Reflection before this
course was something I thought of as a past time, used in our personal lives to
learn from the past and move on from it. I have never before thought of it as a
professional technique. Which is strange considering we should do the same in
our careers as we do our personal lives. Look back at the past and learn from
it, improve, grow and try not to make the same mistakes again!
But just what should
we reflect on? The day to day? The past? It’s hard to decipher and sort our
experiences into some kind of organised pile, which we can dig through and
decide what is relevant and what is not. I suppose the easiest answer to that
is “we learn from ALL experiences”
“We are saying that
being out in the world, having experience plus reflecting are the
means by which you can
start to come across new ideas, the means by which you can learn something
new.” Reader Page 4
The above paragraph is
very relevant I think to students doing the BAPP course.
Dewey commented, “The
quality of the education was linked to
The level of
engagement with, and consciousness of the experience.” I tend to agree with
this comment as most students perform better after being taught by a capable
teacher and have more of an interest for the subject as teaching is not only
about teaching the knowledge of certain subject but a passion and understanding
aswell.
Kolb’s learning cycle is
an interesting tool, as it has no beginning or end, it doesn’t define where you
start or finish your learning. I also agree with this as learning is
continuous, it’s hard to pin point where you started, your studies, experiences
and reflection are all vital parts of the wheel.
Hi Nina,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that we learn from all experiences. Treating experience (singular) as something that we incur every day of our lives, whether than be social or professional, every one of us has life experience to share and perhaps an opinion or perspective to communicate.
The old saying "you learn something new every day" comes in to play in a big way. Reflection allows us to stop, look back and understand exactly what our experience has taught us and how we can improve our experience in the future ("turning my experience into learning" Boud, 2001 Reader 2, page 3).
My biggest learning on this course so far has been that of, as you say it has "no beginning or end". It is a continuous process of acknowledging your feelings, evaluating, analysing, concluding, actioning your plan to then continue to acknowledging your feelings, evaluating etc. I love the fact that you can join the cycle at any stage relevant to you at a specific time and that you don't have to stop and decide "what next?", you continue...
I hope everything's going well for you Nina.
Best Wishes,
Jo