EXPRESSING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICETHROUGH REFLECTION: SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS CHRIS BULMAN

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” Socrates

REFLECTION PROVIDES A ROUTE TO:

• Critically contemplate and learn from practice

• Help make sense of experience

• Develop a repertoire of experience which can positively and actively inform future practice

REFLECTIVE EDUCATION

• Learning how to learn through the development of effective thinking skills (Freire 1972)

• Developing ability to communicate

• Part of the ‘project’ of universities and important elements of graduateness

• Professional reflective education has a role in developing critical thinkers, and being critical in order to learn from practice, as part of this ‘project’ (Bulman et al 2012, Barnett 1997).

EXPRESSION OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

• Need to seek out ways to help people to communicate and express themselves as adequately as possible (Polanyi 1967)

• Reflection can provide a means for doing just that.

• Integral to the process of reflective education is helping students to express themselves and communicate their practice (Schon 1992).

• This expression of professional practice through reflection raises a number of interesting issues for present-day educators:

WHY IS DIALOGUE IMPORTANT?

The teacher cannot think for his students nor can he impose thought on them. Authentic thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication.

Friere (1972.64)

 

WHY IS DIALOGUE IMPORTANT?

Essential in order to support as well as challenge thinking (Brockbank and McGill 1998,Clouder and Sellars 2004, Harrison et al 2007, Johns 2009)

Dialogue nurtures criticality, the reflective process can easily slip into non-critical, self-affirmation without it (Bulman 2008)

‘Asking a goldfish to perceive water’ Riddell (2007:122)

HOW ARE WE PROMOTING DIALOGUE

• Ourselves as facilitators, supportive and challenging teachers.

• Text and talk – formal and informal

• Effective and well prepared mentors and supervisors

• The relationship between education and practice environments in professional education

• Easing and opening up dialogue

• Skilled helping• Trust• Emotionally sustaining peer

learning communities

(Brookfield 1987, 1993, Zeichner and Liston 1987, Russell 2005, Harrison et al 2007)

WHAT SORT OF DIALOGUE ARE WE PROMOTING?

Reflection as surveillance, confession and correction (Pryce 2002, Rolfe and Gardner 2006)

Spirit of reciprocity, sensitivity, humility and curiosity in skilled facilitation (Bulman 2013).

Plato’s Paradox of Learning (How do

we know what we don’t know and

how do we recognise it once

we’ve found it!)

WHAT LANGUAGE ARE WE EXPRESSING AND PROMOTING?

Language Games - Wittgenstein 1967

Authenticity -Taylor 2013

‘Talk like we do’ - Wackerhausen 2009

CHALLENGES IN A ‘REAL’ AND CHAOTIC WORLD

• Greater numbers• Less contact time• Pressure in the public

sector and others• Less opportunity and

time for critical contemplation, reflection and discussion.

REFERENCES Barnett, R. (1997) Higher Education: A Critical Business. The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press,

Buckingham.

Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (1998). Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education. Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham.

Brookfield, S. D. (1987). Developing Critical Thinkers. Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Brookfield S, (1993) On Impostership, Cultural Suicide, and Other Dangers: How Nurses Learn Critical Thinking. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing. Vol.24: 5, 197 - 205

 Bulman, C. (2008). Help to get you started. In: Bulman, C. and Schutz, S. (2008). (Eds) Reflective Practice in Nursing (4th Ed.) Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.

Bulman, C. (2013) Getting started on a journey with reflection. In: Bulman, C. and Schutz, S. (2013) (Eds) Reflective Practice in Nursing (5th Ed.) Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford

Bulman, C., Lathlean, J. and Gobbi, M. (2012) The concept of reflection in nursing: Qualitative findings on student and teacher perspectives, Nurse Education Today  32 (2012), pp. e8-e13 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2011.10.007

Clouder, L. (2000) Reflective practice: realising its potential. Physiotherapy. 86:10, 517-522.

Clouder, L. and Sellars, J. (2004). Reflective practice and clinical supervision: an interprofessional perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing 46(3): 262-269.

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Herder and Herder, New York.

REFERENCES Gair, S. (2011) Creating spaces for critical reflection in social work education: learning from a classroom based empathy project. Reflective

Practice: International and Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives. 12:6, 791-802.

Harrison, J.K., Lawson, T. and Wortley, A. (2007) Mentoring the beginning teacher: developing professional autonomy through critical reflection in practice. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives. 6:3, 419-441 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940500220277

Johns, C. (2009) Becoming a Reflective Practitioner (3rd Ed) Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford

O'Donovan, M. (2007) Implementing reflection: insights from pre-registration mental health students. Nurse Education Today. Aug 27:6, 515-664.

Polanyi, M. (1967) The Tacit Dimension. Doubleday and Co. Garden City New York

Pryce, A. (2002). Refracting experience: Reflection, post modernity and transformations. Nursing Times Research 7(4): 298-310.

Russell, T. (2005) Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice: International and Multi-disciplinary Perspectives. 6:2, 199-204.

Riddell, T. (2007) Critical assumptions: thinking critically about critical thinking. Journal of Nursing Education. 46 (3) 121-126.

Rolfe, G. and Gardner, L. (2006). ‘Do not ask who I am...' confession, emancipation and (self)-management through reflection. Journal of Nursing Management 14: 593-600.

Schon D.A. (1992) The Reflective Practitioner (2nd Ed.) Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Taylor, C. (2003). Narrating practice: reflective accounts and the textual construction of reality. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 42(3): 244-251.

Wackerhausen, S. (2009) Collaboration, professional identity and reflection across boundaries Journal of Interprofessional Care. 23 (5), 455-473.

Wittgenstein, L. (1967). Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford.

Zeichner, K. M. and Liston, D. P. (1987). Teaching student teachers to reflect. Harvard Educational Review. 57 (No.1): 23-48