Task 2a - Reflective practice



By reading Reader 2 I became more aware of reflection and why we should use reflection to turn our experience into learning. We all reflect on things in different ways which can be conscious or unconscious processes.

'Understanding what you don't know is important as it is the first stage of learning, seeing something is missing makes you open to finding' I particularly engaged with this quote straight away because most of the time I personally try to focus on what I do know and never reflect on what I don’t know, this made me aware that if I did spend more time reflecting on what I don’t know then maybe I would become more open to find what is missing and continue to learn and develop. Having experience plus reflecting can develop new ideas helping me learn something new.

After being deep in thought about reflection I started to think about my teaching and how I reflect on my own teaching practice, what do I think whilst teaching? Do I reflect throughout the class or does the reflection take part after the class? This is where Kolbs developed idea comes into it 'The idea of a cycle' - A learning cycle. He talks about the different ways of learning:

'Some people start to learn when they are involved in a concrete experience (doing something), some people can do something but start to learn about it when they are watching the people around them doing it (reflective observation). Some people need to work it out in their head first (Abstract Conceptualisation) and some people start to learn when they start trying out ideas (Active experimentation)' 'The point you start to learn and find meaning is your entry point into a learning cycle' I learn best when being involved in a concrete experience as well as using active experimentation for example I started my blog not knowing a thing about blogs but played around with things, using trial and error making many mistakes but finally got to grips with it.

Trying things out and experimenting has always been my learning style within dance but also in general life. I like to do things myself and try it, if it doesn’t work then I will move onto another idea and by doing this I feel it helps me develop new ideas. I am going to make a conscious effort to use   the learning styles that I do not regularly. It would be interesting to try these other learning styles and evaluate the outcome. Reflective observation will probably help me throughout this course by visiting other people’s blogs and evaluating their ideas, thoughts and knowledge.

I downloaded and printed off the image of 'Kolb's learning cycle' but although I understood the principle of it and what it was trying to say I just couldn't come to grips with it, so I found another one online which became clear to me.

Sometimes we probably don't even know we are having an experience at the time of an event. 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 to other experiences and ways to find meaning for ourselves.

He saw reflective thought an:

'Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends'

Having many beliefs for example we all believe dance is an art form but Dewey see's reflective thought as a more scientific approach as he believes we need solid proof to support our belief, so the question would be how is dance an art form? What supports this knowledge? And this is where I feel reflective thought comes into it.

When I look back on my past general life events (reflection-on-action) I find it easier to reflect on my experiences with more understanding and knowledge than I would of done in the present moment, although for dancers we have to constantly adapt in the present moment, correcting and executing our movements with precision (reflection-in-action), it would be a lot harder to wait weeks and then reflect back on the movements. Robert Kottcamp supports this by stating 'reflection-in-action is harder to achieve but more powerful for improvement of practice because is results in 'on-line' experiments to adjust and improve one's professional action'

I have started to think of how I am going to go about my journal and how I can develop, continue to learn and observe my own practice by using reflective practice and journal writing. For me I am thinking a constant diary of my thoughts, experiences and ideas won't work as when I look back on my writing I find it boring and difficult to recall the events. I recently read David Boud's article on 'using journal writing to enhance reflective practice' to help me expand my knowledge and understanding on journal writing to allow me to develop and get the best from my journal. It taught me the features of journal writing:

-Capture an experience

-Record an event

-Explore our feelings

-Make sense of what we know

-Narrate something of importance so that others can see what we saw in it.

I will be writing my journal for self expression and to create a record of events from engaging in my practices as a way to make sense of what has occurred, hopefully this will enhance what I do and how I do it.

Boud states that a lot of professional effective practitioners use journal writing to reflect from there on going experience and learn from it, one being teachers. As I am in the process of developing my teaching skills, journal writing should really help me reflect and engage with what is going on in the present moment of teaching. I would love to use videos and images in my journal because these excite me more than words on a page but I am not sure I could video the students in the process of creating and teaching? That’s something I am going to find out next week!

I am going to start my journal today and use some reflective writing by trying out different ways to write my journal within the next week. My first event will be the driving lesson I have just had; there is a lot of reflection needed before next week’s lesson!!