Hi everyone!
I am completing the last unit of my Cache Level 3, too. I am now thinking about the importance of reflection in relation to my professional development, and I would like to share my thoughts and my research with you.
First of all, I need to say that this course helped me a lot to reflect on my practice since the first unit. In fact, every activity plan and session sheet that I have written asked me to reflect on my needs and also to ask for advice from my placement supervisor. This helped me both to evaluate myself, but also to see my practice from another perspective, in particular from my supervisor who is more experienced than me.
The two theoretical perspective that are helping me now to understand what the reflective process is are: Kolb’s learning cicle and Gibb’s reflective cycle.
Regarding the first one, Kolb theorised that learning is a cycle, which has four stages. The first stage is called Concrete experience, which happens when the learner experiences something new. The second stage of the cycle is the Reflective observation, in which the learner reviews and reflects what they have done. The third stage is the Abstract conceptualisation, which happens when the learner develops a new idea or reviews an existing one following the process of Reflective observation. Finally, the last stage is Active experimentation, in which the learner tries out by putting into practice the result of his reflection and abstract conceptualisation with the purpose of seeing what happens next. In order for the learning to be effective, it is important that the learner goes through all these stages of the cycle. I think that Koln’s theory is very useful to my professional development. In fact, whenever I plan a new activity for the children, I can use this cycle as a way to reflect on my practice and modify it when I see that some aspects could improve. For example, once I carried out a storytelling activity with the pre-school children (3-5 years, CONCRETE EXPERIENCE). Reflecting on the activity, I thought that I had asked many questions to promote sustained shared thinking, however only the oldest children answered them (REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION). This led me think that I need to change the way I ask questions to the children so that I plan for some simple questions for the younger children (ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALISATION). Then, I put it into practice by reading another story, and this time I asked more varied questions of different diffuculties, so more children could get involved in the activity. (ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION)
Regarding Gibb’s reflective cycle, I can say that it is really effective to make sense of the situations that we have experienced, whether they are positve or negative. The model is divided in 6 stages. The first one is the description, in which the learner describes what happened in the experience without drawing to any conclusions. The second part is the Feelings, in which the learner talks about how they felt during the experience. The thrid fase is the Evaluation, in which the learner thinks about whether his/her approach worked or did not. The fourth stage is the analysis, in which the learner analyses what happened that worked or did not work in deep. The fifth stage is the conclusion, in which the learner draws some conclusion about the experience, by thinking again about what happened. The sixth stage is the action plan, in which the learner plans for how to deal more effectively with similar situations in the future.
I think that Gibbs method is really useful for my professional development because it can help me reflect on my skills/experiences without being biased by my personal opinions. In fact, reflecting on feeling comes third and drawing to conclusion is the fifth stage. I also like that it concludes with an action plan so that I can be motivated to improve my practice in a clear and organised way.
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