The benefits of reflective practice

What is reflective practice?
Reflective practice is the act of assessing your own thoughts and actions for the purpose of personal learning and development.  For a lot of people, this act is something that is natural and instinctive. For others, it's something you need to actively work towards.  It is the idea of learning from experience.

1. You think about what you did.
2. You think about what happened as a result.
3. You decide from there what you would do differently next time.

Thinking about what happened is the natural part about being human. The difference between casually "thinking" about what you did and "reflective practice" is that in reflective thinking you are required to put a conscious effort into developing insights.

What is the purpose?
Reflective practice helps us explore ideas and apply them to our experiences. It encourages growth and improvement. It can be applied to any profession or personal situation. It is a continuing process where you analyze and evaluate an experience to learn and gain insight to positively improve client outcomes. The whole goal is to lead to changes and improvements in our professions. 
As teachers and therapists we need to think about what you did, why you did it, how you did, and if it worked.
By collecting information about what goes on in our classrooms and sessions and analyzing that information, we can lead to change and improvement in our teaching.

You might be talking to a coworker and say, "My students didn't understand that lesson at all" or "I've been working on this concept with this child for a month and he still doesn't seem to get it." THAT is the beginning stages of reflection. However, if we don't spend time focusing and discussing what actually happened we might jump to conclusions. We may only remember those louder students reactions or we may only remember what the child didn't do. Reflective practice involves a systematic approach of collecting, recording, and analyzing our thoughts and observations to make change.
Think about these things:

• If the child didn't understand the concept, think about what we did and how it may have been unclear.
• If the child grasps a concept and is able to use it, think about what went well, describe it, and think about why it was successful.
• If the students didn't understand a lesson, think about what you said, what were the reactions of all the students, and how did you teach it.
• If the students are misbehaving, think about what they were doing, when, and why?

Getting started:
At the end of every lesson: QUESTION:

1. What did you do?
2. Why did you do that?
3. What is effective?
4. How do you feel about that?
5. How did the children respond to the lesson?
6. Why do you think they responded that way?
7. How can you do that lesson better?
8. What will you do tomorrow?

At the end of every day: QUESTION:

1. Did I accomplish what I wanted to today?
2. Was I prepared today?
3. What did I do well and why was it successful?
4. What can I do better and what do I need to do to change it?
5. What was the most important thing I wanted them to learn today? Is there any evidence that they learned it?
6. What did I learn from the kids today?

Lastly, in the book People Skills, Neil Thompson suggests six steps to reflection:

1. Read- Read around the topics you are learning about or want to learn about and develop
2. Ask- Ask others about the way they do things and why
3. Watch-Watch what is going on around you
4. Feel- Pay attention to your emotions, what prompts them, and how do you deal with the negative ones
5. Talk-Share your views and experiences with others
6. Think-Learn to value time spent thinking about your work

Remember, reflection is a natural thing for humans to do. It only takes a little more conscious effort on your part to become a reflective practitioner and improve the learning of both yourself and your students. You may decide to do something a different way, or you may discover proof that what you're doing is the best possible way-and THAT is what reflective practice is all about.