Learning Activity
Benefits of Reflective Practice
Purpose:
·
To
develop and understanding of the benefits of reflective practice
Learning outcomes:
By the end of this activity, participants will
be able to:
- Develop their capacity for
Reflective Practice
- Record examples of where
benefits have been gained from reflective practice.
- Share those reflections
with others
Resources needed:
- Benefits of Reflective
Practice Resource
Activity:
Part 1 – Pair / small group work
- Ask
participants to identify a series of at least two incidents / activities /
situations relating to their recent teaching.
- With
at least one other peer, ask some of the Generic Reflective Practice
questions to identify what learning can be drawn from reflecting on the
practice
- Map
the answers from the pair or small group cross to the table of potential
benefits to see which have occurred.
Part 2 – Plenary
- Share results across the
group
- Discuss where benefits
occurred, where this was less the case and if any overall patterns emerged
- Agree ways to maximise the
benefits from reflection and minimise the problems arising in future
Resource:
Learning Resource
Benefits of Reflective Practice
Roffey-Barentson and
Malthouse (2009) introduce 10 useful ‘benefits of reflective practice’
(p 16).[1]
|
Benefit
|
Event / Activity / Application
|
1.
Improved teaching practice
|
Purposeful
reflection is bound to help you to improve your teaching.
|
|
2. New Learning
|
Reflective
Practice will help you gain new learning and use it in your teaching.
|
|
3.
Enhanced problem solving skills
|
Careful
and honest considering of problems will improve your capacity to find solutions.
|
|
4.
Becoming a critical thinker
|
Will help you to
‘take charge’ of your own thinking and adjust take account of changes in
circumstances.
|
|
5. Making
Decisions
|
You will make
decisions in a more informed, thoughtful and objective manner.
|
|
6. Improved
organisational skills
|
By breaking down
issues and problems into steps or stages, you will get better at organising
your time and your activity to concentrate on the important,
‘solution-focussed’ actions.
|
|
7.
Managing personal change
|
As reflective
practice is itself focussed on seeking positive improvements and solutions,
managing change more effectively should take place.
|
|
8.
Acknowledging personal values
|
Acknowledging
and recognising that personal values exist and have positive and negative
effects, helps in choosing approaches and actions which can help you to
resolve those clashes in a balanced professional manner.
|
|
9. Taking
your own advice
|
You will become an
informed, positive agent in your own development and improvement.
|
|
10.
Recognising emancipatory benefits
It should help to free you from some of the burdens which can weigh
teachers down, and refresh your confidence and your teaching.
|
|
Generic Questions for Reflective Practice
What happened?
What took
place?
What do your colleagues think took place?
What do your students think took place?
What area of practice needed improvement or change?
What worked really well?
What do your colleagues think took place?
What do your students think took place?
What area of practice needed improvement or change?
What worked really well?
Why did it happen?
What were
the factors contributing to the problem / success?
What assumptions and underlying beliefs and motives were involved from you,
your learners and your colleagues?
Can you recognise any theory in what took place?
What external factors had any effect?
What assumptions and underlying beliefs and motives were involved from you, your learners and your colleagues?
Can you recognise any theory in what took place?
What external factors had any effect?
What can be done?
What are the possible ways to improve?
How could you use some of the success factors in your teaching?
How do your colleagues think you could use some of the success factors in your
teaching?
How do your students think you could use some of the success factors in your
teaching?
What ways forward are there?
Which parts of the changes are the most straightforward / least
straightforward?
How will this affect your professional situation?
What will be done?
What
action will you take?
What impact do you believe it will have on you, your learners and your
colleagues?
When will you take action?
[1] Roffey-Barentsen,
J. and Malthouse, R. (2009) Reflective Practice in the Lifelong
Learning Sector. Exeter
How could you use some of the success factors in your teaching?
How do your colleagues think you could use some of the success factors in your teaching?
How do your students think you could use some of the success factors in your teaching?
What ways forward are there?
Which parts of the changes are the most straightforward / least straightforward?
How will this affect your professional situation?
What will be done?
What impact do you believe it will have on you, your learners and your colleagues?
When will you take action?
[1] Roffey-Barentsen,
J. and Malthouse, R. (2009) Reflective Practice in the Lifelong
Learning Sector. Exeter
Roffey-Barentson and Malthouse (2009) introduce 10 useful ‘benefits of reflective practice’ which are summarised below:
1. Improving your teaching practice
If you take the time to reflect on your teaching, and reflect on how different parts of what you do work well, where aspects of your teaching can be improved, and how problems which arise could be solved, that is bound to help you to improve your teaching.2. Learning from reflective practice
There is a good range of evidence that purposeful reflection helps ‘deep’ learning take place, and for you as a teacher, it will help you to make connections between different aspects of your teaching and what goes on around your teaching. Reflective practice will help you gain new learning and use it in your teaching.3. Enhancing problem solving skills
When starting off with reflecting on your teaching you may tend to concentrate on problems which arise. By carefully and honestly considering and analysing those problems, you will improve your own capacity to find solutions.4. Becoming a critical thinker
Critical thinking is about ‘thinking well’, and ‘taking charge’ of your own thinking (Elder and Paul, 1994), and reflective practice will help you recognise and adjust what you think to take account of changes in circumstances, and by doing that help you to be better equipped to find solutions which work.5. Making Decisions
As you reflect on your practice, you will find you need to make decisions about what to do (or not to do) next. You may well have a number of choices which you have to weigh up, and deciding which one to take can be difficult. If you regularly reflect on your teaching in depth, you are regularly going to come across the need to make decisions, but the results of your reflective practice will help you to make those decisions in a more informed, thoughtful and objective manner.6. Improving your own organisational skills
You will notice as this section progresses that the benefits of reflective practice can reaching into every aspect of your professional work as a teacher. If you are thinking carefully about what you are doing, identifying possible actions and choices, trying out solutions, and adjusting what you do to take account of the results, this involves a good deal of organisation. By breaking down issues and problems into steps or stages, you will get better at organising your time and your activity to concentrate on the important, ‘solution-focussed’ actions.7. Managing personal change
Working in education involves managing regular, rapid, pressured and often confusing change, which can be one of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher. If you are using the techniques of reflective practice, which involves, calm, thoughtful, honest, critical and organised thinking and action, this should introduce a calming and less emotional response to that change. As reflective practice is itself focussed on seeking positive improvements and solutions, managing change more effectively should take place.8. Acknowledging personal values
There will be things which take place within your professional situation as a teacher which you will wholeheartedly agree with, and others which will worry or alarm you. This is because they may agree or disagree with your own personal values such as what you believe in, and what you think is wrong or right. How these are affected by teaching will vary, but you will almost certainly come across major clashes of values as part of your work. Reflective practice is an excellent way of acknowledging and recognising that those values exist and have an effect, but which concentrates on helping you to choose approaches and actions which can help you to resolve those clashes without it adversely affecting the professional balance of your work as a teacher.9. Taking your own advice
Teachers are often more critical of their own teaching than anyone else, and it could be possible for this to develop into an attitude about teaching which is negative and destructive. The techniques and approaches of reflective practice will place you in a position where you are an informed, positive agent in your own development and improvement and one where you can ‘take your own advice’ with a confidence tht it is reflective, focussed and informed advice.10. Recognising emancipatory benefits
If you reflect on the nine benefits of reflective practice which have so far been described, you will clearly see that this is a model of practice which represents the teacher as someone with influence over their own teaching and their own destiny as a teacher. This is what is at the heart of reflective practice, and as such it should help considerably to free you from some of the burdens which can weigh teachers down, and refresh your confidence and your teaching.Source: http://reflectivepractice-cpd.wikispaces.com/Definitions4
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