Community Learning Development Resource 601 – 06
BEING A REFLECTIVE WORKER
SUMMARY
Being a capacity building worker means that you work in an area of uncertainties, where there are very few set answers to the questions, issues and problems, that arise during your work with learners. Each individual can present you with a unique and different challenge and you need always to try to work out what way forward will be in their best interest. You will need the time, space and the ability to reflect, on any experience, where the choice of the way forward is not immediately obvious and clear.
SO WHAT IS REFLECTION?
Reflection is a basic mental process, which has a purpose to help us ‘ to think things through’, and which we apply in situations, where what we have experienced is unclear or uncertain and where there is no obvious way to a successful outcome or conclusion. (After Moon 1999)
We reflect on our experience to develop our understanding, find a solution to a problem or improve what we do, or all three. (After Schon 1992)
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Schon (1992) claims that, professions need to modify their behaviour in changing situations and cope with ‘the loss of a stable institutional framework of purpose and knowledge within which professionals can live out their roles and confidently exercise their skills’.
- Workers within a community or neighbourhood context, for example in – learning in the community, capacity building or widening participation, are likely to find themselves constantly in new territory and situations, with a need to continually reflect and learn from their experiences.
- Through reflection we are able to turn experience into learning.
- Uncertainty is a key issue in our practice. Practitioners need to develop skills to handle uncertainty in the absence of a formula approach, which spells out exactly how the practitioners should act. Practitioners need to be able to deal the unique situations they find themselves in.
- Reflection is likely to be aided by expressing the experience and the thinking in writing (recording and reflecting) and by sharing with others.
- Adopting an attitude of continually learning from experience (reflective practice), will avoid practice becoming routine and repetitive.
- Reflection helps us to develop and share our understandings and to disseminate our ideas and practice
- Being reflective may involve a strong critical and emotional element, as well as drawing on theory to validate and develop practice
- Being reflective involves the development of a critical stance through continuous evaluation. Our reflective activity is formative as we notice failing practice, gaps, shortfalls or opportunities, and work with these concerns to develop new ways of working.
REFLECTION AS A PROCESS
Reflection requires that you adopt a critical and informed stance towards practice. This involves:
- Doing the work and having the experience
- Reflecting on the work practice and experience through questioning, analysis and dialogue
- Changing our practice in the light of this reflective activity
- Using reflection as a starting point for sharing and disseminating experiences, practice and learning.
THE TOOLS OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
- Make regular recordings of practice, experiences and achievements, for example in a Journal or Diary.
- Regularly self-assess own success as a worker – as a practitioner and as a learner, for example develop self-assessment framework and criteria.
- Organise ways of reflecting on and reviewing your practice and your experiences with other workers – for example, regular paired reflection can be both supportive and productive, for both partners.
- Regularly evaluate the impact of your practice on the experiences and achievements of your learners, for example develop an evaluative framework and criteria.