I see reflective practice as an important part of not only our professional, but personal development. It provides an opportunity to review the experiences we have, learning from them and applying what we have learnt.
I really like this quote from the thing 5 post on the CPD23 blog. I had these two elements in mind when I was thinking about what I would write for this post. My personal and professional reflective practice takes on two quite different forms.
Waikawa Beach
You are currently reading the output of my personal reflective practice. For me blogging is the most effective and cathartic way of processing my thoughts on events I have attended, new technologies and other issues concerning the profession.
The reflective practice I do as part of my job is much more formal. It follows the plan, do, review process. I’d like to say it happens with everything I’m working on but to be realistic I only get the chance to reflect in this formal way when working on big projects. The example which springs to mind is library inductions. Following last year’s inductions I set about conducting a review of the provision in my team. I joined forces with a colleague who was reviewing the central library induction programme and we started planning changes for this year. At present we’re in the doing stage and I’m spending the majority of my time editing video content. Built in to the programme we have a review process which focuses on feedback from students who attend the induction sessions and staff who deliver them. With this information we can start the whole process again and set about making things even better for subsequent years.
