Hi my name is Katie and I work in an early years setting in Cumbria. I am nearing the end of my CACHE level 3 Early Years Educator course and have been asked by my tutor to engage in discussions with my peers about the main theoretical perspectives on professional development. Below is description of my current knowledge involving the reflective practices of Kolb and Gibbs. I wondered if there were any other view points or theories on reflective practice that are useful for early years practitioners? Any advice appreciated, thanks in advance :)
The two main theories of professional development are Kolb’s learning cycle and Gibb’s reflective cycle, both of which are based on reflective practice. The EYFS requires practitioners to engage in this style of working and stresses that reflective practice should be continual and not just a one-stage process. This is because children are always changing as they grow, and constant reflection is needed to highlight adaptations to our practice to encourage development. For example, a child that has recently learnt to write their own name should have further learning opportunities planned to support their writing development.
Kolb’s learning cycle is also called experimental learning theory and is based on people learning from direct experiences. This has benefits over other methods of learning such as reading from a textbook, because practitioners often retain the learning experience better as they perform the physical actvitiy and build muscle memory. The theory is split into four stages:
Concrete experience – during this stage the practitioner is involved directly with the children interacting with them and maintaining a sense of creativity and adaptability toward the situations presented to them. For example, during my practice I played a game of snap with the children that I later adapted to a game of finding matches with all the cards faced up.
Reflective observation – this is about reflecting on what has happened. Practitioners are aware of what has happened and can take a different, retrospective view on their practice. They can think about what actions seemed to benefit the child and which hindered their learning. This stage depends on being as objective as possible. For example, I observed that some children struggled to concentrate to play the snap game and instead played with their cards during my actvitiy. This may mean that the age and stage of development of the children did not match the activity I planned.
Abstract conceptualisation – during this stage practitioners develop new ideas to improve their practice. This is based on facts rather than emotions and is aimed at understanding the situation and forming ideas to improve the experience in future. For example, with the above example, I could play snap again with less children and fewer, larger cards and more matches to encourage understanding.
Active experimentation – this involves the practitioner trying out their new ideas to see the direct results. This is an active learning experience involving doing a physical activity. As an example, I could carry out my above idea and observe the results and again reflect on what I could further improve and what went well.
Kolb’s learning style is described as a cycle because it is good practice to repeat the cycle to continually learn and improve practice as highlighted in the EYFS. Using this cycle of reflection can highlight areas of practice that need improvement and so is a useful tool to guide professional development plans. For example, after using the cycle several times, it may become apparent that a practitioner struggles to engage children for prolonged periods. This information could be useful in staff appraisals in which a training course on better communication styles with children could be offered.
Gibb’s reflective cycle is similar to Kolb’s cycle. It contains more stages, two more, and has more structure to guide the practitioner through the process of reflection. It is particularly useful for reflection on events that have already occurred and what practitioners can do differently next time a similar event occurs. The stages are as follows:
Description – an objective account of what happened describing details such as the event, where and when it happened, who else was there, what actions did I and the people around me take and what was the result of the event.
Feelings – an account of emotions felt during the event. Helpful questions to ask when exploring feelings including, what did I feel before and after the event? What was I feeling during the event? What were my thoughts before, during and after the event?
Evaluation – trying to summarise the positive and negative aspect of the event as objectively as possible. Questions to aid this process of reflection include, what worked and what did not work about the event? What did I and others around me contribute to the situation?
Analysis – this step involves trying to understand what happened. Prior steps have been about the details of the event, this step involves drawing meaning from the situation. During this step, the focus is on the aspects that went well and those that did not and trying to understand why this is. During this stage it is also worth asking who can help me make sense of the situation if I lack the knowledge to fully understand why the situation happened.
Conclusion – During this stage reasons are decided to explain why the situation went well or not and what can be learnt from the experience. During this stage, changes to working practice are considered to obtain a positive outcome in future and any further skills needed to bring this about highlighted.
Action plan – this involves planning how I would act differently if presented with the same situation in future and should form part of a professional development plan. Sometimes further skills are needed to help this process and could involve further training or courses.
