Tools for critical reflection
description
Transcript of Tools for critical reflection
Tools for critical reflection
Martin Locock
20 September 2010
Objectives
•Understand critical thinking and critical reflection
•Apply a range of techniques to enhance reflection
•Identify future actions to improve performance
Critical thinking and critical reflection
Critical thinking“active interpretation and evaluation of observations” awareness of one’s own thoughts and behaviour [‘meta awareness’]Present focus
Critical reflectionpurposeful thought about experience to understand and learn for the futurePast focus
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/critical1.htm
Mezirow’s transformational learning
Learning that leads one to review past experience and assumptions
Exercise 1: time allocation
How much of your time is spent:
•preparing for activity
•doing activity
•reviewing activity
Planning10%
Activity80%
Review10%
Planning35%
Activity60%
Review5%
Planning25%
Activity60%
Review15%
Type A
Living in the present
Hurry sickness?
Type B
Planning/doing
Type C
Plan/Do/Reflect
Reflection on time use
• How much time spent doing is wasted?• How much time spent planning is
wasted?• How much time spent reflecting is
wasted?
• Whose permission do you need to change your time use?
Hurry sickness: symptoms• Never finish things properly• Miss important meetings and
deadlines• Drive fast and arrive late• Do many things at once• No time for relaxation or exercise• Take work home routinely
Hurry sickness: treatment
• Time management techniques?• Do something you enjoy every day• Spend 20 minutes outside every day• Align work on your priorities• Use your leisure time constructively
• See PSMW Boniwell powerpoint
Critical reflection
Self awareness - the internal narrative
Becoming self-aware in real time
Critical reflection -
what did I learn?
what did I do well?
Building a routine
Critical friends
What is a critical friend?
Someone who will assist your personal development over the medium term
Provides: trust, support, honesty, time = friend
And: challenge, measure progress = critical
Not: information, advice, negative comments
Who makes a good critical friend?
Not your boss
Not your best friend
Who?
Exercise 2: free writing : A current problem
Free writing is a technique that allows you to follow a line of thought without self-editing and will often end by exposing an insight of which you were not consciously aware.
•Select an issue (a current problem you are facing)
•Start writing what you think or feel about it
•Don’t worry about structure, spelling or layout
•Keep the pen moving across the page
•Don’t go back to correct or erase
Feedback?
Exercise 3: Reflecting on an insight / writing a haiku
Japanese form, three lines, 5 / 7 / 5 syllables
Can have a title
Must have two parts, often marked by : two different aspects of something (outside/inside, event/analysis)
Can seem mundane
First autumn morning
The mirror I stare into
Shows my father’s face
Contract with the new day
I'll do honour toThe thing inside myself that'sGreater than my self
Writing a haikuSubject: an insight or experience from
the last 12 months
•Find a thought 3 minutes•Write it down as a phrase•First draft (title last) 5 minutes•Quick revision 2 minutes•Final version: reading
Judging your poem
•Does it contain a truth?
•Does it express that truth?
•Does it communicate that truth?
Irrelevant questions:
•Is the idea new?
•Is the idea one you are committed to?
•Would someone else have written it differently?
Critical reflection toolbox
•Routine
•Critical friend
•Free writing
•Haiku
Reviewing current status and identifying key areas
How happy are you with your current state of mind? How committed are you to change? To what extent do you engage in critical reflection? What reflective practices do you use? How far are you self aware in the moment?
Action plan
By tomorrow I will have ... By the end of next week I will have ... By the end of next month I will have ... My critical friend is ...
Conclusion
•Time
•Self-awareness
•Reflection
•Action plan