Reflecting on reflective practice

Finlay, L. (2008). Reflecting on ‘Reflective practice’.Accessed March, 29, 2014.

Linda Finlay's Reflecting on 'Reflective practice' struck a chord with me on many levels. One of the first key points I noted was Larrivee's arguement that “Unless teachers develop the practice of critical reflection, they stay trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions, and expectations.
Approaching teaching as a reflective practitioner involves fusing personal beliefs and values into a professional identity” (Larrivee, 2000, p.293).

As someone who is still relatively young in my career I have seen more experienced teachers who have been 'trapped in assumptions and expectations' (Larrivee, 2000, pg.293). Through lack of critical reflection they have become stale in their teaching, and their knowledge and assumptions have not changed for many years. 

Schon's (1983) ideas regarding differentiation between reflecting-on-action, and reflection-in-action were also food for thought. As teachers were often reflecting-in-action, adjusting and tweaking lessons to better suit our learners needs. 
Schon (1983) also identified the way in which "novice practitioners, lacking knowing-in-action (tacit
knowledge), tended to cling to rules and procedures, which they are inclined to apply
mechanically." Having just had a student teacher complete a placement in my class I can definitely agree with this point. Her lack of craft knowledge of how to teach led to very mechanical and dry lessons.

Another point which struck me was the way in which "Brookfield (1995) characterises critical reflection as ‘stance and dance’." (Larrivee, 2000). Perhaps it is my love of dance which made this passage jump out at me, but I feel the explanations of reflection as involving both the teachers 'stance' or openness to learning, and the 'dance' or willingness to take risks and experiment ring true. 

"Done well and effectively, reflective practice can be an enormously powerful tool to examine and transform practice" (Larrivee, 2000, p.10). Two key points are made in this statement - reflective practice alone is not enough, it needs to be done well, and effectively. I feel the use of a model of reflective practice to guide teachers in their reflection gives the reflection more value. Specific questions such as those used in the Gibbs model for reflection guide the reflective practitioner to identify both the positive and negative aspects of their current practice and provides opportunities to identify, plan and implement improvements to their practice.