Shyam Barr

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PREFACE

This blog discusses topics that exist between the fields cognitive psychology and leadership, teaching and learning. Although I make connections between research and personal experience (my attempt at bridging the age-old ‘theory-practice’ gap), I write for a general audience. It is as Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi stated in the preface of his book FLOW:

“To take this step is somewhat dangerous, because as soon as one strays from the stylised constraints of academic prose, it is easy to become careless or overly enthusiastic about such a topic” (p. xi)

To avoid carelessness, I will endeavour to include references to journal articles, books and alike (as commonly expected in academic writing), but not at the expense of accessibility and ease of reading. This will be a delicate balance and one I will endeavour to achieve.

To end, I chose the word ‘discusses’ in the first sentence of this preface, to highlight that although the blog articles themselves are very much a dialogue between myself and what I read, I encourage you to share your comments and questions, so that we may start a more authentic discussion. 

 
 

Enhance your reflective practice with this simple tool

Learning underpins everything we do. The act of learning itself, in my mind – exists on a continuum from surface learning to deep learning. Both serve a purpose, but I like to position myself as often as possible at the ‘deep learning’ end of the spectrum. This requires critical reflection achieved through a rich reflective practice (practice of reflection). Do you follow?

How do you currently engage in reflection?

Or better yet, what does your reflective practice look like?

Often the term ‘reflection’ is associated with a thinking moment AFTER an event/situation whereby an individual engages in some form of ‘thinking about’ what happened during the event/situation. This is what Schon (1987) referred to as reflection-on-action. Most reflective cycle models follow this line of thinking. One popular model that is easily applicable to the context of leadership, teaching or learning is Rolfe’s (2001) critical incident model which builds on Borton’s three overarching questions:

What?

  • … is the problem/difficulty/ reason for being stuck/reason for feeling bad/reason we don’t get on?

  • … was my role in the situation?

  • … was I trying to achieve?

  • … actions did I take?

  • … was the response of others?

  • … were the consequences for the student? Myself? Others?

  • … feelings did it evoke in the student? Myself? Others?

  • … was good/bad about the experience?

So what?

  •  … does this… tell me/teach me/imply/mean about… me/my attitudes/others/?

  •  … was going through my mind as I acted?

  •  … did I base my actions on?

  •  … other knowledge can I bring to the situation?

  •  … could/should I have done to make it better?

  •  … is my new understanding of the situation?

  •  … broader issues arise from the situation?

 Now what?

  • … do I need to do in order to make things better/stop being stuck/resolve the situation/feel better/etc.?

  • … broader issues need to be considered if this action is to be successful?

  • … might be the consequences of this action?

Adapted from: Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Engaging in deeper levels of reflective practice can have all sorts of benefits for our learning. See if you can use this model to reflect on a particular event at work. This could be a conversation with a colleague, it could be a meeting, a presentation, an email… no matter what the event, try and pencil in some time to take yourself through the questions listed above. Take note of any changes in the way you think about the event and how these changes influence your future behaviour.

If you’re a teacher, you might like to use this model as a way of formally reflecting on a lesson. Often, we get so caught up in the ‘busyness’ of teaching that we overlook the important stuff (i.e. reflecting on a lesson). Better yet, why not teach this framework to your students as a strategy that they can apply to any learning scenario? 

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References

Rolfe, G. (2001). Critical reflection for nursing and the helping professions: A user's guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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