Responses to Finlay’s (2008) Article

Before reading Reflecting on ‘Reflective Practice’ (Finlay 2008) my definition of reflective practice mirrored that of (Boud et al 1985; Boyd and Fales, 1983; Mezirow, 1981, Jarvis, 1992) being that ‘reflective practice is understood as the process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice’. I could not have worded the definition as succinctly as this but this has been my understanding. However, after reading the article I was both interested and surprised at the depth of analysis that reflective practice involves and what it’s connotations (both positive and negative) can have on myself, my peers and my Year 4/6 students.

Below I have highlighted some of the points that within the article that I can relate to in my my reflective practice.

1. McKay (2008, Forthcoming) states that reflecting on performance and acting on reflection is a ‘professional imperative’. I would very much agree with this. As an individual I am constantly reflecting on my role as a teacher and in fact anything that I undertake both professionally and personally both on a conscious and subconscious level. Surely this is a given if we strive to improve on any areas of life? What I have learnt as a teacher is that I must always be very conscious of this in the classroom so that I am able to ascertain what is working for a student and what is not. Of equal importance is that I am constantly obtaining student voice to ensure that my observations are backed up by the students thoughts on how I teach and what I teach.
2. Schon (1983, The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action) whose paper discusses how we facilitate reflective practitioners, identifies reflection-in-action which is ‘thinking while doing’. Here he talks about how professionals that become more expert in their practice develop the skill of monitoring and adapting their practice simultaneously. This I can also relate to. When I started out as a teacher I had an overwhelming number of challenges to deal with which did not allow me the time to adopt this skill. However, as my skills as a teacher have increased and as I have become more knowledgeable in my profession I now have the capability and skills to do this. I am more skillful at judging what is working/not working, how I am talking to a student(s), what I am asking them to do and I am able to better modify my practice on the fly to hopefully provide a better learning experience for the student(s). However, I am still learning here, and will always continue to do so.
3. The model of reflection that I have traditionally used is the ‘Cycle of Inquiry’ (Zealand, 2007) found in the New Zealand Curriculum but in all honesty reflection is something I have always done on a metacognitive level with no structure sitting behind it and I freely admit to not having used the Cycle of Inquiry model in the way that I probably should have. This I feel was due to its somewhat basic, obvious nature. However, I am now in the process of learning a new model for reflection called ‘The Spiral of Inquiry’ and which is discussed later in this blog. Having researched this reflection model to some depth, and with my new understandings on reflection it has caused me to think about my expectations of my students ability to reflect on their learning. Because I have never seriously entertained the use of a structured reflective model in my practice then I have not expected my children to. I have been constantly frustrated by their inability to reflect on more than a superficial level. Boud and Walker (1998) brought clarity to me here by stating that reflection can be turned into a rote exercise as  ‘checklists which students work through in a mechanical fashion without regard to their own uncertainties, questions and meanings’. This is absolutely correct and something that I will be attempting to amend this year. We all know that students need modelling for clarity and so how can I expect them to produce meaningful reflections without the use of one to follow?

---

The Reflective Model that I am Adopting - The Spiral of Inquiry
​

The model that I am adopting is being adopted through our whole school. The model is ‘The Spiral of Inquiry’ and has been chosen through collaboration amongst the teachers. I find it a suitable model to use for the following reasons.

1. It is based on the ‘Cycle of Inquiry’ (Zealand, 2007) but is further reaching by encompassing learners, their families and communities.
2. It is a relatively straightforward and easy model to follow as the authors walk the learner through the process using illustrated examples and boxes to help with PLD.
3. The model is broken down into six distinct stages with the learner being a central figure. Each of these six stages is explicitly explained so that the process of reflection is more structured and consistent across the school. Please note school (not wider community in this instance). Please note here that as a learner I need this structured reflective model just as my students do. See above.
4. The spiral of inquiry takes a different approach. It asks you to adopt a curiosity mindset to identify what is going on for learners and to develop some hunches about what is leading to the current situation, before deciding what to do about it. In this way you can work out what is working well so you can build on it, and what is not working so well so you can make changes. (Timperley, H., Kaser, L., and Halbert, 2014)
5. It is based on evidence informed collaborative inquiry which allows me to collaborate more effectively with my peers and community in an informed way.
6. Each stage is interconnected to the other. They are not isolated stages meaning that the reflection is a cycle has no start and stop point. It flows.
7. It has two basic and powerful questions at its heart. 1. What is going on for our learners? 2. How de we know?

I feel that I have only scraped the surface of the suitability of this reflective model to my practice and must emphasize that I have not yet actually used it either. However, I am looking forward to a more structured way of reflecting on my practice personally, school-wide and eventually through the wider community. I also hope that we can use/tailor this model to help scaffold the students to produce more insightful and reflective work when we ask it of them instead of the superficial accounts that I am currently receiving.

References

Finlay, B. L. (2008). Reflecting on “ Reflective practice .” PBPL Paper 52, (January), 1–27. http://doi.org/10.1016/0260-4779(91)90031-R

Boud, D. and Fales, A. (1983) Reflective learning: Key to Learning from Experience. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 23(2), 99-117.

McKay, E.A. (2008, Forthcoming) Reflective practice: doing, being and becoming a reflective practitioner. Skills for Practice in Occupational Therapy. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd.

Schon, D.A (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books

Zealand, T. N. (2006). The New Zealand Curriculum. Methods, 116(1185), 44. Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the_new_zealand_curriculum 37.
​
Timperley, H., Kaser, L., and Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Centre for Strategic Education, (April).