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. 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.

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 doesn't work in complex real-life practices)