An embodied perspective on judgements of written reflective practice for professional development in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper gives an embodied perspective on the use of judgements of reflective practice and reflective writing for professional development in Higher Education.Programmes for professional development in Higher Education and recognition processes for academics have become prevalent in the UK and internationally.These programmes and processes often assume, implicitly or explicitly, development or evidencing as a 'reflective practitioner' through pieces of reflective writing which is then judged against competencies or attainments.However, this focus on reflective practice and reflective writing is not always critical, and does not examine the different theoretical and practical interpretations of what it means to reflect, nor the impact of assessing such reflections. Taking an embodied stance allows a new view into a contested area that is more habitually connected with cognitive rather than corporeal processes.Keywords: reflective practice; embodied; professional development From the context of an embodied practitionerReflective practice and reflective writing have become intrinsic within professional practice education and programmes within the UK and internationally. Judgements of reflective writing are used to recognise attainment of certain qualities in programmes for professional development. If reflective practice stems from philosophy (Ryan M. , 2011), most particularly the work of Dewey (1933), then much of the critical approaches to it, and of judgement of it, are also rooted in a Cartesian, disembodied framework that dissociates mind from body, and privileges one over the other.As a lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice teaching on a programme for professional development and an experienced somatic therapist, I have developed an embodied reflexive practice which informs my perceptions and understandings. I use the information from my senses (touch, smell, kinaesthesia, proprioception, sight, imagination, hearing, imagery and internal awareness) to feed into a reflective and reflexive process of understanding myself, the world that surrounds me and others that move within the world. I view my body as the embodiment of me, the physical expression of me within this world. As such I can train, exercise, express and create with it and through it. My reflexive process is "rooted in experiences of I believe that the effectiveness of a reflective practice depends on the data on which the practitioner has to reflect. She needs to be able to pick up on how, when and in what manner what she does impacts on the environment and the people within it, to be aware of how she feels and holds herself within a given situation. This relates directly to my understanding and utilisation of embodiment. For reflective practice I believe that the teacher's attention is focused both inwardly at their own practice, and outwardly at the group around them (Kemmis, 1985). It is the inward focus that I believe vital, as in order to achieve it a practitioner has to access all of the information available to her thro...

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