What is reflective practice?

Reflective Practice
What is reflective practice? Well, according to Boud et al (1985), it is the "process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/ or practice".  Reflective practice for me is looking back in hindsight , seeing what occurred during the teaching session , who did it affect, why did it affect them that way, where and when did it happen, and what will be my next steps and whether or not I needed to change how or what I taught.  If the lesson went well, how could I use that way to aide learning in other areas.  As I write this post I wonder if the teachers I had, when I was going to school, ever reflected on their lessons delivered.  To me it seems they never did.  I don't recall teachers ever redoing lessons or changing the way they taught lessons.  It was always the one way of teaching; be quiet, sit still, at your desk with your pen and paper, and listen to what they had to say and if you didn't get it, tough luck!  I am glad I will not be one of those teachers.  Reflection need not be something that we labour over, but thought of as a snapshot of time in our daily teaching lives.  I say "daily" because I believe we need to be thinking about what is happening in the classroom and lessons , as children grow and acquire new learning, whatever that may be, daily.  When I reflect, most of the time it is about the children who did not understand what I was teaching.  I then have to think to myself "why?"  It is not always easy to understand why or why not, but more to understand "what next?".  Reflection is like a mini professional development session where we look at what went wrong then figure out how to fix it.  It is the "how do I fix it?" that makes all the difference.  When I am stuck in reflection: I share these problems with my colleagues or the principal and they help me to understand that there are different or better ways to do something, because the classroom does not have a giant sized mirror to reflect your practice.  I need someone to tell me if what is happening in my classroom is valuable for students.  Powell states that "Without adult-to-adult interaction , it is almost impossible to for a teacher to learn whether her class climate promotes risk taking, whether her use of humour is appreciated, or whether she is asking too many low-level questions".  This could be done by peer observation, then complimented, or not,  by a video recorded observation that is looked at, at a later time.  Lindon states that "The significant opportunity of watching something that has been recorded is that it is possible  to point to actual examples" gives us a chance to see what actually occurred at that specific point in time.

Lindon, J. (2016). Reflective practice in early years.  London, United Kingdom: Hodder Education

Powell, W. (n.d). Chapter 11: Professional Development and Reflective Practice.   Retrieved Decembe 01, 2017, from https://www.state.gov/m/a/os/45723.htm

Reflecting on "Reflective practice" - The Open University. (2008, January). Retrieved November 27, 2017, from http://www.bing.com/cr?

Reflective teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice. (n.d). Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/ reflective-teaching-exploring-our-own-classroom-practice