Relocating reflection in the context of practice David Boud University of Technology, Sydney

1. Relocating reflection in the context of practice David Boud University of Technology, Sydney

2. Outline • What is the problem? • Earlier use of reflection • New awareness of ‘practice’ • Changing context of professional practice • Implications for reflection now

3. 1. Why do we need to revisit ideas of reflection? • Become commonplace—do we know what we mean anymore? • Bad habits have become established in courses • A generative idea has become fixed • Needs to be rethought for new circumstances • Be clearer about why we are using the notion

4. 2. Earlier use of reflection • Questionning experience • An individual focus even when others involved • Use in courses sometimes distorted the idea • eg. reflection as recipe following, reflection without learning, over intellectualising reflection and uncritical acceptance of learners’ experience. • Those using reflection with students not necessarily applying it to their own practice • Fundamentally different conceptions of reflection were in use without this being apparent

5. What can we take from this? • Some aspects of what has been called reflection should be rejected (the overly instrumental) • Focus on what it is good for and not over extend its role (ie. for dealing with complex embodied events)

6. 3. New awareness of practice • New conceptualisations of practice; new positioning of practice in knowledge development • the ‘practice turn’ has followed the ‘reflective turn’.

7. Key features of a practice view • Practice is necessarily contextualised • it cannot be readily discussed independently of the settings in which it occurs • Practice is necessarily embodied • it involves whole persons including their motives and feelings, discussion of it in isolation from the person who practices is to misunderstand practice

8. Stages of expertise • Novice • Advanced beginner • Competence • Proficiency • Expertise • Mastery • Practical wisdom (Dreyfus & Dreyfus)

9. 4. Changing context of professional practice • Collective rather than individual nature • Multidisciplinary and, increasingly, transdisciplinary character • Co-production of practice; co-construction of knowledge

10. 5. Implications for rethinking reflection • Notion of productive reflection

11. Elements of ‘productive reflection’ 1. An organisational rather than an individual intent and a collective rather than individual orientation 2. Reflection is necessarily contextualised within work, it connects learning and work 3. It involves multiple stakeholders and connects players 4. It has a generative rather than instrumental focus and a developmental character 5. Reflection is an open, unpredictable process, it is dynamic and changes over time

12. Conclusion • We cannot act only on ideas of reflection from the 1980s • Productive reflection is just one manifestation of what is likely to be much rethinking of reflection • Large task is to examine professional practice and what is needed to sustain reflexive practice for the longer term

13. Some questions for consideration • What does it mean to take the notion of embodied learning seriously, and how might this challenge some of our assumptions about learning for professional practice? • How do we sufficiently account for the realities of practice in the activities that prepare learners for it, and what does this imply for what is highlighted in courses? • How will we deal with reflection in the context of co-construction of knowledge when the partners in the process have radically different power positions and normal conditions for reflection are not obviously met? • How can we bracket the necessary imperative of operationalisation to ensure that a zealous emphasis on procedural requirements does not undermine the very processes we are trying to foster?

14. References Boud, D. and Walker, D (1998). Promoting reflection in professional courses: the challenge of context, Studies in Higher Education, 23, 2, 191-206. Boud, D., Cressey, P. and Docherty, P. (Eds.) (2006). Productive Reflection at Work: Learning for Changing Organizations. Routledge, London. Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (1985). Promoting reflection in learning: a model. In Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (Eds) Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning, Kogan Page, London, 18-40. Dreyfus, H. L. and Dreyfus, S. E. (2005) Expertise in Real World Contexts, Organization Studies, 26, 5, 779–792. Reynolds, M. and Vance, R. (Eds.) (2004). Organizing Reflection. Ashgate, Aldershot. Schatzki, T, Knorr Cetina, K & von Savigny, E (Eds) (2001) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, Routledge, London. Schwandt, T (2005) On modelling our understanding of the practice fields, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 13, 3, 313-332.