Task 2c...A critical reflection of reflective practice

After going through the reader, on initial thought it seemed that in the most basic of terms reflection is the process of analysing and evaluating an event after it has happened. This way we can discover things about the event and learn from our mistakes. It seems that all the thinkers have individual definitions of reflection as they all concentrate on different aspects or ways to go about the process. Obviously this is a very simple and general assumption of reflection but I felt that the only way I was going to get anywhere was to start at the beginning. This led me on to think about what the word ‘reflection’ meant to me before I went through the reader and did research of my own. The first thing I thought of was reflection in a physical sense;

‘Something, such as light, radiant heat, sound, or an image, that is reflected and the image so produced, as by a mirror.’

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, 2009, Reflection, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, available from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reflection (accessed 30th October 2010)

At first I dismissed this definition of reflection as not being the sort of reflection we were looking but then I realised that it was in fact the same thing but just with a physical analogy. We can only see a reflection of ourselves in the mirror if we actually look in to one. The mirror will always be there but will not reflect our image if we don’t find one and stand in front of it. If we stand in front of it with our eyes closed we will not see our reflection so will not know what we look like. We then actively think about what we look like and learn from our reflection by changing things we may not like. We are constantly changing or improving ourselves in some way by putting on makeup or wearing different clothes but we have to consider our reflection before making a decision. This really helped me think about mental reflection as it showed me the importance of it and how you have to actively participate in it in order to get anything from it. If we didn’t look in a mirror we wouldn’t know what we looked like, if we didn’t mentally reflect we wouldn’t learn from our experiences.

This thought led me on to consider how some of the theories of various thinkers may apply to me and how I reflect. Firstly I looked at John Dewey’s theory of reflective thought which I found particularly appropriate for our experience of this course. His theory involves education as an experiential action and the higher the level of engagement with the education, the higher the quality of the education. This made me immediately think of this course and how it has been reiterated to us from the beginning that the more we get involved with the ‘blogging community’ the more we will get out of the experience. This is a direct example of his theory so I felt I could relate to it. It is only by being involved in the experience can we reflect and solve any problems we may have. Through reflective thought of my experience with this course so far for me it has been true that when I have been involved I have got more out of the course than times when I have not been as involved for whatever reason. I cannot dispute Dewey’s definition of active thought as ‘active, persistent or careful consideration of any belief’ (Dewey 1993) as my experiences have supported this theory. Even though it is quite a general statement, any reflection surely has to begin with a thought or consideration of an activity or a belief.

I then went on to consider Donald Schon’s (Schon 1987) theory of reflection in or on action. This seems to be a particularly poignant theory and extremely applicable to a performers profession. It seems to easily lend itself to the difference between reflecting when dancing to reflecting when singing. When I am dancing there is no doubt that I use reflection in action as I am sure any dancer does. It can be simply referred to ‘thinking on your feet’ which is always necessary in a performance. No matter how much you practice a dance something will be different every time i.e. your weight placement, slight change of force in a turn etc. This means we are constantly readjusting everything so it looks the same to the audience even if we don’t realise it. Schon has described this as;

The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation. (Schön 1983: 68)

Smith, M, 2001, donald schon (schön): learning, reflection and change, infed website. Available from: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm (accessed 30th October 2010)

However, I have realised that this type of reflection is not quite as necessary in singing. It seems that you can perform a song just as it has been rehearsed and things are far less likely to go wrong if your reactions are not that fast. Obviously we react to the sound of our own voice and if we hear that we are slightly under a note we immediately correct it if we can. However, I am not entirely sure if this can be considered as reflection? Is it not just a natural response or reflex that we have been taught to do. We are not really actively reflecting and then changing something but then is a reflex a form of reflection in action? I have found it helpful to reflect on action after a singing performance. By thinking back to the performance or watching a recording you use a completely different perspective to evaluate yourself. I have found from keeping my journal that when reflecting on action of a performance I am much more self critical as you have more time to think about every element of the performance and go in to a deeper reflection. This could have positives and negatives as I have recently found from my journal that I have learnt a lot about myself and the activities I engage in from reflection on action after an event but then at the same time I think maybe I am analysing everything too much now. I used to just get up and do it but now I am taking more time to think about what I thought needed correcting and what I have learnt from my reflection. However, in the end this can only be beneficial as it will become more of a habit and require less conscious thought as I use more reflection (in and on action) in my everyday life.

A theory which I have been slightly struggling with but yet keep coming back to is David Kolb’s learning cycle. While I understand all the stages of the cycle I have been finding it hard to firstly see where I start a learning process or activity and secondly distinguish between the different stages. There are so many situations that I have tried applying where I feel like the beginning point fits in to all of the stages! After studying it for a long time and experimenting with applying it to different experiences I have had I have come to the conclusion that I am not just one type of learner as I always seem to start in a different place depending on the nature of the activity or experience. For example; when I am learning a new dance I start to learn at abstract conceptualism as I always need to work it out in my head before I can do it properly, when I learn a song I can only learn by concrete experience so by actually singing it first for myself rather than going through the music or listening to other people and when I created my blog I only properly learnt or got anything from the exercise when I was trying out different things and looking at other peoples to get ideas so therefore entering the cycle at active experimentation or reflective observation. From this I concluded that I must adapt my style of learning to the situation I am presented with. I think this must be of an advantage to me as surely it means I am a versatile learner and if one learning technique doesn’t help me at first I know I can try another one and I should be able to get in to the cycle and start learning from my experience.

Before I began the journal writing activity I did some research in to thinkers who had written about journal writing and critical thinking. While researching Jenifer Moon (Moon 2006) I came across another thinker Gibbs (1998). When looking at Gibb’s model I found many similarities between that and the frameworks of Reid and Moon from the reflective writing task of writing about a day based on specific points. Below is Gibbs model:

Wikipedia, Reflective practice (online), last modified November 2010. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_practice (accessed 1st November 2010)

I found this model helpful as it was clear and I could relate to it from looking at the frameworks of Reid and Moon. I found those templates helpful when doing the journal writing task and these categories seemed similar. I found that even though no one was going to read my reflection in my journal I needed some sort of structure or something to come back to. While I understand sometimes it would be good for your writing to be untamed as you may discover something new I felt that it helped me more to stick to rough guidelines. I still found that I could write in depth and I didn’t feel restricted. This journal writing was particularly helpful and seeing the categories in a cycle in Gibbs model (1998) was a good visual analogy to make me think of reflection as an ongoing process rather than something that finishes at the end of an experience. I also feel that the Gibbs model forces you to learn from your experience and look at possible improvements.

I have also found that simply participating in blogging has given me a relationship with reflection which I have never before considered. Just having a space to write something seems to make me want to reflect. Reading other peoples reflections also helps my own reflection and leads me to consider new things. This reflection through blogs has changed my way of thinking and given my reflection so much more depth. The blogging community combined with journal writing and research in to reflective practice thinkers and theories has made me realise that reflection is an important part of progressing in professional practice.

I feel that I have read and researched enough about various theories to make an informed opinion of my own about my relationship with reflection. I have realised there are so many different ways to reflect and many of these we do every day without realising or making a conscious effort i.e. thinking in action during a performance. Reflection seems to be an in depth and considered thought process which helps us progress and improve. I have found that some theories are more applicable to my life than others but the majority of them seem to match my experiences in some way. They have enhanced my thought processes and I am looking forward to putting my newly accomplished skills of reflection in to practice more often so I can improve my way of thinking, deepen my analytical skills, evaluate my actions and hopefully improve myself within my professional practice.