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