Personal Development Portfolio Summary Essay Question
easyMIntroduction to Business & Management
6. Reflection: Theory and Practice
Dr. Andy Brown
Session Aims:
What is reflection?
Why is reflection important?
Models of reflection?
Reflective writing
Assignment – Component A
2
What is reflection?
Reflection is “the practice of periodically stepping back to ponder the meaning to self and to others in one’s immediate environment about what has recently transpired” (Raelin 2001, p. 11)
Reflection is the element
that turns experience into
learning. (Schon, 1983, p.62)
3
Why is reflection important?
Reflection enables us to evaluate experience, learn from mistakes, repeat successes, revise, and plan
They help you in becoming aware of your preferred approaches to writing, and enable you to take risks to try new and more productive strategies on a particular task.
Reflective statements give teachers insights into students’ thinking and development
Reflection
What did I do?
How did I do it??
What did I learn from doing it?
5
Reflective Practice
Reflective practice has been used significantly in healthcare fields such as pharmacy and most prominently in nursing.
Increasingly taught in education settings
Frequently encouraged in management and consulting disciplines.
A useful tool for work-based learning.
6
Why is reflection important?
We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience. (Dewey, 1933)
Two processes for learning:
Trial and error – leads to “rule of thumb” decision making.
Reflective activity – the perception of relationships and connection between the parts of the experience.
The latter was thought to enable more effective problem solving and enhance learning.
Boud et al., (2013)
7
Why Reflect?
Research suggests that reflection is most effective when it involves others and as a consequence the chance to collaborate and share ideas about changes, alterations and new ways of operating (Gray, 2007).
Due to the current and future jobs market, where workers need to adapt to fit changing roles, continuous learning is required. Learning to learn is therefore a crucial skill (Bridgestock, 2014; Barr and Tagg, 1995) alongside accepting responsibility for one’s own learning and development
Working towards becoming a reflective practitioner enhances what a worker can bring to their job role, as well as the development of their future career plans (Schon, 1983).
Reflection can focus on the past or the future, and on failures or successes (Ghaye, 2005)
Dewey (1933) discusses this requirement for
open-mindedness and willingness to listen to others and act upon criticism. The key
point to remember is that although much of this thinking and activity around reflection
stems from academia this does not need to be academic thinking, it needs to be more
than theoretical or hypothetical.
8
Models of Reflection
Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988)
9
Models of Reflection cont.
Schon (1991)
Reflect as it happens
Decide how to act
Act immediately
Reconsider situation
What needs to be changed for the future?
10
Reflection-in-action
Works by getting to the bottom of what is happening in the experiencer’s processes, decision-making and feelings at the time of the event or interaction
Reflection-on-action
Works by sifting through the previous event to take into account new information or theoretical perspectives available, in conjunction with the experiencers processes, feelings and actions
Models of reflection cont.
Kolb’s (1984) Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle
11
Reflective Questions
■ What are my goals? How will I be able to achieve them?
■ What are my priorities? What is the best use of my time?
■ What strategies are available to me in order to manage the pressures I face?
■ Who can I rely upon to support me? Who can I collaborate with?
■ What previous learning can I draw upon to help me cope with my current challenges?
The busier we are, the more we need to think clearly and carefully about these questions in order to be effective
Thompson and Thompson (2008)
Barriers and challenges of reflection
Personal awareness – if we don’t see or recall a situation as it really was, it is hard to make meaningful reflections. If we don’t accept a barrier exists, how can it be overcome (Newton, 2003)
Keeping a journal – taking the time to write and consider feelings, rather than just “getting on” with the next task (Newton, 2003)
A luxury we cannot afford (Thompson and Thompson (2008) - it’s a good idea in principle but not workable in practice due to pressures of work.
Anxiety, Fear, low confidence, lack of skills, misunderstanding (Thompson and Thompson, 2008)
Being critically reflective
What do we mean by being critical?
By critical we do not mean being unappreciative (‘Lin was critical of Carol’s efforts’), nor do we mean it in the sense of referring to a crisis point (the ‘critical moment’).
Rather, we mean it in the sense of an approach that is characterized by questioning and not taking things for granted
Critical reflection does not accept the situation at face value and looks beneath the surface to see what assumptions and forms of reasoning are influencing the circumstances
How can I reflect as a student?
What are you trying to achieve? This question asks us to identify aims and objectives, and is therefore concerned with goal setting.
How are you going to achieve it? This second question is about the processes involved in getting us from where we are now to where we want to be. So, if the first question is about goal setting, then the second is about strategy setting.
How will you know when you have achieved it? One of the strengths of this framework is that the third question acts as a check on our proposals for action, helping to ensure that our goals are achievable and our strategies appropriate
A structure for reflective writing
1. Description
What happened?
What is being examined?
2 Interpretation
What is most important / interesting
/ useful / relevant about the object,
event or idea?
How can it be explained e.g. with
theory?
How is it similar to and different from
others?
3 Outcome
What have I learned from this?
What does this mean for my future?
(Hampton, 2010)
https://uwe.rl.talis.com/items/A06C0B7A-2399-1BCE-3D75-F78F7DED622E.html
Reflective writing
Who was there? (descriptive)
What was is about? (descriptive)
What did I say / think? (descriptive)
Why did I respond in that way? (analytical/reflective)
How did each of us feel as a result? (analytical/reflective)
What if I had prepared more carefully / taken it more seriously? (analytical/reflective)
So what? Would that have made any difference to the outcome? (reflective/evaluative)
Where can I go from here in my academic development? (reflective/evaluative)
17
Reflection – important points re component A of the assignment
You must refer to a specific module of reflection within the assignment.
You must reference academic literature around the management topics you are discussing, for example, decision making or delegation.
“Unpack” the experience that you reflect on, by asking what, how and why questions – don’t simply describe what happened
References and Further Reading
Barr, R.B. and Tagg, J. (1995), “From teaching to learning: a new paradigm for undergraduate education”, Change: The Magazine for Higher Learning, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 12-26.
Boud, D (2013) Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning, Routledge: London.
Bridgestock, L. (2014), “The importance of learning to learn”, available at: www.topuniversities.com/blog/importance-learning-learn (accessed 5 June 2019).
Ghaye, T. 2005. Reflection as a catalyst for change. Reflective Practice, 6(2): 177–187.
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford: Oxford Further Education Unit
Gray, D.E. (2007), “Facilitating management learning: developing critical reflection through reflective tools”, Management Learning, Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 495-517
Hampton, M (2010) Reflective writing: a basic introduction. DCQE Available at https :// uwe.rl.talis.com/items/A06C0B7A-2399-1BCE-3D75-F78F7DED622E.html Accessed 1 August 2017
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Raelin, J.A. 2001. Public reflection as the basis of learning. Management Learning, 32(1): 11–30.
Schön, D. 1983. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action, New York: Basic Books
19