The Early Years Reflective Practice Handbook

Avril Brock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136302664
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What do early childhood practitioners need to know about reflection and reflective practice?

Ongoing reforms in early childhood care and education social policy affect all aspects of young children's and their families' lives. Decisions are being undertaken at a rapid pace and there is a need for those working in the field of Early Years to consolidate and reflect on their knowledge and practice, building on what they already know.

This timely new book aims to support reflective practice for those working with young children in everyday work and in the wider political context, whatever their professional role and whatever level of qualification they hold. It takes a fresh look at a breadth of issues relating to early childhood care and education reflecting on policy, knowledge and practice.

Incorporating practical reflection activities, case studies, exemplar scenarios and questions in each chapter the book considers:

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• policy developments and how these have affected young children and their families

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• issues around socio-culturalism, language, ethnicity, disposition, gender, inclusion and socio-economics when working with families

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• learning through play and the notions of quality, observation and assessment and continuity

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• contemporary issues that practitioners and students on placement may encounter in their everyday work

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• deepening reflective thinking and practice through ongoing and continuing professional development.

With practical guidance to help the reader reflect on their own practice, this text offers invaluable support to early years practitioners looking to develop their career and achieving higher qualification at both undergraduate and at Master's level. The book is a must for students on early years courses including early childhood studies, initial teacher training and early years teacher status.

PART
I
	Setting the practice of reflection firmly in early childhood care and education

Chapter 1: What is reflection and reflective practice?

Avril Brock

This chapter develops both knowledge of what is reflection and also why it is so important. It justifies the fundamental nature of reflective thinking and practice. Readers will gain understanding of how and why reflective practice is beneficial and should have real purpose for the ECCE practitioner.

Chapter 2: Why is reflection important for early childhood educators?

Avril Brock

In this chapter readers will gain understanding of how and why reflective practice is beneficial and should have real purpose for the ECCE practitioner. It draws on the voices of real practitioners and demonstrates how to develop purposeful reflective thinking on practice.

Chapter 3: Developing reflective writing

Avril Brock

A key way of reflection is through a process of writing and this can be undertaken in a variety of ways. Reflective writing activities such as journaling, evaluations, self-assessment documents and portfolios are explored in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Practitioners, professionalism and reflection on role

Avril Brock

This chapter demonstrates the importance of developing a strong awareness of professionalism and the complexity of the professional role. This awareness involves knowledge of self, of professional standards and requirements set by government and professional bodies and of the professional role within the contexts of ECCE settings.

Chapter 5: What does professionalism mean for me?

Avril Brock

This chapter focuses on professionalism – what does this mean for early years practitioners and why is both a consensus of professionalism in the field and a personal understanding of professionalism important for ECEs?

CHAPTER
1
	What is reflection and reflective practice? Avril Brock

This chapter develops both knowledge of what is reflection and also why it is so important. It justifies the fundamental nature of reflective thinking and practice. Readers will gain understanding of how and why reflective practice is beneficial and can have real purpose for the ECCE practitioner.

In order to do this the chapter commences with definitions of reflection and examines why we need to reflect. It examines perspectives from key theorists – Dewey, Schön and Eraut – as well as drawing on contemporary authors and researchers writing on reflection. It provides you with strategies and mechanisms to help you develop and improve your knowledge of reflection and how to participate in meaningful reflective thinking and action. This chapter, and the whole of this book in fact, is to enable you to make the connections through drawing on role models – theorists, researchers, mentors, colleagues and critical friends who can help put reflective thinking into practice.

What is reflection?

Reflection is not a new activity; in fact you can trace it back to the Greek philosophers – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle – whose philosophic debate was founded on critical thought and reflection. Yet ‘reflection’ has become a very contemporary demand in many professional fields. This is particularly the case in training, further and higher education where assessment occurs through reflective portfolios or learning journals and where reflective evaluations of practice are expected. There is pressure for contemporary professionals to reflect in and on their professional practice. Reflection and reflective practice are core values of professionals and have a key role in professional training. Reflection is promoted in a range of disciplines, particularly in education, health and social care, and is an essential part of professional practice (Moon, 2004). However, do you still hear ‘forget what you have been taught at college or university – this is the real world’ – yet how can practice and thinking about it have contradictory purposes (Paige-Smith and Craft, 2008: 13)? Early childhood educators (ECEs) need to be able to articulate not only their educational and pedagogical aims, but also their personal values to reflect on how they form their actions and responses in order to deliver a genuinely inclusive curriculum (Forde et al., 2006). For reflection to be purposeful it needs to be meaningful and, for early years practitioners, it therefore needs to relate to their work with young children and their families.

Is there one definitive meaning of reflective practice that is normally regarded as good practice? Indeed, as Boud (2010: 25) argues, ‘unreflective practice is certainly bad’. Bolton (2005, 2010) and Moon (1999, 2004, 2005) are key writers and researchers in the areas of reflection and reflective practice and they have both observed how interpretations of reflection can often be woolly and lack clarity, which sometimes results in practitioners not gaining a clear understanding of reflection. Ryan (2011) also observes that reflection can tend to be superficial and that it needs to be taught in a systematic way, in order for it to move from the everyday and immediate situation. There is a lot of truth in Ryan’s (2011) observation that there can be a lack of clarity in terminology and definitions of reflection. Hickson (2011) defines reflection as a mirror image (in a mirror or water) to reflect thinking in order to analyse experiences and practice. She observes that, as there is no clear definition, it can be perceived from varying theoretical perspectives.

Frost’s (2010: 16) internet search of ‘reflective practice’ brought up over half a million hits! The internet provides us with a large amount of information and requires us to develop new ways of thinking. However, more information is not necessarily better information and practitioners need to develop criticality in their search on the internet, in textbooks and in journal articles in order to gain a depth of knowledge and understanding. It is worth bearing in mind Powell’s (2011: 202) view that although the internet enables us to access knowledge, solve problems and enable quick answers, it can lead to a lack of depth at times. A short-term quick answer may solve a problem quickly and easily but often more than one source will provide a balance, with varied complementary perspectives on issues. This chapter aims to present the differing perspectives on reflection and the following chapters aim to provide deeper reflective understandings on particular issues.

Why reflect? The purposes of reflection

Learning to become a truly reflective practitioner is like being a butterfly – the metamorphosis may hurt as new thinking often requires change – but this will result in a more advanced state: flying rather than crawling; professional understanding rather than just technical application! However, without purpose reflection can be random personal wanderings or even rather hollow (Jones and Shelton, 2011). Reflective thinking and practice may be demanded for:

■ becoming a professional practitioner through training: meeting professional standards in personal professional development learning journals, eportfolios or evaluations in practice files;

■ everyday practice to improve own teaching/working with children and to provide quality provision and promote the most appropriate and enjoyable learning experiences for young children;

■ furthering professional development through gaining promotion, leadership or higher qualifications as a leader of a setting, room or age range within the early years foundation stage (EYFS);

■ compiling the Self Evaluation Document Form (SEF) for Ofsted which is required for ECCE settings, schools, universities and colleges.

So the demands are real and there are several powerful external motivating factors such as achieving qualifications or meeting the requirements of Ofsted. However, reflective practice should be absolutely integrated into what practitioners do, intrinsic for self and for the children with whom you work. Reflective practice should therefore be continual and ongoing, a real part of life and not just an abstract or temporal exercise.

How to reflect?

Reading theory in textbooks to develop knowledge about reflective practice can support understanding and help ensure it is not shallow and on only a surface level. Reading or seeing reflective writing being modelled are very useful ways of gaining understanding and application. Reflection is a dialogic process which may be within the self – listening to ourselves – or through interactive relationships with others through listening and sharing perspectives (Rinaldi, 2006). In order to get a real understanding of critical reflection it might be useful to engage in sustained shared thinking about reflection with colleagues, with a tutor or fellow students. A student, newly qualified practitioner or someone working towards further qualification is expected to reflect on their activities to talk them through with a mentor, trainer or manager and probably have to write about a selection in their formal evaluations, journals or essays. ‘Real’ reflective practice needs another person as mentor or professional supervisor, who can ask appropriate questions to ensure that the reflection goes somewhere (Atherton, 2011). Practitioners need to be able to reflect within the workplace and it can be beneficial if the reflective process is modelled by colleagues. Participating in a reflective practice with others enables a reconstruction of practice and in doing so makes thinking more explicitly formulated. This can occur through observing practice; using case studies and scenarios; shadowing colleagues/mentors; and engaging in discussion. See Chapter 14 for examples of writing exercises aimed at deepening reflective thinking and Chapters 15 and 16, where the authors introduce their action research projects.

Knights et al. (2007) argue that there are taken-for-granted assumptions about reflection and reflective practice and they question how reflection is different from thinking. Reflection has been assumed to happen inside people’s heads and is an individualised view of learning. Bradbury et al. (2010: 4) believe that there is an urgent need to revisit ideas of reflection and reflective practice to return to the challenges and to take into account the complexity of the workplace and professional identity. They propose that there is a need to reclaim the radical ideas of Schön and other pioneers in order to develop more criticality and critical practice. Therefore this chapter now examines the theories generated by three key pioneers of reflective thinking – Dewey, Schön and Eraut.

Key pioneers in reflective thinking

John Dewey (1859–1952)

Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer and his ideas continue to have relevance for all educational practitioners, because of his explorations of thinking and reflecting. He believed that reflection is an added dimension of people’s thought processes and that people actively need to develop these. It is not only important to learn how to think effectively, but also to acquire the habit of doing reflection as purposeful action. Dewey believed that reflecting back over what we have done is important for extracting the meanings of what has occurred....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Setting the practice of reflection firmly in early childhood care and education
• Part II: The knowledge base for early childhood educators
• Part III: Case studies of contemporary issues
• Part IV: Continuing professional development and action research on reflective practice
• Part V: Appendices
• Index