Reflective practice

Reflective practice is the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning.[1] According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practice reflectively and reflexively. This leads to developmental insight".[2] A key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning; deliberate reflection on experience is essential.[3][4] Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where people learn from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal learning or knowledge transfer. It may be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. History and background[edit] Professor Emeritus Donald Schön The emergence in more recent years of blogging has been seen as another form of reflection on experience in a technological age.[12]

Experiential learning Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience, i.e., "learning from experience".[1] The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them".[2] David A. Kolb helped to popularize the idea of experiential learning drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget. His work on experiential learning has contributed greatly to expanding the philosophy of experiential education. Overview[edit] Experiential learning is learning through reflection on doing, which is often contrasted with rote or didactic learning. Experiential learning focuses on the learning process for the individual. A third example of experiential learning is learning how to ride a bike,[4] a process which can illustrate the widely known four-step experiential learning model (ELM) as purported by Kolb[5] and outlined in Figure 1 below. Implementation[edit] Did you notice...? People[edit]

Reflective Practice: An Approach for Expanding Your Learning Frontiers | Urban Studies and Planning Introduction to developing reflective practice at UKCLE In exploring how reflective practice can support and aid learning it is helpful to acknowledge how we learn. The following points can be made about the process of learning. First and foremost, learning is individual. All learners start from their own position of knowledge and have their own set of experiences to draw upon. “Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. It is at this point that students can make use of feedback from tutors and peers. The final point to acknowledge is that learning is developmental. In summary, we can view reflection as having four main purposes (see figure 1). Reflection helps learners to: understand what they already know (individual) identify what they need to know in order to advance understanding of the subject (contextual) make sense of new information and feedback in the context of their own experience (relational) guide choices for further learning (developmental)

Practice-based professional learning The range of concerns may be seen, for example, in the UK Open University's practice-based professional learning centre,[1] one of the Higher Education Funding Council for England's centres for excellence in teaching and learning.[2] Its interests cover the inter-relation of various forms of professional knowledge, ways of fostering them and their co-ordination, workplaces as sites of learning, the assessment of practice-based learning achievements, and the use of modern technologies to support distributed learning. Other centres for excellence occupy some or all of the territory, notably the Professional Development Unit at the University of Chester,[3] SCEPTrE in the University of Surrey,[4] CEPLW in the University of Westminster[5] and NCWBLP in Middlesex University.[6] Interest in this territory is not confined to the UK, with some of the most respected work associated with David Boud at the University of Technology, Sydney, NSW.[7] See also[edit] Reflective practice References[edit]