Reflection Resources

Objectives:

• Identify reflection resources to use in the different disciplines
• Colleges at GCU (education, HASS, STEM)

 Essential Questions:

1. What are some reflection resources one might use in various disciplines?
2. How might the colleges at GCU use reflective practice?

Reflection in Education

            Teachers commonly engage in reflective practice through a variety of formats. Professional learning communities are frameworks many districts use to allow teachers as groups to engage in responding to four reflective questions designed to improve teaching and learning:

1. What do we want each student to learn?
2. How will we know when each student has learned it?
3. How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? (Dufour, 2004).

One example occurs in classrooms on a daily basis. A teacher presents a well-planned instructional unit, but some students do not master the objectives. Due to accountability pressures, the teacher is troubled, not knowing whether to reteach the content or move on to cover content and stay on schedule. In schools with no PLCs in place, the solution is up to the individual teacher. However, in a school with PLCs in place, the teachers come together because they are committed to the learning for all students. Therefore, they collectively reflect to develop strategies designed to make sure all students get needed support, despite who their classroom teacher is.

            Teachers also engage in individual reflection on a daily basis. This reflection be done using the frameworks presented in prior modules, particularly through Brookfield’s lenses. However, on a more simplistic level, each teacher should reflect on questions after a lesson:

1. What went well?
2. What did not go well?
3. What do I need to change before I teach the concept again?

Reflection in the Health Sciences

Reflective thinking is very common in the health sciences. John’s model from an earlier module is used in health care settings. Much like business and education practitioners, those employed in health care professions reflect on things that go wrong at work. However, reflecting on things that go well can also build confidence. Koshy, Limb, Gundogan, Whitehurst, and Jafree (2017) noted that healthcare practitioners are expected to reflect not only while in school, but also in their professional life to revalidate skills and knowledge. While there are several different models (such as those provided in this training), these authors outlined the general process that can be applied to most frameworks:

What happened?

1. How did it make you feel?
2. Why did it happen?
3. What could have been done differently?
4. What will I do differently in the future (how will this change my practice)?
5. In future instances, one then reflects and reinforces this reflective process by pondering whether or not things changed as one would expect them to.  

Applying critical reflection enhances individual lives and professional practice. Mentors and educators in health care professions must inspire these thought processes so that students and practitioners realize that certain circumstances may lead to desirable or undesirable outcomes that have social and political consequences (Papadimos, 2009). Ultimately, reflective thought undertaken by a practitioner should lead to actions that benefit and enhance the welfare of others.

Reflection in Business

One example of reflective practice in business is seen in a course called, “Strategic Analysis and Decision Making (“SADM”) at Girard School of Business and International Commerce of Merrimack College. The course was designed to help seniors develop reflective thinking skills. SDAM offers a reflection-based curriculum built on Schon’s (1983) model (Grinnell & Litven, 2009). The course is facilitated by faculty who guide students through team discussion sessions and peer-assisted learning (PAL). These two approaches are highly interactive and replaced the traditional lecture method. The goal is to provide students with the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills through the application of science and theory. Instead of pure preparation in the facts, theories, and rules of professional practice, the SDAM model allows students to practice business reflectively, and prepare to deal with unexpected, ambiguous situations that happen in the real life workplace. Each week, a team of students presents reading materials, after which the faculty present questions regarding the presentation. The student teams then have 30 minutes to research and prepared answers to the questions. This requires collaboration and use of each team member’s expertise. The course reading materials are comprised of peer-refereed practitioner journal articles and case studies. Students are guided to conceptualize For most students, this is the first time that they are asked to conceptualize business issues at a strategic level, rather than a functional or operational level. When presented with case studies each week, the team identifies strategic problems or issues facing an organization, justifies their application of strategic tools based on information presented in the case and then provides recommendations that will solve or mitigate the problem, followed by a discussion of what leaders should consider when adopting the recommendations. The reflective curriculum provides future business practitioners the opportunity to engage in critical thinking indicative of situations they will face in the workplace (Grinnell & Litven, 2009). Certainly, this reflective practice exercise can also be practiced in daily work as leaders and employees encounter problems in the business setting.

Conclusion

            The process of reflection is quite similar, despite the different professions in which it can be applied. The sources reviewed in these modules indicated that reflection is common in education and healthcare degree programs and workplace settings. Teachers routinely reflect during as part of their own annual evaluation process, but also on a daily basis in their classrooms, as well as, in collaborative structures such as professional learning communities. Health care practitioners, likewise, routinely reflect in their preparation courses through critical incidents, case studies, reflective essays and when developing care plans. Literature on reflection in business settings was difficult to locate; however, the process seems to be developing momentum, both in preparation programs as well as in organizational settings, via case studies and critical incidents. The frameworks presented in this training can help individuals engage in a structured format designed to improve personal lives and professional practice.

Questions:

1. What are the potential benefits of teachers reflecting in collaborative groups?
2. Describe common applications of reflection in health care professions?
3. What are some challenges of reflection in business settings?
4. Describe commonalities of reflection in business, education, and healthcare settings.
5. How might critical incidents or case studies benefit business majors?

References

Grinnell, J. Muise, C. and Litvin, D. (September 2009). Practicing what we teach, teaching what they’ll practice: Developing “reflective practitioners” through a capstone business course. American Journal of Business Education, 2(6), 109-116. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1052641.pdf

Koshy, K., Limb, C., Gundogan, B., Whitehurst, K., & Jafree, D. J. (2017). Reflective practice in health care and how to reflect effectively. International Journal of Surgery. Oncology, 2(6), e20. http://doi.org/10.1097/IJ9.0000000000000020

Papadimos, T. J. (2009). Reflective thinking and medical students: some thoughtful distillations regarding John Dewey and Hannah Arendt. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine: PEHM, 4, 5. http://doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-5

General Resources:

1. Reflective Practice Workshop https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/265159/MEM_ReflectivePracticeHandout_V4_20170616.pdf?sequence=1
2. Reflective Practice and Writing:  A Guide to Getting Started

http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/documents/Reflective.Practice.Writing.Guide20130409JB.pdf

1. Introducing Reflective Learning

http://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/pluginfile.php/159274/mod_resource/content/3/Introducing%20Reflective%20learning%20Ramsey%2C%202006.pdf

1. Reflective Practice

https://www.waikato.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/360861/Reflective-Practice-June-2015.pdf

STEM

1. Blockley, D. I. (1992). Engineering from reflective practice. Research in Engineering Design 4(1). p. 13.
2. Reflection in Learning: Discipline Case Study: Science https://youtu.be/Anuo87syy4Q
3. Reflection (Math). https://youtu.be/G2Cch4oZ0UQ 

Business

1. Reflective Practice Business Video https://www.learningandteachinghub.com/blog/2017/09/11/reflective-practice/
2. Reflective practice for business studies:
3. http://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/mod/page/view.php?id=76092
4. Developing Reflective Practice in Managers: Exploring the Contribution of Management Training https://www.ufhrd.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Ruth-Leggett.pdf
5. Reflective Practice Introductory Series for Business and Law Students. https://youtu.be/DB-QUwoElrI

Education:

1. Brookfield, S.D. (1999). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass.
2. Getting Started with Reflective Practice https://www.cambridge-community.org.uk/professional-development/gswrp/index.html
   1. Sellars, M. (2014). Reflective practice for teachers. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. Chapter 1.
   2. The   Talents of Teaching: A Reflective Practice https://youtu.be/wnaXpbTxEyI
      1. Reflective Practice can be Habit-Forming https://youtu.be/6Uppj877HFA

Nursing

1. Bulman, C., & Schutz, S. (2013). Reflective practice in nursing. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Retrieved at http://zu.edu.jo/UploadFile/Library/E_Books/Files/LibraryFile_151614_52.pdf
2. First steps in reflection: http://rcnhca.org.uk/personal-and-people-development/reflection/
3. A Practical Approach to Promote Reflective Practice within Nursing

https://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/nurse-educators/a-practical-approach-to-promote-reflective-practice-within-nursing/204502.article

1. Driscoll, J. and Teh, B. (2005). The potential of reflective practice to develop individual orthopaedic nurse practitioners and their practice. Journal of Orthopaedic Nursing 5, 95–103. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.737.1246&rep=rep1&type=pdf
2. Reflective practice research in nursing education. https://youtu.be/lQfyQC4Pfq4

Health Care

1. Ng, S.L., Kinsella, E. A., Friesen, F. and Hodges, B. (2015). Reclaiming a theoretical orientation to reflection in medical education research: A critical narrative review. John Wiley & Sons, Medical Education, 49, 461-475.
2. What is reflective practice? https://youtu.be/eHKSR_6aym8