REFLECTIVE THINKING
1ST SLIDE:
‘Reflective thinking’ may appear an abstract concept – how can it be explained? To help understand
the broader concept, a simple way in which reflective thinking can be defined
is: consciously thinking about and analysing:
what you are currently doing
what you have previously done
what you have experienced
what and how you have learned.
Your past learning and experience provide the context for your thoughts, and are therefore
unique to you, but reflective thinking is a dynamic process that continues to develop and
evolve as you learn and respond to new experiences, situations, events or information. In
practical terms, this is the process where you interpret and evaluate your experiences, check
that they make ‘sense’ to you, create meaning, justify actions and solve problems, and it helps
with your future planning.
Reflective thinking involves stepping back and looking at how you solved a particular problem
or how you approached a particular situation. You can use reflective thinking to determine
what you did right and what you did wrong in a particular situation. By assessing your actions
and thoughts, you will be able to see other alternatives that you did not consider at the time.
This wisdom will aid you the next time a similar situation or problem comes up.
When you exercise reflective thinking, you are aware of and actively participate in your thought
processes. Being aware of your own thought processes is an important part of developing
higher order thinking skills and solving problems. Reflective thinking is most helpful in
problem-solving situations because it provides you with an opportunity to step back and think
about how you actually solve problems as well as how your strategies in problem-solving help
achieve your goal. It is important for you to exercise reflective thinking and develop strategies
to apply new knowledge to complex situations in your daily activities.
What are the key features of reflection?
Reflection results in learning:
It can change your ideas and understanding of the situation.
Reflection is an active and dynamic process:
It can involve reflecting ‘on’ action (past experience), reflecting ‘in’ action (on an incident as it
happens), or reflecting ‘for’ action (actions that you may wish to take in the future).
Reflection is not a linear process, but cyclic:
It leads to the development of new ideas which can be used to plan the next stages of learning.
Reflection encourages looking at issues from different perspectives:
It helps you to understand the issue and scrutinise your own values, assumptions and
perspectives.
How can we develop reflective thinking?
learning journals, diaries, log books and personal blogs – your thoughts in written prose
lists, bullet points, tables – your thoughts summarised in note form
audiovisual recordings – documenting your voice or using video recordings
visual representations – mind maps, diagrams, sketches.
When you keep a journal, you can preserve your thoughts, feelings and actions at a particular
point in time and reflect on them later. Keeping a journal allows you to revisit your thought
process, and determine how you could have approached the situation better. You can also use
the journal as a tool to solve present problems – you can use it to take notes of the situation
and jot down your thoughts and ideas so you don’t forget them. Many times, it is a seemingly
unrelated idea that will help you find a good solution to a problem.
Developing a habit of reflective learning will help you to:
evaluate your own progress
monitor and manage your own performance
self-motivate
keep focus on your learning goals
think differently about how you can achieve your goals by evaluating your study
techniques, learning strategies and whether these best fit your current needs, identifying your
skills development needs or gaps in knowledge
think about and overcome what may be blocking your learning by using a different
approach, or setting more pragmatic (realistic/achievable) goals
support and enrich your professional practice ensuring that you are better placed to
respond to and manage new, unexpected and complex situations – a key requirement at
Master’s level.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION
1ST SLIDE: GIF
A journal provides you with a means to perform effective reflective thinking at your own convenience. When you use a
journal, you can reflect on a specific situation or problem at a time in the future when you can relax and give yourself
time to reflect.
2nd SLIDE:
Elder and Paul (2002) present a number of ways you can reflect on a problem or situation and develop your thinking:
3rd SLIDE:
Number of ways you can reflect on a problem or situation and develop your thinking:
When you don’t understand something, ask questions to clarify until you are confident that you understand the problem
or situation very well and you can see it from different sides. For example, if you are discussing a problem in your school
about implementing a particular program, you can ask questions that will help you understand what the main problem
is, and how the students, parents and your co-teachers see the problem
4th SLIDE:
Assess the questions that you ask for relevance.
Assess the questions that you ask for relevance. You can also use the criteria below to check the questions that you are
asking to see if they are relevant, or if they need to be modified in order to be more effective in helping people discuss
the problem and explore different alternatives:
