The Reflective Practice Guide

Barbara Bassot

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317666004
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Reflective Practice Guide supports all students for whom the process of reflecting on developing knowledge and skills is crucial to successful professional practice. It offers an accessible introduction to a wide range of theories and models that can help you engage more effectively in critical reflection. Illustrated throughout with examples and case studies drawn from a range of interdisciplinary professional contexts, The Reflective Practice Guide offers models of practice that can be applied in a variety of settings. Reflective questions in each chapter help you apply ideas to your own professional context.

Drawing on literature from a range of disciplines, key aspects of reflection explored include:

• Becoming more self-aware

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• The role of writing in reflection

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• Learning from experience

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• Learning from positives and negatives

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• Emotions and processing feelings

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• Bringing assumptions to the surface

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• Learning from feedback

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• Reflecting in groups

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• Managing change.

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The Reflective Practice Guide is an essential source of support, guidance and inspiration for all students on education, nursing, social work and counselling courses, who want to think about practice at a deeper level, question approaches, challenge assumptions and gain greater self-awareness.

1 What is reflective practice?

‘Without reflection, we go blindly on our own way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.’

(Margaret J. Wheatley, 2002)

Introduction

In this first chapter we will begin by examining some definitions of the term reflective practice and consider some of the reasons why professionals need to think critically about their work. We will examine the four theoretical foundations of critical reflection and explore the concepts of reflection-in-action and tacit knowledge. We will discuss issues of time management and the importance of making time to reflect. The chapter concludes with a focus on the many benefits of reflection.

Definitions

If you were to look in a standard dictionary for a definition of the word ‘reflection’, you would find at least two groups of words. The first refers to mirror images and the second to the act of deep thinking. In many respects this gives us very helpful clues in relation to what reflective practice is and what it involves. It can be likened to looking into a mirror to see our practice and ourselves more clearly and so give some serious thought or consideration to what we see.

So what is reflective practice? Lucas (1991) offers a useful definition when he argues that it involves a systematic enquiry to improve and deepen our understanding of practice. The use of the word systematic here implies far more than thinking about things, for example, whilst you are driving home. It suggests that it needs to be done in an organised way and to be undertaken in depth, in order to gain the maximum benefit from it.

Many people have their own ideas of what reflective practice is and how they would define it. For example, I have heard people say things like ‘I know what reflective practice is. I reflect every day as I am driving home from work’. Of course, it is not for me to comment on the quality of someone’s driving, but suffice it to say that deep reflection is not likely to happen while you are behind the wheel of a car! It is helpful to think about what reflection is not as well as what it is, and Thompson and Thompson (2008) offer some useful pointers in relation to this. For example, it is not just pausing for thought from time to time, or something just for students who can then forget about it when they start work. It is not something that you only do alone, as reflecting with others can be very helpful too (see Chapter 9). It is not a replacement for theory, but involves drawing on theory to enhance your understanding of practice; reflection, then, is a key means of applying theory to professional practice. Thompson and Thompson are clear to point out that all practice involves the application of theory and that we all need to beware of ‘the fallacy of theoryless practice’ (Thompson, 2000: 32).

Why professionals need to reflect critically

The definitions above show that the reflective process is a complex one. When reading published literature, certain key terms are not always defined clearly; indeed, the terms reflection, reflexivity and reflectivity are sometimes used interchangeably, which can be confusing. The aim of this book is to take you on a journey from reflective practice (which focuses on learning from experience in order to improve practice), to critically reflective practice with its focus on paying attention to your emotional responses and being prepared to challenge your assumptions and the things you take for granted in everyday working life. This involves examining our personal values and issues of power in the context of working relationships, which leads to a careful consideration of reflexivity.

Critical reflection is vital in professional practice for the following reasons.

Providing a space for deep thinking

If you are an emerging professional you are entering a world where the pace of life is fast and you can feel significant pressure to make decisions quickly. At times you may feel that time spent thinking something through is a luxury that you cannot afford, as distinct from time invested. However, taking time to analyse situations (what happened and why) can prevent mistakes occurring in the future and can help to build your confidence as you feel more secure in your ideas about your practice.

Evaluating and developing practice

Being a professional involves the need for you to review your practice in an ongoing way in order to keep your knowledge up to date and to continue to develop your professional skills. Professional practice is constantly changing and never static. Thankfully this means it is never boring!

Preventing stagnation

As you gain experience it is important to ensure that your practice does not stagnate, but remains vibrant and focused on the needs of the client. In a relatively short space of time it is easy to ‘get stuck in a rut’, doing things in a particular way because you have always done them that way. Johns (2004: 5) sums this up very well when he states that reflective practice is ‘the antidote to complacency, habit and blindness’.

Striving for excellence

It is essential that all practitioners are competent and can carry out their role in an effective way. However, the word competent could imply that the professional practitioner is only ‘good enough’. Many in professional practice wish to strive for excellence and reflective practice offers one key way in which this can be achieved.

Making practice creative

Creativity is one important aspect of excellence, and practising reflectively means that new ideas can be generated. Reflection stimulates creative thought processes by taking a questioning approach. This encourages you to ‘think outside the box’ in order to be innovative.

Self-awareness

A vital part of the reflective process is that you gain a clear understanding of the attitudes and values you bring to your practice. As human beings, we are not ‘blank sheets’; we all have experiences (positive and negative) of life that we take with us to work. Being aware of our attitudes and values means either that we are better able to stand back from our own views, in order to put the needs of clients first, or we are more aware of issues of personal involvement and the need to refer a client on to someone who is better placed to support them. This level of self-awareness means being prepared to engage with our feelings and emotions.

Being slow to make assumptions

Each day the human brain has to process millions of messages in order to function. To do this effectively, the brain learns to group similar things together. Thankfully this means we do not have to think through every minor detail of our lives every day. The effect of this is that we all make assumptions about things and people on a regular basis. In addition, irrespective of where we live, we are all part of societies and cultures where certain things and particular people are valued more than others. Reflective practice helps us to question our assumptions and prevents us from accepting things at face value. It encourages a deeper examination of issues, which is vital when seeking to promote equality and social justice for clients.

Providing an aid for supervision

During the reflective process it is inevitable that, at times, you will become aware of issues that need to be discussed in the confidential and supportive environment of supervision. This could include things that surprise and challenge you (‘I didn’t realise I thought like that’) and things that remind you of previous negative experiences in your own life (‘that reminds me of . . .’). This can be uncomfortable, but time and space for such discussions can help to prevent ‘burn out’. If you do not have access to supervision, a discussion with a trusted, experienced colleague can also be extremely helpful.

Providing a means for constructing professional knowledge

Students often marvel at the knowledge of experienced practitioners when they observe them whilst on work placements. These practitioners often cannot explain how they know things, and demonstrate Schön’s (1983: 49) ‘tacit knowing-in-action’. This professional knowledge includes a high level of self-knowledge and can be constructed through the process of reflective practice.

Case study 1.1

Sally has just started a course in physiotherapy and her tutors have encouraged her to reflect on her learning. She feels that everything is very new and, although she has always wanted to be a physiotherapist, she now feels that she has so much to learn that it is all a bit overwhelming. Speaking to some second year students, she can see that they felt the same way as her when they first started, but rather than just letting things build up she decides she wants to try and identify some time and space for reflection as she believes this will help her in her studies. Initially, Sally decides to set aside 20 minutes per week (two slots of 10 minutes) for reflection. Each week she carries out a different task that she sets for herself; sometimes she reads through her notes in the coffee shop and on other occasions she visits the library to browse through the books on the shelves. She finds that she enjoys the calming atmosphere of the library and starts to spend more time there. In the basement there are some rooms that no one seems to know about and she decides to go there regularly.

Developing professional knowledge, skills and attitudes

All professionals show aspects of their professional knowledge, skills and attitudes in their daily practice. When seeking to develop as a professional practitioner, it is important to understand the differences between these three areas in order to become fully rounded.

Knowledge

This comes in many shapes and sizes and is usually specific to a particular profession. It will be important for you to build your professional knowledge continuously in order to keep pace with the changes happening around you. Often professional knowledge can be categorised as follows.

• Theoretical – explanations of practice usually published by academics and practitioners. A theory is simply one person’s (or a group’s) explanation of what they see in practice, or, as Brookfield (2006: 3) states, ‘A theory is nothing more (or less) than a set of explanatory understandings that help us make sense of some aspect of the world’. However, such theory should be tested or explored in some way through research, otherwise it simply remains someone’s idea or assertion.

• Procedural – knowledge of processes, procedures and systems that structure and guide professional practice.

• Evidence based – using evidence from previous research to find out ‘what works’.

• Tacit – things we know but cannot always explain in words.

Knowledge can be seen as the building blocks of professional practice. As professionals, people come to us for particular things because we have specific knowledge. For example, if I have a bad back, I would go and see my doctor. If I have a bad back because I have had an injury at work, I might also go and see a solicitor to make a claim for compensation. If you imagine your particular professional knowledge as the kind of solid wooden building blocks that very young children play with, it is easy to see that a beautifully constructed tower can easily fall apart by a careless younger brother or sister knocking it over. In the same way, our professional knowledge can easily crumple without reflection; indeed, reflection is the glue that holds the building blocks of our professional knowledge together.

Skills

Professionals use a broad range of skills in their practice; some are specific to their profession and some are more general. Here are some of the more general ones that all professionals need to develop.

• Communication – these include interpersonal skills (e.g. listening, asking open questions, rapport building) and written skills often carried out using ICT (e.g. writing case notes, reports).

• ICT (information communication technology) skills – these include updating dat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The Reflective Practice Guide
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 What is Reflective Practice?
• 2 Becoming more Self-Aware
• 3 The Role of Writing in Reflection
• 4 Experiential Learning
• 5 Learning from Positives and Negatives: Critical Incidents
• 6 Engaging with Emotions
• 7 Bringing Assumptions to the Surface
• 8 The Role of Feedback in Professional Development
• 9 Reflecting in Groups
• 10 Managing Change
• 11 Critically Reflective Practice as a way of Being
• 12 Review and Looking Forward
• Index