Week 17 / My Reflective Practice

Step 1: Descriptive

When I first learnt about reflective practice during my university degree, we were asked to use John Smyth's (1993) Framework for Reflection. We wrote about 3 dilemmas we encountered for each of our teaching placements. I found these to be helpful but also time consuming. Now seven years later, I find that my reflections are more in the moment and in my own head or verbally discussed with a colleague to hear their perspective or opinion rather than written down somewhere or blogged about. Finlay (2008) states that the term 'reflective practice' ranges from professionals engaging in solitary introspection to that of critical dialogue with others. I am constantly using student's cues to gage how effective a lesson is going and quickly adjust my approach where I see fit. There have been a few instances where I have reflected in my own personal teaching blog which is shared with very few people being my appraiser and maybe a few of my colleagues from school. I don't currently use a model or framework to guide my reflections.

Step 2: Comparative 

I do not believe critical reflection should be about criticising yourself or other colleagues, as this to me feels extremely negative and if we are to grow and further our practice to be the best we can be, then critiquing is far more effective in my opinion. I was quite surprised by the survey data showing quite a large number of people who believe reflection is about criticising their own or other's practice. This makes me wonder if their experiences with critical reflection have been negatively impacted by other teaching colleagues and may explain the high number of people who like myself, prefer to reflect on their own. I also noticed a high number of people who completed the survey, rarely write reflections whether it be in a diary or online and this makes me wonder what the quality of their reflections are. According to Finlay (2008) for professionals who are short on time, reflective practice is often bland and mechanical - this is something I can definitely identify with.

Step 3: Critical Reflection

This process of looking into my own reflective practice and that of others has been enlightening. I feel I need to make the time to reflect using a model to guide me more frequently to ensure my reflections are deep and meaningful not just superficial and a quick fix. I feel that blogging my reflections and having them open for the world to see, is daunting but something I am willing to grasp with both hands and have a go at. I look forward to looking deeper into what critical reflection can do to help me grow professionally especially sharing these reflections with fellow colleagues and broadening my professional network. 

I have used Jay and Johnson's (2002) reflective model for this reflection about my own reflective practice.

Reference List:

Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. Practice-based Professional Learning Centre, Open University. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf 

Jay, J.K. and Johnson, K.L. (2002). Capturing complexity: a typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 73-85.

Smyth, J. (1993). Reflective Practice in Teacher Education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 18(1).