4.2 Am I reflective?

Photo of water and sky and the reflection of the land in the water.
Photo by Jamison McAndie is licensed under the Unsplash License.

“The reflective practitioner allows him/herself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which they find uncertain or unique. They reflect on the phenomenon before them, and on the prior understandings They carry out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation.” Donald Schon (1983)

There are many benefits to becoming a reflective practitioner but it is not always realistic to think that it will be an  easy process. Depending on your circumstances, there may be many challenges to reflection whether these are related to  personal situation or work life.  With a little thought and planning, most of these challenges can be addressed. This chapter will allow you to determine your current reflective stance and what challenges you may be facing.

Are you naturally reflective ? 

Most of us do reflect more often than we think . The key here is to make reflection an intentional practice with a purpose to improve your practice and often to determine why you are doing what you are doing.

To find out if you are reflective, complete the self-assessment for Reflective Practice (scroll to the more detailed Reflective Practice Self-Assessment instrument in a pdf format)

 

Sources

Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books.

License

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Reflective Practice in Early Years Education Copyright © 2022 by Sheryl Third is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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