How have I applied Boud's insight about refelction to my own practice??

Paula asked me the above question after she read the piece I had written on Boud 'Journal: A Critical Reflection'.  It made me realise that my weakness is definitely relating everything back to me and asking...'How has this affected my Professional Practice?' 'How can I use the methods within my own Personal Reflection?'

I am usually quite good at looking at a piece of work and analysing it, however especially if I am to do well on this course I need to always link it back to ME!! How does it affect me? How can these theories apply to my Proofessional Practice?

So, with this I decided to look at the piece I had written about Boud and think about how his insights and theories relate to my own Professional Practice and methods of Reflection?

Boud places equal or more emphasis on reflection-on-action and I feel this is because Journal Writing often falls into this 'offline' method of reflection.  I have never really written a Journal prior to this course, but as I mentioned in a previous blog it is really helping me to reflect on my day to day events.  More than anything it is helping me to organise my thoughts and process them into some sort of logical order - REFLECTION!!

Throughout the article he mainly focuses on the three 'Occasions of Reflection' - reflection before, during and after an event.  I realised that I almost always reflect before an event.  I am very much a planner and like to feel fully prepared for all eventualities. I hate turning up to something and not having the right equipment or not having made the necessary preparations.  I always take the event and try to think of every possible eventuality (although this is never going to be fully possible).  I write a list of anything I may need, ask people who may have experienced a similar event any advice they can give, plan my journey way in advance etc... I would often take every type of shoe imaginable to an audition, 'just in case'!! 

Being a performer I feel it is a given that we reflect midst action.  It is instinctive within us to reflect-in-action, we adpat in the now and this is a very hands on method that Boud describes as difficult to achieve but with the greatest benefits.  Take for example mid show....I realised that a performer had urgently left the stage and therefore the formation was now incorrect. Rather than leave a huge gap, which would be noticeable to the audience, I moved to compensate for the missing performer.  These type of reactions are instinctive within performers, and without realising we are constantly reflecting. An audiences reaction can often determine how you adapt mid show. For example, if it seems that the audience are really not responding you do not wait until the end of a show, you try anything you can to get that connection back. You up the energy levels, try to gain audience interaction if possible etc...

Previously I would reflect after the event by using notes given by the Dance Captain. I would look at my notes and think how can I improve on these for next time? Usually they were things I knew but did not have time to reflect-in-action on them.  The Journal is now my new, main method of reflection after the event, although the Journal will also help me before and during events.  The evaluation method is really helping to promote successful reflection for me.  It helps me to see what was good/bad about the day and how to get the best outcome should the event happen again.  Boud describes that there are 3 parts to 'Reflection after the event' - Returning to the experience, Attending to Feelings and Re-evaluating the experience.  When attending to feelings Boud describes how Journals can be used much more creatively in this way.  I haven't tried this yet but intend to experiment with poems, colour and more expressive syles of writing, as often feelings cannot be dealt with in a 'black and white' way. 

Boud's assumption on Reflection: 'You have to be fully engaged with events and be ACTIVE in order to learn from your experiences'.  This is something I definitely always strive to do.  I am a firm believer in 'you get out what you put in'.  I try to give as much as I can to every aspect of my life in order to get the most out of my experiences and I hope that in doing this I will truly learn from all of my day to day experiences :)