Reflective practice RP
Reflective practice (RP) Reflective practice is an important sub-component of teacher research. It includes journaling and talking about ones instructional practice. However, doing reflective practice is not the same as doing teacher research. ... What is RP? Basically, reflective practice (also known as "witness consciousness") is an objective and systematic approach to improving the ease (as opposed to dis-ease) and effectiveness of our lifestyle or way of working. RP is a fundamental tool for genuine self-empowerment, as opposed to pseudo-self-empowerment strategies based on self-aggrandizement or deception, exploitation and manipulation of others. ... Roth (1989) summarized the basic elements of a reflective process as follows: ü Keeping an open mind about what, why, and how we do things ü Awareness of what, why, and how we do things ü Questioning what, why, and how we do things ü Asking what, why, and how other people do things ü Generating choices, options and possibilities ü Comparing and contrasting results ü Seeking to understand underlying mechanisms & rationales ü Viewing our activities and results from various perspectives ü Asking "What if. ... " ü Seeking feedback and other people ideas & viewpoints ü Using prescriptive (advice) models only when carefully adapted to the individual situation ü Analysing, synthesizing and testing ü Searching for, identifying, and resolving problems & result limitations In practice there are two kinds of reflective activity: ü reflection-on-action which occurs either during (by interrupting) or after the activity ü reflection-in-action, which occurs during (without interrupting) the activity. ... A willingness to self-criticise is a key part of the reflective process. ... In these days of the litigation-prone "compensation culture", healthcare professionals are increasingly adopting "defensive medicine" patterns of practice. ... " "Playing safe" is a common healthcare activity, that can often greatly benefit from some Reflective Practice. ... Reflective Practice draws us into revealing and critically examining the values, assumptions, ideas, theories and strategies supporting our behaviour patterns, lifestyle or professional decisions and skills.