Reflective Reflection

Reflective practice allows us to reflect on our actions and experiences so that we can learn from them and adapt our behaviour accordingly. Reflective practice can be uncomfortable as it challenges our own assumptions about ourselves however it is vital for improving the quality of the service we provide.

Kim & Loretta (2003), stated that Atkinson & Murphy (1993) identified the key skills needed for reflection as ‘self awareness, the ability to recollect and describe accurately key aspect of the situation, critical analysis of the situation and synthesis of new knowledge gained with the previous knowledge, in order to develop a new perspective’. I will discuss,

“One may also reflect on practice while one is on the midst of it. This process involves both reflections in action and reflection in practice (Johns 2000). Schon states that reflection in action consists of on the spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring and testing of intuitive understanding of experience phenomenon (Schon 1983) P.241.

The way things are done may not always be the only way to do them... Reflecting to see this helps identify gaps and areas that can be improved.

Effective reflection helps the practitioner to see the situation from an outsider's perspective, so that they can develop a better way to respond to a similar scenario in the future. Reflection is meant to achieve a change in practice, rather than simply repeating the same mistakes (Schon, 1983). Many different models exist for structuring the reflective process. Regardless of the framework used, the reflection models are meant to accomplish three things. They are supposed to promote reflecting on events, self-evaluation and analysis, and a plan to change actions in the future. This Reflective essay will utilize Driscoll's 'The What?' model as its structure (Driscoll, 1994). This model has three components"

Reflection is a process of reviewing and thinking critically about activities and how this affects learning of student’s. It is not just descriptions of what happened during the lesson; it’s to

Donald Schon (1983) identified that learning in practice could be enhanced by 2 different kinds of activity – Reflection in-action and Reflection on-action.

Kottkamp and Osterman (1993) write in Reflective Practice for Educators: Improving Schooling through Professional Development that reflective practice is essential for behavioural change and improvement. They go on to eloquently describe what is needed to reflect effectively: “To gain a new level of insight into personal behaviour, the reflective practitioner assumes a dual stance, being, on one hand, the actor in a drama and, on the other hand, the critic who sits in the audience watching and analysing the entire performance. To achieve

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

Reflective practice engages practitioners in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation in order to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). Reflective practice is considered as an evolving concept which views learning as “an active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.” (Reid, B 1993 cited in Garfat, T. 2005).

Reflection is an everyday process and is very personal matter. Jasper (2003) suggests that reflection is one of the key ways in which we can learn from our experiences. Reflective practice can be defined as process of making sense of events, situations and actions that occur in the workplace (Oelofsen, 2012).

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.

According to Howston-Jones (2013) reflection is not something that is out of the ordinary for everyone to do in their everyday lives. Reflection is the act of looking back on a situation, event or incident critically and making sense of it to learn from it and alter our actions to gain better outcomes should the same incident arise again (Capelhow, Crouch, Fisher & Walsh, 2013). As new experiences happen to everyone, everyday; it would be right to consider reflection as an ongoing process within everyone’s life, a process that is repeated, honed and a skill to be developed (McKenna, 1998).

Reflection in action happens whilst carrying out an action in a critical way. As a student, the vital part of Reflection-in-action is to notice when we are experiencing this and what is occurring. This then allows us to develop ourselves even better when faced with the same situation in future. (Plymouth University

Both experience and reflection are needed to produce new knowledge. Effective learners often are parallel processing, that is reflecting upon activities even as they are doing or experiencing new activities.