Reflection is a word that immediately
gets you thinking. Reflection can be used in various ways and has a significant
purpose within professional practice and learning.
“Turning experience into learning” Boud
(1995)
Boud explains what reflection is, and
how we need to use particular reflective tools to benefit our professional
practice;
“To extend your own understanding
beyond its present capacity,
and to learn something new”. Boud (1995)
However, in order to extend your
knowledge and understanding you need to have a base knowledge to relate back to
and help your thinking process; for example, if you needed to create a ‘Lesson
Plan’ for singing teaching you need to know what each individual word means to
know what you have to do. Lesson; means a period of learning or teach, and
Plan; means a list of steps with timing and resources used to achieve an
objective. Having experience of knowing this knowledge you can put the two
words together to understand the idea of the process and what it is in order to
carry it out.
Experience and learning go together,
having experience and knowledge helps me reflect on my professional practice
and discover something new. This came to light when looking back on my journal
entries. (Please refer to Task 2b for more
details) Having the opportunity to re-visit my journal entries I was able
to evaluate what I have wrote and make sense of situations, thoughts and
feelings on key events and think about the next steps forward in my
professional practice. Having worked as a professional singer has helped me
greatly with my singing teaching, as I have the knowledge and experience to
educate others. By learning from my mistakes and achievements I feel I can improve
and benefit my students from what I have learnt. Experience is essential as a
teacher, I believe the more experience you have the better teacher you will be.
Every professional practice is an on-going process of improvement, do you
agree?
‘Critical Reflection’ is a very new
writing process for me. At first I really struggled to grasp what it meant and
how to approach it. I know what ‘Critical’ means and I know what ‘Reflection’
means, but putting the two words together creates a new aspect and method of
writing and thinking. However, I tried writing with critical reflection within
my journal and it opened insights into learning new things about my
professional practice. I discovered how I work as an individual and how I
process my thinking. It opened my eyes to writing techniques I use on a day to
day basis and what works best for me as an individual.
Reflective Thought
The process of concrete experience and
conceptualising of experience, Dewey explains;
“Quality of education was linked to
the level of engagement with, and consciousness of the experience. Defined
educational process as a continual reorganization, reconstruction and
transformation of experience” (Dewey 1916)
Currently working in an educational
setting Dewey’s view of reflection can be used today. As a teacher you
constantly have to keep up to date with new curriculum changes and methods of
teaching e.g. behaviour management updates techniques and methods consistently
but it depends on the individual setting which works the most effectively. On a
day to day basis within my reception class we use a traffic light system to promote
positive behaviour. Green- Good, Amber- verbal warning and Red- miss out on a
period of continuous play or lose their Friday treat. All names will stay on
green, if they model good, positive behaviour, but if they miss behave their name
moves down the traffic light chart.
This method allows children to
reflect on their behaviour and gives the pupil an opportunity to gain their
time/green back. It’s a visual aid with a simple purpose. Within our class it
has been very effective to control naughty behaviour and keep it to a minimum
and promote positive behaviour.
Within my professional practice as an
early years teaching assistant we constantly assess and reflect on children’s
development. The National Curriculum requires us to make observations on all
aspects of child development these are;
·
Communication
and Language
·
Physical
development
·
Personal,
Social and Emotional development
·
Literacy
·
Mathematics
·
Understanding
the World
·
Expressive
Arts and Design
·
Being
imaginative
Learning characteristics are;
·
Playing
and exploring
·
Active
Learning
·
Creating
and thinking critically.
Many of these learning criteria’s
incorporate ‘Kolb’s Learning Cycle’
The pupil needs to use play as a
‘Concrete Experience’ to explore media and learning activities by ‘doing’ helps
their feeling and having an experience. As part of my role as a teaching
assistant I use ‘Reflective Observation’ to watch and review/ reflect on the experience.
The pupil will also use reflective observation by deciding if they enjoy what
their playing with e.g. Maths activity. My role as a teaching assistant I can
use my observational findings on the pupils to evaluate and assess; ‘Abstract
Conceptualisation’. The pupil will learn from the experience and develop their
thinking skills. I will use ‘Active Experimentation’ as a teaching assistant to
assess if the activity was successful in helping the pupil’s development skills
and knowledge. This process will enable me to plan more future activities and
concentrate on key skills they need to develop more e.g. by highlighting their
weaknesses you can then work on them and strengthen e.g. letter sounds and
blending.
Looking at my own professional
practice as a teaching assistant and singing teacher I enter Kolb’s cycle at
various stages, depending on what I’m learning at the moment I personally
prefer to learn through ‘Concrete experience’. If I’m physically doing
something I process the information better e.g. Teaching singing technique;
each child is different and by trying different exercises out I can reflect
which one works best for the individual pupil, this process includes;
‘Reflective observation, ‘Abstract conceptualisation’ and ‘Active experimentation’.
Within professional practice you use all aspects of ‘Kolb’s learning cycle’,
it’s never ending you’re always learning something new about your practice.
My professional practice in teaching
is very similar to Peter Honey and Alan Mumford ‘Four stages’ model of
reflection;
·
Having an experience
·
Reviewing the experience
·
Concluding from the experience
·
Planning the next steps.
(Honey and Mumford 1992)
Reflecting back on Reader 1 and 2
tasks to help me through the processes of what to do? Or how to approach it? I
carried out lots of reflective observation. It really helped me to look at
other student’s blogs and thoughts on similar tasks to give me ideas and
re-assurance that I’m on the right track.
Do multiple intelligences and artistic visions influence our
professional practice?
Honey and Mumford look at reflection
from a multiple intelligent/artistic vision. However, Gardner’s multiple
intelligences of understanding and learning are based on people’s intelligent
styles;
·
Spatial
·
Verbal-linguistic
·
Logical- mathematical
·
Bodily- Kinaesthetic
·
Musical
·
Interpersonal
·
Intrapersonal
·
Naturalistic
(Gardener, 1983)
In my opinion I disagree with
Gardener when it comes to children’s intelligence as his model of ideas are
difficult to adapt for children, they are more relevant to adult’s concept of
intelligence. As an example Gardner believes we use verbal-linguistic
intelligence for reflection, however, having many children in my reception
class speak polish as a first language they find it difficult to learn verbally
they respond better to learning by physically doing/actions and visualisation.
Another point children will find difficult in my personal opinion is
Intrapersonal skills. Children within my class are 4/5 years and still
developing social behaviour and social interaction, they do this through
continuous play. This helps them form relationships with other pupils and
discover their likes and dislikes. On the other hand some of Gardner’s stages
are very apt to child’s learning e.g. Bodily- Kinaesthetic; within early years
we have continuous play where children explore different activities and media
making own decisions. Through this process they learn boundaries and physical
capabilities and limitations.
“Theories are like lenses to look at
learning and being a learner…
Understanding how you and others
learn…
Give value to the different ways we
can engage with real world experience”
Gardner (2005)
This quote gets me thinking about my
professional practice, by doing and observing others you learn and notice
things you wouldn’t necessarily notice, but by reflecting on others
professional practice you can improve your own and better yourself and make
changes for the future. I followed these steps when working through tasks 1 and
2.
Reflection-in-action and Reflection-on-action
Schön believes;
“Reflection can happen while you are
in the middle of it (reflection-in-action)
or reflection can happen looking
back on it (reflection-on-action)”
(Schön 1987)
When teaching singing I reflect-in-action
on a regular basis, I go with the mood of the children and chose particular warm-up
exercises to get the pupils enthusiastic about what they are doing. Sometimes
songs I’ve prepared don’t work as well as I hoped so I think quickly and change
my approach to get the pupils responding better and regain their interest
again, this may include more actions or set a scenario for the pupils to use
their imagination and creative skills.
I use reflection-on-action for my
Read, write, Ink group in school. I follow a lesson plan, but some aspects of
the lesson plan my pupils find difficult being a low ability group. During the
lesson I take notes and use them afterwards to make improvements for the next
lesson, this may include trying new methods and ideas out that may work better
for the pupils.
I’ve realised working within an
educational setting I use reflection-in-action on a day-to-day basis. You have
to adapt set activities to the individual child so they can achieve what is
expected of them academically.
Ethical Practice
Ethical considerations when reflecting
within my professional practice is ‘Value
based Knowledge’. My knowledge is based on my personal experience, others knowledge
will be varied as their personal experiences are different to mine. Individuals
take what they want to learn from experiences occurred and pick out important
points relevant to their professional practice. Critical reflection is a point
of view, so we need to consider others opinions on topics raised.
Conclusion
Looking at reflective theories has
helped me understand my professional practice more clearly and actually realise
I use it on a day to day basis without realising. Critical reflection has made
me open my thoughts and analyse how I approach tasks and learning. I still feel
I need to practice on writing more critically so I shall put this into practice
by writing on people’s blogs. This experience will exercise my critical
thinking and raise questions to benefit my professional practice.
