Wednesday 10 August 2011

Thing 5 - Reflective Practice

Reflect on what you've done so far...


Reflective Practice seems to be an integral part of learning. It is also how we continue to learn: from experience, from mistakes, from life in general. "On reflection, I shouldn't have" is a common enough start to a confession of stupidity or admission of wrongdoing. After all, five minutes on the naughty step is enough time to think about your actions and what you've learned from them.

Here are some reflections from my life so far:

"I must be more careful when running down the stairs"; "I should put salt on icy decking before attempting to walk on it"; "I should try not to exacerbate a repetitive strain injury by playing The Sims 2 on my laptop for 6 hours".

There are many more, these are just a few that sprung to mind. On reflection, they're all about preventing personal injury, so make of that what you will. I'm not particularly accident prone (I think) but I am more likely than anyone else I know to do something dim and unintentionally harm myself. It's a miracle I'm allowed out of the house.

Anyway, to get on to what I'm supposed to be rambling about, so far I have enjoyed exploring or rediscovering the things so far. I have also enjoyed reading other people's blogs and feeling part of a wider community of librarian learners (something which I felt was lacking during my distance learning Masters). The necessity to post every week (or at least on every "thing") has encouraged me to write more, and therefore reflect on what I have done. I think I've followed "What? > So What? > Now What?" rather than "Plan > Do > Review" during the cpd23 course, but the second of the two does form the basis for many other projects I am involved in (mostly out of work).

I think it's easy to think of Reflective Practice as something you only do when studying, but we do it all the time. Mostly in the pub. With a gin and tonic. And some chips.

Right, I'm off.

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