Challenges of Reflective Practice

Learning Activity

Challenges of Reflective Practice

Purpose:

·         To develop and understanding of the challenges of reflective practice

·         To reflect on events / actions / activities or teaching situations to identify where those challenges have occurred and how to meet them.

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Develop their capacity for Reflective Practice
• Record examples of where challenges have been identified from reflective practice.
• Consider how those challenges can be overcome.
• Share those reflections with others.

Resources needed:

• Challenges 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 across to the table of potential challenges to see which were present, and note that on the table.

Part 2 – Plenary

• Share results across the group
• Discuss where challenges occurred, and if a pattern emerged across the group
• Consider potential strategies to overcome the challenges in the future.

Resource:

Learning Resource

Challenges of Reflective Practice

Challenge	Event / Activity / Application
1. Time Where are you wasting time? Where can you use your time more effectively?
2. Keeping emotions in check Where do you have real confidence in yourself? Where are you least confident about yourself? What small steps can move you towards the more positive view?
3. Ways of reflecting Find creative, easy ways of reflecting which work for you. Find out what works for others. Share yours with others
4. Building support Who gives you support on a regular basis? What new support networks / mechanisms could you use?

What are the challenges associated with reflective practice?

Like any other area of work, there can be challenges we face when we use reflective practice. Kennett (2010: pp73-75) summarises some of these:

Time

When your time is pressured, which as a front line teacher it often is, can you afford to take special time to reflect on your practice in the ways suggested here? We would argue that you will work both more effectively and efficiently if you use reflective practice, because you will be able to make more clear and informed decisions, be more aware of what is likely to work and what is not likely to, and more up to date with what works elsewhere. This will all save time which would be wasted elsewhere.

In order to meet this challenge however you have to find strategies for making time.

Emotions

Reflecting carefully on what you do can be challenging and scary. You may well come to some conclusions which have major consequences for you as a professional. If you have doubts about yourself as a person and as a professional, these can appear at times to be reinforced by reflection.

As you become more proficient both in the techniques of reflective practice, and in your teaching overall, your fears should be replaced by confidence.

This challenge can be met by developing ways both to understand and make use of your emotions, and to hold your nerve and stay with your informed decisions.

Not being naturally reflective

You may well be someone who doesn’t tend to find reflection something you naturally get involved in .. you may well be a ‘doer’ rather than a ‘thinker’. This may well be the case with your students as well. This set of resources provides a wide variety of ways to introduce, encourage, try out reflection in a variety of ways, and draws together a wide range of tools and activities to help with that. These should all help you to get the maximum benefits you can from reflective practice.

It is possible to reflect in highly active, engaged and creative ways. You don't always have to sit down with your head resting on your hand to be reflective!