Theoretical perspectives on reflection in professional development

[loulou15]

Hi all,

As a part of my CACHE level 3 diploma for the early years educator I would like to discuss theoretical perspectives on reflection in relation to professional development. Reflection in relation to professional development is so important for a practitioners role, so that we can look at any flaws in our practice, improve ourselves, our environment and the overall way that we work to benefit ourselves, our colleagues and the children that we care for. I have been looking at Kolb’s learning cycle which is a useful tool when understanding the reflective process. Kolb believed in four main processes taking place for effective learning that can help us when reflecting on our practice in the setting:

· Concrete experience – this is actually doing something, such as a planned adult led activity, setting up an environment, snack time, circle time etc

· Reflective observation – this part of the process is when we should review and reflect on what we have done, on how the successful the experience was. For example, what went well, what the children liked, what were the learning outcomes for the child? Or what did not go well, was the activity not challenging enough or perhaps too challenging? Review the role of the adult and the resources as well as the response of the children.

· Abstract conceptualisation – this is what we can learn from the experience to make meaningful and effective conclusions, leading us to adapt our practice and come up with new ideas, to continually develop good practice.

· Active experimentation – This part of the process is testing out what we have learned and our new ideas into practice.

The idea of the cycle is that it keeps on progressing, after the ‘active experimentation’ process, the cycle starts again, so that we can keep on reflecting on our practice in the setting for our professional development and evolving to grow and adapt to the needs of our children and to improve our practice.

Intriguingly, it was later put forward by Kolb himself that people found difficulties in grasping and learning from each step of his cycle and he used this for his work on learning styles. However I feel that this cycle is relatively simple and a valuable perspective to use when reflecting on our roles for professional development purposes.

Another theoretical perspective that can be useful when looking at reflection in relation to professional development is Gibbs reflective cycle. Gibb’s cycle is a revision of Kolb’s using a more planned approach. This can help us as practitioners reflect on our practice after situations have arisen and facilitate what we do differently in the future. Gibb’s cycle is structured as follows:

· Description – resulting from a situation, we have to explain what happened in the setting, for example a practitioner losing patience with a child.

· Feelings – we have to the analyse what we were thinking and feeling at the time of the situation, sometimes working with children can be difficult and we all have lives outside of the setting that may unfortunately affect us.

· Evaluation – this is when we have to look at what was good or bad and assess the given situation.

· Analysis – now we have to decide why the situation occurred and see if we can make sense of what happened, for example the practitioner did not understand a child’s stage of development.

· Conclusion – by reasoning about what happened, what decisions can be reached about our practice? Could it be that a practitioner needs more training in a certain area?

· Action plan – this is when we put into practice what we are going to do to change the way that we work so that the situation does not occur again. This is therefore linked to professional development, reflecting on our practice and keeping up with our skills and knowledge for the best possible outcomes for the children that we work with, our personal development and careers.