Don’t overthink it…but DO think. Two tools for reflective practice.
I, like many of us recently, have had a lot of time to think! Now I’m the first person to usually say-“Don’t overthink it!”, but actually, thinking in depth can be beneficial if structured, targeted and most importantly, recorded.
If I had a pound for every time I have thought, “if only I had the time to…” I would be a very wealthy woman (which might help at the moment in these lean times! Hey ho.). So now is the time to reflect, plan, improve and get ready for when we all get back on our feet.
Formal reflection can support us to focus on the quality of what we deliver, to keep improving the way we teach / educate, so others can learn more effectively.
As work-based educators, it is sometimes easy to put off formal reflection due to busy workloads and other responsibilities. When I mention reflective practice or teach it to a group, I get the usual eye rolls, which I interpret as “Yes we know what reflection is Ros! We do it all the time, don’t tell us how to suck eggs!”
But when I delve a little deeper it seems that most of us do reflect, albeit in our heads on the way home at the end of the day rather than write down our thoughts in a structured and formal way. Well, us educators aren’t going home at the end of the day now, so we will have to force ourselves to sit down and actually do it. Or not. Why bother?
Benefits
The first advantage of formal reflection is it gives you a chance to think critically about your teaching / training / assessment practice, giving yourself time to really focus on the good things you do-its not a bad
thing to pat yourself on the back for a job well done. It also means you can focus on anything you weren’t completely happy with, or feedback you have received may even give you a chance to come up with some new, better ideas for future practice.
Secondly, we can look back at our reflections to see any trends or progress over a period of time. Yes! That’s right. We need to reflect on our reflections! This is about the big picture and making sure we are on track to get to where we need to be.
Using a reflection model or cycle will help structure your thinking, give useful prompts and may encourage you to think about things slightly differently.
Drawbacks
The unfortunate part of encouraging educators to reflect formally on their practice is that if they are not willing or can’t see the benefits, it can turn into a ‘tick box’ exercise, just to comply with the managers and annoying CPD tutors of this world (like me!).
So, what happens when we don’t make a concerted effort to look at the positives, the bits that didn’t go great and just rely on our memory to hopefully make a change for the future?
Well the important bits can get lost. Noticing that the online quiz you gave your learners last week engaged all but one of them could be the difference between that person flourishing or floundering.
Seeing that you have given great, developmental feedback to the learner who was initially struggling but is now excelling, can be the difference between you keeping up your motivation in these especially crazy and challenging times, and just giving up.
So, reflect, even just a little just to start. You will soon get into the rhythm. You can change that quiz and make sure everyone engages, you can keep going with that developmental feedback and try it on more of your learners. Change it to be even better, share your technique with others…the list goes on.
A Word of Warning.
Make sure you focus on the positives as well as the stuff you need to improve on. As human beings we tend to naturally err towards the negative. Reflection is about looking at a situation holistically, trying to make sense of it in order to change and improve. So don’t forget to pat yourself on the back for all the good points. There will ALWAYS be at least one! Even if it’s just that you tried your best.
Don’t forget your learners!
I really believe that it is vital to encourage our learners to reflect regularly. By reflecting on how they learn (to aid metacognition), they can get better at it, identifying what works or doesn’t work for them. It will encourage them to think critically too-don’t forget we need to ‘stretch and challenge’ them, as the government say.
“Yeah ok we get it!” But how?
It can be really challenging to sustain regular reflective practice. I have seen how hard it is for myself and other practitioners in any educational sector to regularly reflect on the quality of their teaching and learning. So a few years ago, I decided to make an easy to access reflection sheet for tutors and assessors. Reflection doesn’t have to be a whole teaching session-you could reflect on the methods you use and whether they will work for online teaching. It could just be reflecting on a conversation you have had with a colleague. Let’s face it, we could all reflect at the moment on whether it’s a good idea to stay in our lounge wear all day or not! (Note to self-maybe I will try a hoodie tomorrow that doesn’t have food down the front)
‘Paws’ for Thought (See what we did there?)
We have been using this reflection sheet (Paws for Thought1) with our learners for about 4 years. The overwhelming feedback we receive is that is quick and easy to use and really helpful in writing an action plan to improve sessions or assessment visits. So much so that people then use them with their own learners. It was originally designed as a ‘5 minute download’-a way to download all of the feelings and perceptions of an event in order to make sense-I always challenge my learners to not be able to find 5 minutes at the end of the day sat down with a cuppa to jot down the basics if nothing else. This is classed as surface reflection, but in my book, something is better than nothing if you never used to record your reflections at all.
With this in mind, we have now brought out a new ‘Paws’ for Thought journal based around the much used Gibbs reflection cycle (1988) which will enable our learners to go a little deeper, to really look at how they felt about a particular situation, evaluate and analyse how to change it if they need to.
Use our free resources to help you.
You can 
download both versions of our Paws for thought reflectice journals below. There is an easy to use editable Word version if you want to type, as well as a pdf if you want to print and handwrite.
If you have never written a reflective journal before, give them both a go and see what you think. Obviously we want you to reflect on teaching and learning, but I have had reliable feedback from a couple of learners that they also work really well with husbands, wives and children! So sit down with a cuppa, breathe and pause to think about what you can do to make a positive change for when the world eventually gets back on track. Things will get better. so let’s be ready to go with our best ideas and a clear plan of action, when it does.
Download Paws for Thought1 (Simple) here
Download Paws for Thought2 here
