Theoretical perspectives on reflection in relation to professional development

[Hayley Sharpe]

Hi, I am trying to complete my Level 3 and wondered if you could please help me with the below:

One of the questions for my final unit is to summarise theoretical perspectives on reflection in relation to professional development. I have been asked to join an online forum with my peers to discuss what I have found and was wondering if anyone would like to take part?

I personally believe that reflection is an important part of working within an early years setting to ensure that we are continuously undertaking best practice. As a practitioner myself within an early years setting, we have a responsibility to continually review what we do, not only to maintain best practice but also to enable us to identify any improvements to enhance the quality of the setting. By continuously reviewing our policies and procedures together with our own strengths and weaknesses, we can analyse our findings to determine what we could do differently to improve what we do.
I have researched different theoretical perspectives including David Kolb who is an American educational theorist. He believed Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Kolb is best known for the development of the Experimental Learning Model. He believed by having a key knowledge of diverse concepts, these can be interpreted to match a series of different situations. His theory was based on passing through steps of a four-stage cycle , believing
these stages to be as follows:
Concrete Experience: being able to think back to a past experience and remembering what happened.
Reflective Observation: reflecting on a past experience and considering:
• Are there any inconsistencies between your experience and your understanding?
• What did you notice?
Abstract Conceptualisation: learning from this experience and considering how would you change it?
Active Experimentation: having reflected on this experience, try implementing or processing what you have learnt.
I really like his theory as it is how I personally like to reflect. Just wondered what your thoughts are?

Look forward to discussing them
Thank you
Hayley