“I don’t get it”, – the challenge of teaching reflective practice to health and care practitioners

Abstract

"I don't get it!" -the challenge of teaching reflective practice to health and care practitionersReflective practice is regarded as a fundamental learning tool that encourages the synthesis of theory and skills in health care and written reflective accounts feature heavily in the assessment of skills and development in practice. It is however, a challenging method of teaching and learning for both students and educators and the reflective accounts produced are often superficial descriptions of events rather than evidence of 'reflection in action'. Revisiting writers such as Dewey, Rogers and Schön, I present my own reflective account of teaching health care students to develop reflective thinking and writing and finding ways of using mindfulness and sensory experience to bring reflection-in-action into the classroom. I conclude by suggesting that, as an educator, I have a responsibility to encourage and value subjective experience as evidence of learning.Keywords: reflective practice; teaching; Schon; Dewey; mindfulness; sensory experience IntroductionReflective practice is well established as a key element of learning in a number of professions including teaching, social work, nursing and management (Nelson, 2012) and is cited as 'a valuable learning technique that reinforced the blending of theoretical and applied learning' by the Willis Commission report on the education of nurses (RCN, 2012) however it is a challenging and ill-defined concept that has been subject to question recently for its educational value in producing truly reflective practitioners (Coward, 2014;Rolfe, 2002: Rolfe, 2014 I have been teaching current and prospective healthcare practitioners on a number of modules during the last year and have tried to embed reflective thinking and writing throughout my teaching and assessment activities. With every group I have noticed that encouraging students to move from the academically preferred objective, evidence-based writing to offering a subjective and emotionally rich account of their learning has been challenging. I aim to present my observations of this experience and, drawing from Dewey, Rogers and Schön, who were influential in my own development as a novice practitioner, I offer some ideas about making reflective thinking more effective in the classroom. As a reflective practitioner myself, I am conscious that the classes I teach are my 'research events' and the knowledge I gain from them broadly follows a hierarchy of evidence proposed by Rolfe (2002), including personal knowledge, experiential knowledge and propositional knowledge rather than empirically tested domains. In the tradition of humanistic approaches to learning, this account will also reflect my belief that I work to facilitate the process of learning and enquiry rather than working to secure outcomes (Rogers, 1977in Kirschenbaum & Henderson, 1990. The nature of reflective practiceThe agreement across the literature on reflective practice in health and care appears to be that, whilst considered essential, there are no cl...

Curriculum content and assessment of pre‐clinical dental skills: A survey of undergraduate dental education in Europe

“…Less commonly reported were skills that indirectly related to patient care, such as communication skills and working as a team. Less than half of institutions reported teaching reflective practice, and the difficulties of successfully doing so are well documented by Colette Eaton …”

Learning inter-professional teamwork during university studies: a case study of student-teachers’ and social work students’ shared professional experiences

“…Körkkö, Kyrö-Ämmälä and Turunen 2016). The problem in 'teaching' reflective thinking is that educators cannot focus on mechanical experiences but, rather, on subjective experiences, as valid evidence of learning (Eaton 2016).…”

“…The reflection process highlights the fact that human actions and interpretations of reality are often illogical and unpredictable by nature (Kinsella 2010). Thus, teaching students to become reflective practitioners requires supervisors encouraging the students to be curious inquirers of their experiences, valuing the subjective nature of reflection and trusting the students' capacity to draw meaning from their experiences and display it in multiple ways (Eaton 2016).…”

Sailing through social LA GRRAACCEESS: tool for deconstructing and facilitating reflective and reflexive practice

“…Reflective practice has not only attracted debate and discussion on the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice (Moon, 2013), but also notable confusions, challenges, difficulties and uninformed understandings (Eaton, 2016;Fook, White, & Gardner, 2006). Given the importance of reflective practice and challenges of integrating or engaging reflections into professional practice, there is considerable scope for developing and enhancing reflection into professional practice.…”