Task 2C Reflective theory

Critical reflection on reflective practice:

If you asked a group of people what reflection means to them and how they self reflect you would probably get a wide variety of answers. This is because reflection is a very personal thing and there is no right or wrong to it and many of us might not consciously realise that they are doing it on a daily basis. I certainly didn't! Before reading through the Reader I was unaware that I already had an existing relationship with reflection. Then as I began to think about it more I realised that reflection is a completely common and instinctive thing for us to do. I'm sure many people when they are travelling back from work in the evening will think about the event's of the day and what went well and what didn't. This is reflection. Or sometimes replaying the events of something in our head over and over again thinking 'what could I have done differently?' This too is reflection. So it is not something we have to always consciously decide to do but more something that will naturally occur. However, if we want to learn from reflection and use it to benefit us in our lives, education and careers then perhaps then it becomes something we should be putting a little more consciousness towards. 

When I think back at my vocational ballet training at school I can see that the idea of reflection was introduced to us in the form of writing a dance journal. This is a book where we were told to write down corrections for us to work on and goals that we wanted to achieve which our teachers would read over at the end of every term. Although I remember I found writing this a bit of a chore at the time, it was actually extremely helpful with consolidating what we had learnt in classes and helped me retain corrections. Since graduation I haven't continued to do anything like this however, I have written down my goals whether they be short term or long term and I find this helps me to keep focused.

In my company we are encouraged to think over new choreography after rehearsals and write it down so we remember the spacing and steps!

Looking outward:

I have found it very interesting reading what philosophers have said about reflection and the impact their revolutionary ideas have had on our education and schooling. Never before in my education have I been introduced to the way that the reflective process can enable you to be more actively involved with your learning and aid yourself in the educational process, so I had no idea that some of these educationalists had such a huge impact on the way we learn and their theories are something that has helped our education system develop and thrive.

John Dewey is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of modern education and is probably most well known for his role in 'progressive education' where he believes people need to learn through doing and partaking in a hands on approach. This is directly linked to the BAPP course as it is a work based learning degree so we are constantly learning through our work in a practical way so his beliefs are definitely relevant to our course and I can learn though his research and beliefs. Dewey's views make him a pragmatist as he believed that students must interact with the outside world in order to learn.

When reading through some quotes of Dewey's one that really stood out to me was “We only think when confronted with a problem.” This really struck a chord with me as I realised how accurate this was. Do we only begin searching for a solution for something when it is already a problem. Perhaps we should focus on the prevention of issues before it actually develops into a problem? I automatically linked this to injuries and how we should work on the prevention of them rather than waiting until we actually feel pain! Another quote I liked was “The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.” This develops the idea of continued growth and having control over yourself and how you evolve. After all we are in complete control of ourselves, no one else is telling us what to do and our actions, choices and decisions are down to ourselves. 



Dewey's ideas influenced Kolb and helped him in the creation of his learning cycle which I have posted below. This cycle isn't intended to be steps 1,2,3,4. It is developed to be a continual cycle where one thing leads into another. Although we will all experience each of the ideas, the point at which we enter the cycle is how we start to learn and can sometimes be called our learning style. So as well as helping us reflect on experiences the cycle also helps show us what kind of learner we are which will enable us to be able to learn from our experiences. 

If I look at the creation of my blog as an example of an experience then I can use the learning cycle to help find out what my learning style is by seeing at which point I enter the cycle and start finding meaning. When I first sat down to start to create my blog one of the first things I did was look at previous BAPP students to see which blog platform they had used and the style of layout. I immediately learnt from this and gathered some of my own ideas and I also found that this gave me confidence to start my own blog. So I think the point at which I enter the learning cycle would be reflective observation. I definitely also used active experimentation shortly after I had started my blog because I switched blogging platforms as I wasn't happy with my original blog so using a bit of trial error and active experimentation I found which platform and style worked best for me! It's very interesting to use this cycle because you can apply it to lots of difference experiences and see how you learn and at which point do you begin to extract meaning from what you are doing!

Inspired by Kolb's learning cycle Peter Honey and John Mumford created a questionnaire (Honey and Mumford 1986b) that can help identify your preferred learning style. Lots of academic institutions introduce this to students to help them find out what kind of a learner they are. 

The four types of learners are:

Activists - Those who will try anything once and consider the consequences afterwards. They will learn from experiences and opportunities. 

Reflectors - Those who review experiences, this may link to Kolb's learning cycle and journal writing. Spend time listening and observing. 

Theorist - Those who like to understand the theory behind the actions and conclude from the experience. 

Pragmatists - Those who are keen to try things out and plan the next steps. Look for solutions for the problems in hand.

I found an interesting read on the Open Univeristy website about Honey and Mumford and used it to help me decide how I learn best! 

http://www.open.edu/openlearnworks/pluginfile.php/69355/mod_page/content/1/learning_styles.pdf

Schon looked at reflection in another way and was interested in how time impacts how you engage with new ideas. The idea of the present and future giving two different ways to reflect. Reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. For example learning whilst you are doing something or thinking back after something has already happened.