Reflection on Reflection

Reflection;

an idea whose

time is past?

..."reflection" is a good intention frequently found to be fallen on hard times. There is nothing to distinguish it from "thinking", which is a quintessential human activity. What is important is the quality of thought.

process rather

than outcome

action-research

actually delivers

the goods

"For years, Teach for America also selected for something called “constant learning.” ... great teachers tend to reflect on their performance and adapt accordingly. So people who tend to be self-aware might be a good bet. “It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” Ayotte-Hoeltzel says.

But in 2003, the admissions staff looked at the data and discovered that reflectiveness did not seem to matter ...

"In education, the main interest in reflective practice has come from teacher education more than those engaged in teaching or who are concerned about learning. One might speculate that the interest has something to do with the work role of teacher educators, perhaps more than about teaching as such. However, while teacher educators promote reflection among teachers, they seem to have less tendency to consider reflection as a method for their own practice...

However, in spite of the advantages and benefits that reflective practice is likely to produce, issues and problems are likely to be raised in [its] implementation... [It] may restrict the growth of creativity and innovation as it attempts to replicate and reconstruct one’s past experience. People learn through determining their future actions, either by continued exploitation of their existing activities or by changing their actions to search for better rewards (March 1991). Reflective practice emphasizes the former, that is, learning by exploiting the existing experience, rather than making complete or non-incremental change in their future action.

narrative only

are they ready?

(Perry, Belenky)

internalised

dialogue

another person

rather than

practice itself

self-indulgent

solipsistic

inconsistency

re-inventing the wheel

rather than

system or

team focus

restoration of personal

respect in a regulated and

compliant world?

community of

practice

primacy of personal

knowledge

confirmation

bias

evidence-based

practice?

a-theoretical

research

base?

tools for

thought

grit

Those who initially scored high for “grit”—defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test—were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students.

practice

10,000 hours

(Sennett, 2008)

habituation

(Reynolds, 1965)

systematisation;

check-lists!

(Gawande, 2010)

Ripley, 2010

What does work?

individualistic

Ripley, 2010

(Wenger, 1999)

Moon, 1999:57

evidence?

(Harvey and Knight, 1996 p.161)

Zhao, 2003:10

epistemology

practitioner focus

can't do it!

needs to be a dialogue with