Task 2c - part 1

Beginning this course 'reflective practice' and 'critical reflection' are not things that I had considered or applied during my professional and personal day to day life. But since reading more about it a discovering its benefits through this course I have really begun to understand and personally develop the concepts.

Reflection to me feels very integrated within my professional practice even if I hadn't initially realised it I have always been using it. Now I am able to acknowledge this I can use and develop it more and help it progress me as a professional. If I were to describe reflection in a sentence I would say it is an evaluating process of which you look back on what you have done and explore the good and not so good aspects of it and what you would change. Being a dancer you are frequently looking back on movements, sequences or performances you have done and self criticising in order to improve as dance being a very competitive profession you are always striving to improve so reflection is very relevant. Now using tools such as my journal I can successfully reflect on myself and retain all the information as I have it written down which allows me to apply my personal reflections and critiques and learn from my experiences.

As I read through the reader I discovered how important reflection is in our professional practice. Boyd and Fales (1983) claim that critical reflection is the core difference between whether the person repeats the same experience several times, and become highly proficient at the behaviour or learns from the experience, therefore showing cognitive change. With that in mind reflective learning can be thought as as a transformational way of learning which is allows you to adapt and experiment in order to improve.

David Kolb's 'Experimental Learning Theory' is what I related to most and found easy to understand through the concept of the table which has been produced of his "Learning Cycle" as shown. The table helped me to visualise the process of learning and understand the process which is advised for optimum learning. As you can see the cycle is recurring which shows how you can be learning and experiment over and over which i very relevant, especially in dance, when styles, steps and technique is always evolving. Also the Reader goes into detail about how everyone begins to learn at different stages of the cycle; 

"Some people start to learn when they are involved in a concrete experience, (doing something), some people can do something but start to learn about it when they are watching the people around them doing it (Reflective 
observation), some people need to “work it out in their head first” (Abstract 
conceptualisation) and some people start to learn when they start trying out ideas 
(active experimentation)."

Reader 2

This intrigued me to think about where about in the cycle I began the learning process and I believe I start at "Active Experimentation". Personally when I am learning a sequence in a dance class I am immediately thinking "right, how should I do this move?" or "can I put my own style into this" so straight away while having the experience I am experimenting mentally and physically with the movement and learning more about the way I dance.

Here is a continuation on my example of learning a sequence and its written out beside as the picture is quite small...

Active Experimentation: As I am learning the sequence I am thinking about how the movement goes and trying different ways to interpret my style.

Concrete Experience: I go on to performing the sequence within the class.

Reflective Observation: I think about how that felt during the sequence and how I think it looked in the mirror.

Abstract Conceptualisation: I learn from the experience and think about different way I wish to experiment with.

...and then the cycle repeats

Task 2b - Journal writing experience

Over the past 7 days I have been attempting to follow the ways of journal writing that was shown in the handbook and I have actually found it very beneficial in working out what is the best way for me that really allowed me to deepen my reflective writing. 

Description - I found this quite easy to write a lot about but looking back on it after the week i found that it was less reflective and more informative about what I did that day and didn't really inspire me to really think about what happened.

Initial Reflection - As this type of writing is strongly bases on reflection it did make me think further into my thoughts, feelings and actions of that day. I did really like this form and I think looking back and comparing it to the other days it is the most reflective journal input from that week.

List - To be honest I didn't really like this way of writing. I found it really detached and impersonal and it didn't really inspire me to reflect it just allowed to write down some things that happened that day. I think you may want to include small list occasionally if necessary within my journal but I wouldn't base my whole journal writing on this style alone.

Evaluation - I did like evaluation although when I was writing it did take me a little while to get into it and I didn't feel like I could write a lot except my mood that day and whether the day/events that happened that day were good or bad. However, since finishing this 7 day task I now draw a little smiley face next to each entry determining my mood for that day which I find quite fun and makes the page look a bit more interesting.

Graphs, Charts and Diagrams - I found this really hard as I didn't even really know what to put in a graph but on this day I resorted to the good old mind map which did make me reflect into what happened that day but for me I didn't really get much out of it and it seemed like a lot more effort that it was really worth.

What if - This section actually reminded me of when I was young as I was a very shy and nervous child and was scared to try anything. My mum always used to tell me to stop thinking 'what if' because I would always imagine all the bad things as a child and obvious children have a vivid imagination and I would scare myself out of doing things. Although my mum advised me against it I have always been a bit of a what if kind of person as I can be a worrier at times but I found this form of writing quite interesting. I tried to think about my day and thought about small things I could have done differently and tried to focus on some of the small positive outcomes that could have come out of doing things slightly differently rather that negative repercussions which I seemed to focus on as a child. I did find this quite good as it made me really think about what I could do to make improve in things professionally as well as personally. And when I say improve I don't mean I thought out changing the whole way I live my life day to day but it just made me think of the small seemingly insignificant things that might make your day that little bit easier.

Another view - Okay I am going to admit and say that on this day I spent most my day in my bed on my laptop just not really doing anything. Everyone is allowed a lazy day once in a while! So at the end of this day I actually wrote from the point of view of my bed. It was quite an interesting journal entry and as I had a lot of time on my hands that day it ended up quite long and descriptive but I would say it came out a lot more like a short story rather than a reflective look on my day. Maybe I didn't really pick the best day to use this process but for me I didn't find it very helpful.

I hope this gives you an idea of how I reacted to each form of journal writing and now I would say I base the majority of my entries on initial refection with a bit of description, evaluation and what if involved in some entries. I think to reach the optimum level of reflection you have to use a few of these techniques simultaneously rather than just one.

Task 2a - Reflective Practice

I had some of the similar feelings about starting a journal as I did starting a blog. It's that recurring question that seems to be coming up a lot recently, 'Where to start?' But this time without the previous hesitation i just dived right in and gave it a go. I think almost knowing that no one is going to read it relieves a bit of that pressure that I put on myself when I know people are going to be looking through your work. 

Transferring my writing skills from screen to paper feels slightly alien to start with because I feel like these days I don't spend a great deal of time handwriting anymore due to the advances in technology. Even thinking back to my later years at school I wrote most of my more substantial essay work on my laptop and only wrote notes by hand. But I am now getting into it and I find it quite therapeutic and knowing that it is aiding my learning and development as a professional it is quite rewarding.

I do have memories of attempting to write diaries when I was young which unfortunately didn't last very long as I think I got all excited for about two days and after that i kind of forgot about it. I hope this time it is more successful! But being 'older and wiser' as they say, I think I understand the benefits much better and I am more driven to keep up my writing.

I am interested to read everyone else's blogs and find out how they are getting on with the reflective aspects of journal writing so far.