Week 17 - My Reflective Practice

The survey intially bought to the forefront my thinking the wording of criticism versus critical thinking.

To criticise I believed was more of a judgement, and often through a negative lens:

"the expression of disapproval of someone or something on the basis of perceived faults or mistakes."

While critical thinking I believed was more of a form of asking questions rather than accepting something. The video below supported my thinking around this:

Therefore a shift in my thinking that critical thinking does involve judgement but one based on reasons and evidence. 

Criticism on the other hand while does intersect with being critical - it does involve a judgment however seems to be aimed at a reaction rather than a response.

I would like to acknowledge the blog of Suzanne Manning - Suzanne Manning Blog - that supported by thnking and wording about this along with the link to the above video.

I have decided to use the model below to support my reflective practice and deepen the quality of my reflecting.

Jay and Johnson’s reflective model (2002)

Step One: Descriptive

I reflect collaboratively with the teacher I work with in an Innovative Learning Environment. We meet both formally through planning meetings and centre meetings. This is reflection that is based around events that have happened. These are reflected through our planning and actions moving forward - what worked weel, where are we heading based on this?
Informally we have daily conversations during the events (reflecting in action) and will respond and change our practice depending on what we are observing.
Alongside this I reflect individually constantly questioning and challenging my practice and how I can improve.
'Teaching as Inquiry' and using the 'Spiral of Inquiry' is another form of relective practice I work with.
I belong to a 'Community of Learning' which is a form of reflection that I participate in. We work in groups based around similar inquiry themes and meet formally twice a term to discuss and reflect on our inquiries.
I enjoy being able to articulate with others and being questioned and challenged on my thinking.
What I would like to understand moving forward is how to record these reflections in a way that is purposeful and promotes comments and questions from a wider audience. 

Step Two:  Comparative

Grushka, Hinde-McLeod and Reynolds (2005) distinguish between ‘reflection for action’, ‘reflection in action’ and ‘reflection on action’  and while this is familiar to me I am looking forward to using this to depen the thinking and quality of my reflective practice.

My study through Mindlab has been the missing link for me in terms of the use of research to support the hunches that I have in my practice and the way forward for this.

Step Three:  Critical Reflection

I have learnt that using a model to support my reflective practice will support and clarify my thinking.
I can see that reflecting in a cycle (no different than the Teaching and Learning Cycle and Spiral of Inquiry) and being purposeful in this will support my thinking and decision-making.
I am looking forward to the develoment of my blog as a way to record my reflections and to others commenting and questioning me on my thoughts.