Hello readers! I am coming to the end of my Level 3 Early Years Educator course and I am currently thinking about reflection in relation to professional development. The main theorists who influence practice are below, with my understanding of these principles and give scenarios of how they may be used in practice.
Gibbs
The Gibbs Reflective Cycle is a structured approach, which is a continuous cycle of the following steps.
What happened?
What were your thoughts/feelings?
What was good or bad?
What sense can you make of the situation?
What else could you have done?
What will you do differently next time?
An example of how this may be used within practice may be a new book which the children are having read to them, the book was very long with complex vocabulary, you red it at the end of the day and the children were very tired and restless, you felt that the younger children stopped listening because it was too wordy, the older children loved the challenging vocabulary. You could have separated the children into two groups and read to the older half, next time you may split the group, or you may adapt the book by reading less of the words but highlighting interesting and new words to the older children. Something to try would be to read the book earlier in the day when the children aren’t as tired. You could then read the book and see whether your new technique works better.
Kolb
Kolbs reflective cycle is four stages, this is to;
Do (again)
Think (again)
Conclude (again)
Adapt (again)
An example of this in terms of professional development in Early Years could be that you have provided the children with paint and a vase of flowers, after the session, you will think about how this went – the children tried to paint the flowers themselves and not the paper. Does this matter, or did they still learn something? Could I show them, or provide something else for them to have a go at painting next time? Then I do again, think again, conclude again and adapt again. This again is a repeated cycle of practice and reflection.
Schon
Schons theories were around reflecting IN practice, and reflecting ON practice. To reflect IN practice, I personally think this one takes some experience, in certain situations. To think about how things are working and what is going well during an activity is something which we do naturally in some situations, and in others comes with practice. Reflection ON action is about thinking after the event about what worked and what didn’t and how you would do things differently next time. This might be inward reflection, or a peer feeding back about how it went from their perspective after the event.
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Hybrid Mode
