in the business and organization studies literature" Information Research, 16(1) paper 464. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/16-1/paper464.html] (Illustration)

Indicative Bibliography

Nottingham, Patience (2013) Illustrations ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough’ © used with permission of artistSaddington, T. (2011) (online) Available from: http://www.icel.org.uk/pdf/el.pdf Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action, New York, NY: USA: Basic Books. Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Towards a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.University of Leicester (2011) ‘Honey and Mumford’, Available from: http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/careers/pgrd/resources/teaching/theories/honey-mumfordWenger, E. (2006) ‘Communities of Practice a Brief Introduction’, available from: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro.htm [Accessed 4/12/06]Wenger, E., White, N. and Smith, J. (2009) Digital Habitas Stewarding Technology for Communities, Portland, USA: CPSquare.Wenger, E. (2011) Website (online) Available from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm