Reflective Practice: History and Frameworks
Literature review
Short introduction to reflection
This section defines the reflective process and its connection to experience and learning.
The world that we live in is our creation (Schlippe & Schweitzer 2015: p.8). We create our reality by making sense of our experiences. In order to learn from our experience, we need to reflect on it.
Reflective Practice is a method of assessing and critically evaluating our own thoughts and actions, for the purpose of personal learning and development. The basic reflective process has four phases, as suggested by Kolb (1984: p.30). First, we describe the experience. Second, we bring to awareness and evaluate our feelings and thoughts connected to the experience. Third, we generate insights and draw conclusions. And fourth, we plan how we want to apply our learnings in the future and test new behaviours.
Reflective practice is an essential tool of every effective learner. Effective learners embrace new experiences fully and without bias. They are able to acknowledge a relevant experience, put it into words, use analytical tools to draw conclusions, and apply their ideas by actively trying new behaviours and approaches in future situations (Kolb 1984: p.30).
We need to evaluate our beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions in order to tackle adult life. It’s a vital skill that helps us maintain and develop positive relationships, productivity, and happiness. Hence, reflecting is a way for adults to have deep learning experiences that not only improve their professional practice, but also open up unseen life opportunities. It’s a way for adults to “unstuck” (Taylor & Cranton 2012: p.57).
Literature Review
This section outlines the theoretical frameworks of reflective practice, their similarities and differences, the process of reflection, and the role emotions and feelings play in the reflective process.
Theories on reflection as a learning tool have been heavily influenced by the work of the philosophers Dewey, Habermas, and Friere Jarvis (Atkins & Murphy 1993: pp.1188–1189).
Dewey (1910: p.2) distinguishes four meanings of thought. Broadly spoken a thought can be “everything that comes to mind”; on the other end of the spectrum Dewey (1910: p.5) defines a reflective thought as “(…) active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends”.
The educational theorist Donald Schön picks up Dewey’s definition and suggested a way of how professionals could use reflective thinking as a tool to become reflective practitioners. Schön (1987: p.195) argues that professionals are in a crisis as schools fail to teach what practitioners need in “the complex, unstable, uncertain, and conflictual worlds of practice”. In the field problems don’t present themselves as well-formed. Thus, the rules of our professional knowledge are insufficient or as Schön (1987: p.121) puts it, “The case is not ‘in the book’”.
Outstanding practitioners , though, do not only know how to apply their professional knowledge; they have reached a stage of “professional artistry” by displaying competences like “intuition”, “talent”, and “wisdom” in challenging situations, suggests Schön (1987: p.200).
Reflective practitioners who have reached professional artistry have found a way to tap into their tacit knowledge and learn from their experience while they are still in the situation at hand. Hence, to reach a level of professional artistry, practitioners need to be able to reflect not only on action (reflection on past events), but also in action (reflection in the moment of an event). Reflection-in-action is an intuitive and creative practice that helps professionals ‘think on their feet’ and improvise to handle uncertainty, chaos, and complexity (Finlay 2008: pp.3–4).
Schön’s work highly impacted models for reflection. There are five types of models that differ in complexity. They might be structured, hierarchical, iterative, synthetic, and/or holistic (Finlay 2008: p.7). All of them though describe three essential stages of reflection: first, awareness of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, second, critical analysis of feelings and knowledge, and third, new perspective (Atkins & Murphy 1993: pp.1189–1190).
One of the most popular models of reflection is Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, based on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. It suggests that learning happens iteratively when we make experiences, understand what we feel and think, evaluate the experience, draw conclusions, make an action plan, and make new experiences based on our new insights. (Finlay 2008: p.8).
The main assumption underlying the process of experiential learning is that ideas are not permanent and unchangeable, as suggested by idealist approaches, but are constantly modified by experience. This implies that learning is a never-ending individual process instead of an accumulation of fixed ideas. As traditional education defines learning in terms of outcomes, it seems that experiential learners never learn anything as they repeatedly disengage from accumulated knowledge to make space for new habits or viewpoints (Kolb 1984: p.26).
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler, Futurist (Quoted from: Gordon & Crabtree 2006: p.61)
David Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle visualises a way of learning from experience with reflection as an integral part of such learning. Being good at using all the stages of the learning cycle, Kolb suggested, qualifies an effective learner.
Since then, various models of reflection have been created, many of them more elaborate than the four-step experiential learning cycle (Finlay 2008: p.8).
This went along with demands not to oversimplify the process of reflection especially when teaching the concept to future educators. To capture the complexity of the concept, Jay and Johnson (2002: p.73) introduced a three-dimensional model which is composed of a descriptive, comparative, and critical reflection. This and other contemporary models emphasise the importance of engaging in reflexivity, critical self-reflection, a combination of personal reflection and social critique (Finlay 2008: p.8).
Reflexivity calls for a critical reflection on the influence of our upbringing, beliefs, values, emotions, and behaviours as well as the discourses, ideologies, organisations, and political conditions that are part of our lives. Thus, effective reflective practitioners need to be highly self-aware, reflexive, and critical thinkers (Finlay 2008: p.5–6). Open-mindedness and motivation as are further requirements to effective reflection (Atkins & Murphy 1993: pp.1189–1190).
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND EMOTIONS
This section introduces the role of emotions in contemporary approaches to teaching and learning.
One aspect of reflexive thinking has gained momentum among educational theorists within the past twenty years: emotions. Educators used to view emotions as hindrance to reason and the development of knowledge. Contemporary approaches propose that emotions energise processes of teaching and learning and that they play a positive and ‘intelligent’ role in adult learning. Emotions influence the way we think, our motivation and beliefs as well as our attitudes and values. The emotional dimension of learning is represented in theories of experiential learning, whole person learning, embodied learning, transformative learning, and spiritual experience (Dirkx 2009: p.14).
Johns’ Model of Structured Reflection emphasises emotions as vital part of reflexivity (Finlay 2008: p.9). The model consists of a set of questions, addressing five ways of knowing: personal, aesthetics, empirics, ethics, and reflexivity (Finlay 2008: p.27).
Literature Summary
Reflection on experience is a crucial part of adult learning. Reflective practitioners have to be motivated, open-minded, and self-aware. They need to be able to describe experiences, critically analyse them, connect new to existing knowledge, and make judgements about the value of an experience. Furthermore, the role of emotions as a means of giving meaning to and judging experiences is stressed by most recent adult learning theorists. We will only be effective learners if we know how to ‘read’ our emotions and how to reflect on them.
References
- Atkins, S., & Murphy, K. (1993). Reflection: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 18.
- Beard, C., & Wilson, J. P. (2014). Experiential learning: a handbook for education, training and coaching. London, Kogan Page.
- Crabtree, S. (2006). Building Engaged Schools: Getting the Most out of America’s Classrooms. New York, Gallup Press.
- Dewey, J. (1910). How we Think. Boston, D.C. Heath & Co. [Kindle Edition].
- Dirkx, J. M. (2009). The Meaning and Role of Emotions in Adult Learning: New Directions for Adult And Continuing Education. 2008.
- Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on ‚Reflective Practice‘. PBPL Paper. 52.
- Illeris, K. (2009). Contemporary Theories of Learning: Learning Theorists … in their own Words. London, Routledge.
- Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing Complexity. A Typology of Reflective Practice for Teacher Education. Teaching and Teacher Education. 18.
- Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.
- Schlippe, A. V., & Schweitzer, J. (2015). Systemic Interventions. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass [Kindle Edition].
- Taylor, E. W., & Cranton, P. (2012). The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
