I'm interested in this area too.
As I am working as both a early years practitioner and as a forest school leader in this context, reflection is an area to which we often return to. Reflection is key to the ethos under which I work, both for the children and for the staff. We often take time with the children at the end of a session to actively chat about what they have been doing, what they enjoyed and how they felt about it. As practitioners we then use this to plan play opportunities for further sessions bearing in mind the things that we as professionals are seeing develop in the children. This kind of observations, collaborative review and planning is key to the learner led ethos of the forest school movement and helps us to stay responsive to the needs of the children and their interests. As reflective practitioners we also think about our own strengths and weaknesses, how we can support each other and any areas of development that arise from these considerations.
Furthermore there are a few theorists who have established patterns that are used for reflective practice. These processes are quite similar to those we use when observing and planning for children and can also be applied to ourselves and our professional practice. It does take a good dose of humility and flexibility to acknowledge that you do not already possess all the skills and qualities that child need but we can also be reassured that where we do not have a skill yet, there is likely someone who does who we can learn from, perhaps a close colleague or through some kind of wider training. The key here is to understand that we all continue to be learners whatever stage of live or career we are at.
The theorists Kolb, Gibbs and John proposed models that are cyclic and this reflects the ongoing nature of reflection - we aren't ever done learning, it is an attitude we are to be in not just a fix process of start and finish. Of course within this there may be times when specific learning, such as a training course, does start and end but we then have to put our knowledge into practice and that requires adjustment and flexibility to apply what we know to the children we work with, another learning process and one that will continue as the children grow or move on and we get new children.
The stages of reflection include doing something, observing, thinking about how it worked and what could be changed (and why) and implementing these changes before repeating the cycle to see if it worked better or worse, or if it met the children's needs well and so on.
Another theorist, Schon, has outlined 2 characteristics of reflective practice, firstly thinking about what we are doing as we do it (- being adaptive in the moment) and secondly thinking about what we did later on, when perhaps we have more time to consider in detail. Again we see the importance of ongoing reflection and being flexible and willing to change our practice.
