Reflections on Reflection

Mindlab Post 3/10

The Finlay (2008) Reflecting on Reflective Practice paper is a subject dear to my heart. 

For many years I have extolled the virtues of teaching learners to self reflects and change actions based on these reflections, as well as tried to inspire and install this as a common practice in educators I have worked with. I have adamantly seen the need to schedule this into planning and timetables or else it becomes the thing “we run out of time to do.” 

Without reflection we cannot change our actions. All student management systems I have implemented at schools have refection as the key element. If students are just punished they will not change the pattern of behaviour. Serious attention needs to be given to reflection and creating new habits for a change to occur.

Over the last two years I have posted about developing the concept of learning muscles in  classroom and the a school. You can read another post on this here. You will see that refection is one of the key muscles.

Personally I use a fairly general model of reflect..think about changes I would like to make..set a goal around this changes and then create a timeline to make those changes to. Sometimes I blog or tweet about this, and sometimes I don’t. Here is an example where I learnt about the true value of reflecting.

I think my goal for the next year is to become more public with these reflections, and write about them in order to become even more introspective and to allow others the opportunity to learn from my writing about the ongoing changes I make to my practice.