LaurenR

Hi everyone, thank you for your great input, I put together some ideas and theories behind them as well. Thank you for taking the time to consider my input on this topic of professional development and the theorists involved who inform this. Reflective practice is key to continued improvement. When we work with children, every day is different and often things do not go according to plan. Once ‘the action’ of the day has passed it is invaluable to take a few minutes to quietly consider the day, your actions and the reactions which occurred. All of these ripples then feed back into your work. Reflection is a process. When we observe children and interact with them, we are provided with evidence. This in turn needs to be considered and carefully reflected upon and lead to a summative assessment. This can in turn provide you with a starting point to think about your own practice and consider next steps. Being an Early Years Practitioner means constantly learning and developing within the field, it is important to stay in touch with recent studies and new findings which can support your everyday practice. This practice needs to be consistently and continuously reviewed within the context of environment, action, planning, implementation and should eagerly anticipate improvement. Working on reflective practice is best done in partnership with other people and professionals in your setting and around you (local support networks/councils/forums). In this rapidly changing professional environments, reflective practice generates and encourages lifelong learning. Continuously updating skills, knowledge, and reflection helps to stay engaged in learning by actively making sense of experiences. This is the essence of CPD. Reflection enables professionals to assess their actions, successes, and failures, leading to constant improvement in practice. Through evaluating what worked well and what didn’t, one can refine approaches and practices to make them more effective. This is always with the child at the centre of the process. As a professional one can become more adaptable by carefully and critically thinking through experiences and developing strategies, problem-solving and decision-making skills. Early Years is prone to changing circumstances and child led practice where adaptability is a key skill. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are assisted through reflecting on experiences. This helps assists in understanding our own emotions, biases, and motivations. This self-awareness contributes to building positive trust based interpersonal relationships and feeds into emotional perceptiveness. Professional development is assisted greatly by thinking about ones’ practice as a practitioner can discover significant changes in perspective when thought about in a considered way. This is called transformative learning which means that a person can move beyond surface-level learning to challenge core beliefs and assumptions. Professionals must continuously update their skills and knowledge, and reflection helps them stay engaged in learning by actively making sense of their experiences. Professional discussions and engaging in online forums with peers results in providing a space for sharing reflections on professional practice, for dialogue and peer feedback. These are vital components to feeling part of a fantastic industry and makes it possible to share ideas and reflect on new policies or consider new possibilities. Professionals from Early Years and other various fields surrounding and supporting young children can share insights into their own reflective practices. In this way there is an opportunity to discuss challenges in a supportive way, offer solutions. This collective reflection can stimulate new ideas and help individuals to adopt best practice. In thinking about my own practice, I find a couple theorists are my ‘go to’ options for how I put reflection into practice. I really enjoy Kolb’s Reflective Cycle (1984), which is also known as the experimental learning theory and is based on learning through direct experience. I definitely believe in learning ‘hands on’ as I feel that this is a direct way to experience learning and to develop practice. Kolb’s theory is split into four stages Another theory I really admire is Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988) when Gibbs proposed a six-stage model of reflection. Description of the event Feelings during the event Evaluation of what worked and didn’t Analysis of why things happened as they did Conclusion on what could have been done differently Action plan for similar situations in the future The process of reflection encourages deeper analysis and allows space for learning from experiences by providing simple and effective recipe to inform reflection. The 4 C’s of reflective practice are really useful too and are as follows: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking and Creativity. These were discussed by Eyler, Giles, and Schmiede in 1996. There is so much to be said for working in collaboration with other practitioners and professionals. It allows for people to bring their passions, skills and experiences together. In the same way it is beneficial to use collaboration in reflection. This is a way to bounce ideas off one another and really consider ideas from different perspectives. Being open and communicating effectively and professionally means that there can be real conversations with positive feedback and support for challenges. Critical thinking is evaluating your own ideas, beliefs, concepts and the environment, situation and experience. This critical evaluation allows for thinking about solutions for future possible moments and to best prepare for positive outcomes. Creativity is the heart of Early Years, finding ways to learn and explore while challenging creativity is what it is all about. This creativity should be constantly be applied and challenged in practitioners too to enable a consistently wonderous learning journey. Through these practices I hope to consistently improve on my practice and continue to engage in a positive reflective process to inform my decisions and through experience and opportunity continue to learn and engage in the field. Simply Psychology (2 February 2024) Kolb’s Learning Styles And Experiential Learning Cycle by Saul Mcleod, PhD. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html The University of Edinburgh. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/refl...flective-cycle Reflective practices in the 21st century. Movement from 3Rs to 4Cs in the teaching profession ByGrace Chibiko Offorma, Carol Adaku Obiefuna. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315397702-1/reflective-practices-21st-century-grace-chibiko-offorma-carol-adaku-obiefuna