reflective practice in CPD

[zoya52]

HELLO I NEED YOUR INSIGHTS ON REFLECTIE PRACTICE IN CPD.

HERE'S MY RESERACH . ADD YOUR FINDINGS TOO PLEASE.

Hello, I am currently doing my Level 3 in Childcare and I would like to discuss and summarise points on Reflection in regards to Professional development in early years.Reflection is a process by which a person constantly improves their practice by critically analysing and evaluating it against their set goals or a standard level of practice and hence they improve their practice by constantly changing their approach, and hence they engage in a cycle of continuous learning. Reflective practice was something that started relatively recently in disciplines such as Education and health care to enable professionals to learn from real life experiences. It is not just enough to obtain qualifications and certificates in today’s world but a person should also know how to apply that knowledge first hand to practical life scenarios and then learn from their failures or success. Reflection starts at the core of one’s learning or experience in their practice and they need to evaluate their performance in regards to what they hoped and what they actually achieved detailing the plus and minus of the experience and then learning from it. It is also worthwhile to mention what one has learnt from the whole experience and where they think that they can improve. One turning question would be to ask yourself what would have happened if I would have done this instead of that, so it’s continuous improvement in easy words. It’s recommended for all professionals to look into continuous professional development during their practice.Now , I am going to discuss some theories on reflection in professional development too: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory comprises a pyramid of human needs which are physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Maslow placed them in the order from top to bottom with the more creative and intellectually oriented ‘self-actualization’ needs at the top. Maslow asserted that not everyone would actually reach their full potential or consider this as their goal, however there might be peak moments in everybody’s life when it comes to achievements. Maslow’s theory is very simple to understand that a human needs to first accept and fulfil their physiological needs such as food, clothing, basic health and shelter and then they move on to complex physiological needs such as accomplishing something worthy or taking themselves to the top pinnacle of success and then realising it. According to Maslow, people who are self actualised measure their success through peak experiences, they also perceive reality efficiently and take themselves at their face value for who they are, meaning accepting their strengths or weaknesses, they are highly creative and problem centred and look towards continuously bettering themselves. Hence Maslow believed that if a person is already comfortable in their basic needs, then they can start their journey of improvement and self actualization which relates a lot with what we call reflection today. Kolb said that “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” . Kolb’s experiential theory of learning consists of four stages: Concrete experience in which a person encounters a new concrete experience in the form of a situation or an event and then he experiences Reflective Observation of the new experience, in which he reflects on his experience in the light of his knowledge or experiences. Then comes the stage of abstract conceptualisation, where in light of the reflection made, new learning is achieved in the form of a new idea or modification to an existing concept. Then the individual engages in active experimentation and applies his newly found learning to the world around him to see what he could achieve. So, Kolb saw the whole learning process as a cycle in which the person constantly learns through an integrated process of steps which all affect and support each other. The process of what we call reflection will be achieved in the second and third phase of Kolb’s cycle in which the learner reflects on his experience and hence forms new ideas based on that experience and observation. However Kolb asserted that all stages must be implemented in order to achieve this learning cycle. Gibbs reflective cycle is a theory that describes experiential learning as a structured six stage process of reflection.this cyclical model emphasises the need of constantly reflecting from experiences through revisiting and analysing them from different angles and then using them to inform future practice by making the best decisions or changes in practice. It represents reflection in a more systematic way compared to the other models. The six stages are as follows: Description ~ providing a clear and factual account of the details of the event without judgement. Feelings ~ exploring and analysing the emotions / feelings experienced throughout the event, includes honest self reflection and self awareness. Evaluation ~ Critically assessing the whole experience by identifying what went well and what didn’t, balanced consideration of both the positives and negatives.Analysis ~ making deeper sense of the situation and extracting deeper meaning from the whole experience. Conclusion ~ consolidating the findings and insights gained from the whole reflective process, thinking what you could do differently in future.Action plan ~ Making a concrete plan for improvement based on the previously gained insights, hence turning reflection into a catalyst for professional and personal growth.Donald Schön’s theory takes reflective practice as the practice by which professionals become aware of their knowledge base and learn from their actions. For Schon, reflection in action was needed to solve problems, rather than rationality. He, therefore, valued the insights that come from experience, from being direct involvement with the situation. His basic idea is that through reflection-in action which responds to the belief “that our knowing is in our action, (p. 49) we can gain verifiable insight into our thought processes. He believed in reflection on action as it is to reflect on behaviour that happens, whereas reflection on action is to reflect after the action to review, analyse and evaluate the situation. Reflection-in-action is the reflective form of knowing-in-action: It is Schön’s assumption that “competent practitioners usually know more than they can say” (Schön, 1983, p. 8)Looking at all these theories of reflection, I would say that I personally like Gibb’s theory of reflection as it is very simple and explains the human thought process in a very simple and straightforward manner. So by engaging in reflection, one can engage in continuous learning which can help them to improve their practice.

 

Ref : https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit/whatisreflectivepracticehttps://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html?ez_vid=2cae626a2fe896279da43d587baa3eb663083817https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.htmlhttps://graysreadinggroup.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/the-reflective-practitioner-by-donald-schon/