Reflective practice

Abstract

Reflective practice is the skill of being able to monitor and evaluate one’s own behaviour and practice critically as a learning experience. By acting critically towards one’s own performance an increased awareness of relevancy and scope is gained. As real-life situations are often messy and uninterpretable at first glance, it makes the application of systematic approaches challenging. By being in constant conversation with the context, one’s past experiences and behaviour understanding can be achieved and theories become applicable once more. Therefore it’s a crucial competence to any professional dealing with high levels of complexity or uncertainty.

By utilizing reflective practice, one moves from otherwise inexplainable professional artistry to repeatable, developable rationale. This is achieved by drawing upon the present and past situations to create solutions and experiments unique to the experienced context. Through active inquiry, the professional will then move tacit knowledge towards conscious thought processes.

“There is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the use of research-­based theory and technique. In the swampy lowlands, problems are messy and confusing and incapable of technical solutions. The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern.”

Introduction

While being an important skill for every position, it’s most critical in situations of high uncertainty like those managers and designers often find themselves in. The reader will find that most sources often regard these professions or their education. Nevertheless, it's fundamentally applicable to any position where the context provides complexity beyond systematic approaches

This article will cover the fundamental theory of reflective practice, its history and its application in current occupations

Big idea

Theory

What is:

- Professional artistry

- Knowing-in-action(Schön)/tacit knowledge(Michael Polanyi)

- Reflection-in/on-action

History

Inherent tie to education (Taught systematic approaches that don't work in complex real-life practices)