How To Be A Reflective Practitioner

* establishes a system of praise and constructive criticism - rewards and improvement; grows with the organisation

Reflective. Outstanding teachers take time to reflect on their own practice and on student learning, asking themselves questions and really seeking to find the answers. Part of being reflective is using data to inform future teaching, really wrestling with the numbers and information we get from students about their learning so that we can modify our instruction to best suit their needs.

The purpose of this paper will be to discuss the major philosophies that have shaped the nursing profession, how epistemologies have informed nursing science, the development of nursing philosophy, and the theoretical knowledge that has advanced the nursing body of knowledge. I will discuss how this new knowledge has influenced my perspective of the nursing profession, and how this will inform my theory-guided and reflective practice as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN). Furthermore, I will articulate the concepts and ideas of my personal nursing philosophy and paradigm, and the congruence to the theoretical concepts and elements of Dr. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring (Watson, 1979).

Reflective practice is constantly changing as it adds in the learning gained from experiences. Reflective practice links events together and compares what is already known and make a decisions on the basis of this comparison. Reflective practice helps nurses to become expert practitioners due to the fact it operates from a deep understanding of the total events. Reflective practice could also be beneficial for patients and service users as it gives better standards of patient safety and is focused on individual and also evidence based care derived from their needs.

I find reflective practice useful both personally and professionally. When I step back, observe and reflect helps me become more self-aware and understand my own and others’ emotions. I would be able to see things from different angles. When working with families, it will help to learn how to empathize and develop a better understanding of other people. I learn to better communicate through a better understanding of behavior which will help me build better relationships with families. To support children's continuous learning, I begin to ponder and question about children’s engagement in learning and what/how we can do to improve our teaching methods to meet the needs of all the children. In the see/think/wonder thinking has changed the way

making Practice-Based Learning work Reflection on PRACTICE A resource commissioned by the Making Practice Based Learning Work project, an educational development project funded through FDTL Phase 4 Project Number 174/02 and produced by staff from the University of Ulster. www.practicebasedlearning.org Author Patricia McClure School of Health Sciences, University of Ulster www.practicebasedlearning.org contents Reflection on Practice 02

A teacher is a person who inspires and encourages us to strive for greatness, live to our fullest potential and see the best in ourselves. They are strong-willed individuals who we admire and aspire to become. We learn from them. We learn through their commitment, integrity, and perseverance. A teacher can influence many important aspects of a student’s life. They help shape a student’s personality, morality and provide them with the tools necessary to take on their future endeavors. “A good teacher can teach you something that you will remember for a day, but a great teacher will teach you something that you will remember for the rest of your life.” I was fortunate enough to find all of these qualities in my Army JROTC instructor, First Sergeant Navarra.

In today’s society it is nearly impossible to survive without an education. It is important that we have the right kind of teachers to accomplish certain goals. A good teacher is one who listens to their students and tries to answer any questions they might have about anything. I think that a good teacher should also be able to listen to others opinions and not argue with them but try to understand their point of view on the subject.

When I think about teaching I think about my coaching philosophy, which has developed from 15 years of experience. A coach has tremendous influence on the physical and psychological development of their athletes – young and old. The primary responsibility of the coach is to enable their athlete to attain levels of performance not otherwise achievable: therefore, coaches need to develop skills to motivate athletes and establish the right conditions for learning. Being an effective coach is more than understanding the technical knowledge of sport, but also knowing how to build trusting kinesthetic relationships.

I became nationally board certified in 2004 and then have since renewed by certificate in 2014 and I firmly believe it is the one professional development experience in which I grew more professionally than any other, including, my college experience and getting degree and those kinds of things, because it is such a reflective experience and you reflex on your practice. I remember someone telling me that I had a practice and I thought; only doctors have practices.

A load of research has been done on learning and reflective practice and its effectiveness on the practitioners and one of the first people to research reflective Practice was Donald Schon in his book “The Reflective Practitioner” in 1983. Schon was an influential writer on reflection and had two main ways of identifying reflection and they were reflection in action and reflection on action.

Professional knowledge is no longer viewed as just consisting of a standardised, explicit and fixed knowledge base. It is now seen as knowledge which exists in use, is ethical in its use and is changed by experience.

There is a usual but important cliché for a teacher´s career: a teacher has to be a life-long learner to be an effective teacher. Research on effective teaching over the past two decades has proved that effective practice is related to questioning, reflection and continuous professional development. Reflective practice can be a satisfying experience for a teacher evolution. It covers self-analysis, questioning one owns methods, assumptions about learning, theories as well as one´s attitudes and behaviour as a facilitator and communicator, in short making a deep analysis of the actions. Reflecting on teaching includes the teacher´s thoughts on the successfulness of the lesson planning and the implementation used to teach. Within the time progression the teacher´s reflection should be more precise and he or she could

become successful. A good teacher plans with intention with all these things in mind to communicate the content of lesson to the psyche of the learner. A good educator is transforms themselves and those they serve to reach their loftiest goals.

Being a teacher is not an easy task as many people could think. To be a teacher does not only imply to know the subject to be taught, it also includes being willing to constantly improve oneself integrally, as much as updating the resources and materials one uses in teaching. Reflecting and analyzing over and over again the best way to teach to learn and how to make students to extend what has been learned. The many hours spend in the classroom will never be enough to plan lessons, prepare materials, review pupils tasks and exams, as well, all the administrative requirements one has to cover for whatever institution we work. Besides all this a good teacher, a professional one, will have to find the time to keep preparing to improve