Why reflect on practice, evaluate personal effectiveness - reflective account template link

[floriesulja]

DAVID KOLB’S THEORY OF REFLECTION
Learning Cycle

Kolb's learning cycle consists in following four steps of learning cycle every time we teach children new songs or games, it will help practitioners to reflect on their skills, improve their practice by doing self-evaluation.

‘Concrete Experience’ is the first step when we put our effort in realising teaching task and make it happen. This is the real experience we have done. This can be singing the new nursery song ‘Peter rabbit’ to toddlers, the one they didn’t hear it before at the circle time.

The second stage is called ‘Reflective Observation’ where we reflect in distance what we did, how did singing go, what did we do right and wrong, did it succeed, did the children like it, which part of the song they were engaged more, did they follow our instruction, should we sing it again, does it need improvements and how?

The third stage is ‘Abstract conceptualization’ where we evolve new and extend ideas about the nursery song, we started to evolve new thoughts, how to do it next time, what to add or should we do it in the same way? Planning for next time and forming new experience.

The last stage is called Active Experimentation’ where we are active and we put in realisation our plan and our new ideas such as the nursery rhyme needs more hand gestures or maybe present soft toy to children before we start with the song to give a hint and make them guess what song is next, this will make ‘Peter rabbit’ song visually attractive and will help children develop their thinking. The learning cycle can be repeated in cycle.

GRAHAM GIBBS’ CYCLE OF REFLECTION
Gibb’s six stage cycle model was created base on Kolb’s theory of reflection. While Kolb’s theory can be categorised as an experimental model of learning through experiences, whereas Gibbs’ model can be categorised as learning through repetition of experiences.
Gibb’s reflective cycle help us to challenge our negative feelings and attitude, assumption, prejudice and helps us improve positive thinking and positive way of doing things, overall promotes self- improvement.

The first stage of Gibbs’ cycle is ‘Description’ of what happened, example; when a child bites another child, we describe the event in descriptive way, no bias no adding just the clear event.

The ‘Feelings’ stage we reflect what were we thinking when we saw the child biting the other child, how did we react, how did we feel, what emotions we showed towards children when the incident occurred, what behaviour we modelled to children, how did we feel after the incident and how made us feel everything what happened? In this aspect, we describe our personal feelings, our actions and thoughts.

In the ‘Evaluation’ stage we evaluate the outcomes of the experience; what went wrong and why the incident of biting occurred, when did we deal with the situation, did we find the right or wrong solution for it, how did it end in a good way or bad way? During this stage, we point to positive and negative sides of the incident which consists in the most relevant points of the experience.

In the stage of ‘Analysing’ the experience (incident) we reconsider what went wrong and right. We write the reason why the child bit the other child, when and how we should have reacted to prevent the incident occurred, were our actions and reactions same as before when we dealt with similar experience? This part is analytic part where we try to find causes and consequences of the event.
The ‘Conclusion’ stage consists in finding what we learn from the whole experience (the incident), what we learnt about ourselves and our reactions, we think what we did wrong during the situation and why. Reflect in our self-practice, if we were more vigilant the incident might have been avoided and children would have been safe now.

The last stage of this model is ‘Action Plan’ where we decide what we’re going to do next time, how to avoid incidents occurring and what will we do, how to change our reaction and behaviour towards children if happens again? In this stage through training, reading and getting informed, we prepare ourselves to be more careful, we set strategies to deal with it and remember the right way of reacting towards children.

References;
Early Years Educator, Level 3, CHACHE, work-based learner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WfnHGq6ztg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxzMH6KFSVU

[katie2906]

I think the Gibbs reflective cycle is a really easy way of showing how reflective practice takes place. It is simple which means it is easy to follow. I have put a copy below which sums it up:

Description
What happened?
Feelings
What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluation
What was good and bad about the experience?
Analysis
What sense can you make of the situation
Conclusion
What else could you have done?
Action Plan
If it arose again what would you do?

I agree with WittyGem that oral questioning is a great way of reflection as it is open ended. This can also lead to new ideas being given by assessor/manager :)

[hayleyb82]

Sometimes things don’t go as we planned them especially in child care, we cannot predict how children will react to activities we have planned or an environment we have spent along time setting up. How we reflect to these experiences can shape how we work with children going forward. Reflection is a great thing, reflecting on what happened- good and bad can help us to progress both professionally and personally. If we don’t look back and learn from what we have done, we cannot see our strengths and weakness , this allow use to implement any change to improve how we work with children.
As an early years practitioner I am constantly reflecting on my work with the children in my care. Each day working with children brings many challenges because you never know how children are going to react to an activity or an environment you have spent a lot of time planning and setting up. I leave my setting and I find myself reflecting on what I have done that day. I think about the activities that I have carried out and how I can make them better or change them for a different age group or child’s interests or needs. I also ask my colleagues to give me feedback on a regular on my activities, this gives me views from someone else’s perspective. My reflection and feedback from others is helpful for me to make any changes or improvements to my practice to make me a better practitioner which will benefit the children I care for and help support their learning and development.
My setting holds monthly team meeting where myself and my colleagues get an opportunity to share any honest and constructive feedback for each other and any ideas we may have for future activities or events. This have been beneficial to me because I get to learn from the people I work with and gain feedback on how I am doing on a practical level from people who know my role and have plenty of experience. I know that I will need to continue my learning going forward through additional training course and updating my knowledge because the sector of child care and education is continually changing as a result of the creation of new policies, procedures and guidelines through government or legal changes and professional requirements. I welcome new knowledge and experiences both professionally and personally as they will help me take care of the children at my setting and support their development.

When researching reflective practices I found some theoretical perspectives on the matter which help you go through the reflective process and improve you practice which ban benefit both you and the children in your care. Kolb proposed a learning cycle which can be used to help individuals to reflect on their learning and understand where they can make improvements. The cycle is make up of 4 processes:
Concrete experience- Doing something so in an early year setting this would be teaching children a game. Reflective observation- this is about the process of reflecting on the experience- teaching, so thinking about what worked well and what didn’t work so well. Abstract conceptualisation- the process of developing new ideas, ways to change the game to make it interesting to the children and meet the children’s needs. Active experimentation-the process of putting new ideas in to practice. All 4 processes need to be completed in order for effective learning to take place. So, individuals use the learning cycle to think about areas of their practice that need developing in order to implement changes and then review them again to make sure they are working.
Gibbs’ reflective cycle , this is an adaptation of Kolb’s learning cycle.
Description- What happened, Feelings- What the person what thinking and feeling when it happened, Evaluation- What was good and bad about the experience, Analysis- What sense can they make of the experience. Conclusion- What conclusions can be made, Action Plan- Putting new ideas in to practice.
He made a much more structured approach which individuals can use to after a situation has occurred to help them reflect on their actions and responses. It will help them to come to some conclusions about what they can do differently in the future to make it better.