Key Features of Reflective Practice
“Awareness of our attitudes and emotions, and the discipline to harness them and use them to our advantage is part of the work of a good thinker” (Rogers, 2003, p. 858).
1. Experience - An interaction between and a person and their environment thoughts or actions.
2. Describing a stage or event NOT interpreting it.
3. Analysis experience - The questions posed will reflect the depth of examination of the event. The students are generating a list of what is probable and discarding what is not.
4. Action experimentation - This analysis leads to “intelligent action” and experimentation according to Dewey must encompass action as a component of reflection (Rogers, 2003, p. 845-855).
Reflection is a systematic, rigorous, disciplined way of thinking, with roots in scientific inquiry (Rogers, 2003, p. 845). This is not a spontaneous happening, but a process that is born out of curiosity and then requires hard work.
David Kolb developed a learning cycle commonly referred to in which we “step back to understand and conceptualize our experience” (Jordi, 2011, p.183).