Reflection Read through the quotations on ‘Reflection.’ Annotate these with your own thoughts; do you agree or disagree? Can you identify with some of these? Do have examples of your own?

Reflective practice is important to the development of all professionals because it enables us to learn from experience. Although we all learn from experience, more and more experience does not guarantee more and more learning. Twenty years of teaching may not equate to twenty years of learning about teaching but may be only one year repeated twenty times. There are many times when our normal reactions to events are insufficient themselves to encourage reflection. We should not rely solely on our natural process of reflecting on experience, but actively seek ways to ensure that reflection itself becomes a habit, ensuring our continuing development as a professional teacher in higher education. Beaty, L. (1997) Developing your teaching through reflective practice. Birmingham: SEDA, p. 8.

McGill, I. and Brockbank, A. (1998) Facilitating reflective learning in higher education (Buckingham: Open University Press), p.72. Consciously engaging in reflective practice enables the teacher to learn from and therefore potentially enhance their practice and learning about their practice. Practice here can include teaching, encouraging learning, research, scholarship, course design and management. Indeed, it can include any of the myriad activities of the professional teacher.

Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning. Boud, D. Cohen, R. and Walker, D. (1985) Reflection: turning experience into learning. London: Kogan

Reflective practice is a set of abilities and skills, to indicate the taking of a critical stance, an orientation to problem solving or state of mind. Moon, J. (1999) Learning journals: a handbook for academics, students and professional development. London: Kogan

... a reflection in a mirror is an exact replica of what is in front of it. Reflection in professional practice, however, gives back not what it is, but what might be, an improvement on the original. Biggs, J. (1999) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham: Open University Press

The act of reflecting is one which causes us to make sense of what we've learned, why we learned it, and how that particular increment of learning took place. Moreover, reflection is about linking one increment of learning to the wider perspective of learning - heading towards seeing the bigger picture. Race, P. (2002) Evidencing reflection: putting the “w” into reflection (ESCALATE Learning Exchange) Accessed: 22 February

Reflection is about questioning the ‘givens’, assumptions and sometimes uncertainties of an action; critical thinking is linked with problem- solving and working towards a solution. Try to reflect through different critical lenses when you are planning or evaluating CPD. IfL (2009) CPD Guidelines. London: IfL

... reflective teaching implies an active concern with aims and consequences as well as means and technical competence. Pollard, A., with Collins, J., Simco, N., Swaffield, S., Warin, J., and Warwick, P. (2005) Reflective Teaching. 2nd. edition. London: Continuum

Open-mindedness is an active desire to listen to more ideas than one, to give full attention to alternative possibilities, and to recognise the possibility of error even in beliefs that are dearest to us. Zeichner, K. and Liston, D. (1996) Reflective Teaching: an introduction. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 10.

A reflective teacher: (1)examines, frames, and attempts to solve the dilemmas of classroom practice; (2) is aware of and questions the assumptions and values he or she brings to teaching; (3) is attentive to the institutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches; (4) takes part in curriculum development and a involved in school change efforts; and (5) takes responsibility for his or her own professional development. Zeichner, K. and Liston, D. (1996) Reflective Teaching: an introduction. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates