Reflection and Reflective Practice: Personal Experience

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Types of reflection
Personal experience
Kolb’s reflective model
Conclusion
References

Introduction

No one would deny the fact that reflection plays an important role in one’s practice. However, the very notions of reflection and reflective practice are rather debatable ones. For example, Dewey defines reflection as thinking about thinking (1933, p.144), whereas Schon (1983, p.134) introduces the wider concept of reflective practice, which, he claims, means an important strategy that helps professionals become aware of their implicit knowledge base and benefit from their experience. In his work Becoming a Reflective Practitioner Johns states that reflection is:

“…being mindful of self, either within or after the experience, as if a window through which the practitioner can view and focus self within the context of a particular experience, to confront, understand and move toward resolving the contradiction between one’s vision and their actual practice. Through the conflict of contradiction, the commitment to realize one’s vision, and understanding why things are as they are, the practitioner can gain new insights into self and be empowered to respond more congruently in future situations within a reflexive spiral towards developing practical wisdom and realizing one’s vision as a lived reality. The practitioner may require guidance to overcome resistance or to be empowered to act on understanding” (2004, p. 3).

Types of reflection

As in the course of everyday practice professionals face numerous situations which cannot be solved by mere technical rational approaches, reflective practice becomes the necessary ‘tool’ that saves the professional’s competence. Reflective practice implies the professional’s ability to see the perspectives of his or her practice, understand and appreciate them for the benefit of career prospects.

According to Schon, (1987, p.123) there are two types of reflection: reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Reflection-in-action occurs simultaneously as the event happens, the person reflects on one’s conduct with the purpose to optimize the actions that follow.

I used to resort to this type of reflection at the beginning of my practice in the substance misuse center. Informing people about the consequences of substance misuse I tried to analyze the effectiveness of my performance to improve it. I tried to catch the moments when the audience was extremely attentive and followed every word of mine; my task was to fix my gestures, voice, intonation, everything that helped me to establish quick rapport with my patients and influence their assumption of the problem. In that situation, I played the role of the supervisor and had to do my best to demonstrate my competence.

The second type of reflection is reflection-on-action. It occurs after the event when the person can review, describe, analyze and evaluate the situation. Thus he or she gains insights for improved practice in the future. This type of reflection is more frequent than the first one, because, as a rule, the person does not have time or opportunity to reflect immediately.

Going by Schon (1991, p. 124), I can single out three key stages in the reflective process. The first stage comes with the realization that the knowledge applied in this or that situation was not sufficient to explain what was happening. The second stage is a critical analysis of the situation. Here an examination of knowledge, feelings, and emotions takes place; it is aimed at developing a new perspective on the situation that occurs in the final stage.

Personal experience

My own experience allows me to confirm the classification stated above. Being a supervisor I came through all the stages and found it extremely useful to reflect upon my actions. For example, I had to manage the newly received materials on the problem of substance misuse. Of course, I coped with this task but it wasn’t that easy as it might seem from first sight: the materials were to be classified according to certain principles and to be distributed among the specialists of our center. This should be done as quickly as possible. Though the task was not of primary importance, my delay could have engendered considerable problems. When I came to think over my actions I understood that the lack of experience prevented me from reacting quickly. First, I had to get to know the principles of classification, then, I had to inquire about our specialists’ needs in this or that material and, after that, to distribute them. Now then I know how the system works I can cope with the task faster.

Also, reflection, as the ability of the professionals to critique their practice, to identify their needs, and to take responsibility for their actions, is considered as an effective strategy that is used to solve theory-practice debates. But we should also admit that no evidence shows the prevalence of reflective practitioners over the non-reflective ones.

Still, my personal experience showed the difference between the affectivity of my work when I reflected on it and of the work where I acted as my experience prompted me. I realized that without critical reflection my knowledge and skills gained before could easily be obliterated.

When I found it I tried to discover such a model for reflective thinking that could have fit my knowledge about myself and shouldn’t have ruined the burning desire to improve my performance through analysis of the work done.

As it turned out, there exist numerous reflective models. A few examples include Greenaway’s reflective model where he outlined three simple steps one should take to learn from experience: to plan, to do, and to review. Burton suggests a bit different interpretation of this, like What? So what? Now what?

Baud’s reflective model offers to describe one’s feelings, to reflect on one’s experience, to consolidate one’s experience.

If we consider Gibbs’ approach to reflection we will see that he proposes 6 steps to aid reflective practice. These steps are to be repeated over and over again thus making up a cycle: description of the event, feelings, and thoughts that this event evoked, evaluation of the experience, analysis of the situation, conclusion about it, a plan of actions to be done next. This model stresses feelings and emotions that played an essential part in a particular event.

But most of all, I liked Kolb’s idea of reflection. This American educational theorist suggested that experience alone cannot meet particular learning goals. ‘In such situations, it seems to work better if the raw experience is packaged together with facilitated exercises which involve thinking, discussing, or creatively processing cognitions and emotions related to the raw experience”(1984, p.45). Kolb managed to work out a greater structure in reflection: his “model suggests that a participant has a Concrete Experience, followed by Reflective Observation, then the formation of Abstract Conceptualizations before finally conducting Active Experimentation to test out the newly developed principle” (Neill, 2004).

Kolb’s reflective model

According to Kolb’s reflective model, the first stage is immersing oneself in the task. When I worked as a supervisor, most often it concerned my understanding of the task that I needed to render to people under my charge. When I worked under someone’s supervision I found it extremely interesting and challenging to get involved in a new task, especially if it contributed to my professional growth.

The second stage meant that I had to state what I have noticed when dealing with this or that task: in the case of people who were experiencing substance misuse this stage was extremely important, as at this time I could get the information about the patient’s addiction and its degree.

During the third stage – conceptualization – I used all the information I got to identify what it could mean. As a rule, this is at that stage when I decided on the specialist the patient had to address, or, the information he or she had to get about the misuse of this or that substance and the consequences it might have.

At the fourth stage, I asked myself what I would do next and what results it would have. When the patient was provided with the treatment required, I used to analyze the effectiveness of the service suggested and to outline the perspectives of the treatment that could be provided in the future.

Think over my overall practice in terms of this model I have to say that I have made sure that practice makes perfect. Day by day reflecting on the actions I took, I got more and more confidence and self-assertion.

During the practice, I really understood the meaning of Schon’s words:

“The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behavior. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation” (1983, p. 68).

Conclusion

The reflective models I have used helped me to become more confident in the application of the well-established and my criteria of judgment. Reflective practice challenged my professional skills, encouraged me to seek and make use of feedback to use it as a springboard for further achievements. Also, it made me take responsibility for my work, criticize it and draw correspondent conclusions.

References

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Dewey, J. 1933, How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process, Henry Regnery, Chicago.
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Johns, C. 2004, Becoming a reflective practitioner, Blackwell, London.
Kolb, D. A. 1984, Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Neill, J. 2004. Experiential learning cycles.
Posner, G. 2000, Field experience: A guide to reflective teaching, Longman, New York.
Schon, D. 1983, The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action, Avebury Press: Aldershot.
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Schon, D. 1991, The reflective practitioner, Boston: Arena Publishing Arena.
Skills for Health. 2004. Drug and alcohol national occupational standards (DANOS) guide. Bristol: Skills for Health.

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