Developing as a Reflective Early Years Professional: A Thematic Approach - Softcover

Hayes, Carol; Daly, Jayne; Duncan, Mandy; Hudson, Ruth; Whitehouse, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1911106228 ISBN 13: 9781911106227

Publisher: Routledge, 2017

Synopsis

Provides an accessible yet critical approach to key themes within the early years, with a focus throughout on reflective practice.

It starts by examining theories and research into the nature of reflection, how it can be used and how it can improve practice and produce a more responsive and thoughtful, research-based workforce for young children and their families. A range of themes, including global childhood poverty, observation and assessment, leadership, and multi-professional working, are then explored, highlighting the importance and application of reflection throughout these areas of research and practice.

This new edition includes two completely new chapters on reflecting on work-based learning and reflecting on children’s play and creativity. Information on mentoring and on the position of men in early years higher education has also been added. Greater depth and challenge is provided through extended thinking questions and extended reflections at the end of each chapter.

About this title

About the Author

Carol Hayes worked in early years for over 40 years as a teacher and tutor. She most recently worked at Staffordshire University as a principal lecturer and academic group leader where she helped to develop a thriving early childhood studies department with programmes from Foundation Degrees to Masters. Her specialist area is cognitive development, language, literacy and communication. Her main research interests are dyslexia and communication difficulties and graduate teaching assistants in the workforce.

Jayne Daly has worked in early years for the past 25 years as a nursery officer (NNEB), an early years manager and tutor. Throughout her professional practice she has worked within the public care, health and education sectors. Her desire to ‘give something back’ to those new to providing positive outcomes for young children and their families pushed her forward into teaching within the higher education sector at Staffordshire University. She now teaches within the early childhood studies department at the University of Wolverhampton.

Mandy Duncan began her career as a nursery nurse 15 years ago, before training as a teacher. She worked initially with young children in primary schools in both inner city and rural areas and later with young people aged 14-19 in a further education college. She has been a lecturer in higher education for the last four years teaching on BA (Hons) and MA Early Childhood Studies and BA (Hons) Childhood & Youth Studies. She is currently engaged in doctoral research with young people undergoing child protection proceedings.

Ruth Gill's experience with children started as a children’s nanny to bereaved families and progressed to working in a Further Education based nursery as an assistant. She quickly progressed to management but continued to study at HE level. Teaching in HE allows her to share her passion for quality interactions between staff and children with a wide audience of new and experienced practitioners.

Ann Whitehouse started her career as an NNEB and worked for a number of years in nursery education. More recently, she has worked as an Early Years lecturer in FE and played an integral role in developing a Foundation Degree in Early Years for experienced practitioners. Most recently she was a Senior Lecturer at Staffordshire University, working with full-time and part-time students on Early Childhood Studies programmes and Award Leader for the Foundation Degree. Her specific interests are related to the development of early years' pedagogy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Developing as a Reflective Early Years Professional

A Thematic Approach

By Carol Hayes, Jayne Daly, Mandy Duncan, Ruth Gill, Ann Whitehouse

Critical Publishing Ltd

Copyright © 2017 Carol Hayes, Jayne Daly, Mandy Duncan, Ruth Gill and Ann Whitehouse
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-911106-22-7

Contents

Praise for the first edition, 
Meet the authors, 
Foreword by Kathy Brodie, 
1 The nature of reflective practice Carol Hayes, 
2 Writing for reflection Ruth Gill, 
3 Critical friends: the reflective facilitators Ann Whitehouse, 
4 Reflecting on work-based learning Ruth Gill and Ann Whitehouse, 
5 Reflecting on the transition from vocational practice to university study Jayne Daly, 
6 Reflection informed by observation and assessment Carol Hayes, 
7 Reflecting on emotionally enabled practice Ruth Gill, 
8 Reflecting on racism in predominantly white settings Mandy Duncan, 
9 Reflecting on global childhood poverty Mandy Duncan, 
10 Reflecting upon childhood, creativity and play Jayne Daly, 
11 The reflective leader Jayne Daly, 
12 Reflecting on the multi-professional team Carol Hayes, Mandy Duncan and Ann Whitehouse, 
13 Reflection and change Carol Hayes, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The nature of reflective practice

CAROL HAYES

Harry stared at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery-white state swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.

'What is it?' Harry asked shakily.

'This? It is called a Pensieve,' said Dumbledore. 'I sometimes find, and I am sure that you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.'

'Err,' said Harry who couldn't truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.

'At these times,' said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, 'I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.'

(J K Rowling, 2000)

What is reflection?

Can you swim? When you go to the swimming pool do you dive in with a flourish or do you lower yourself into the water carefully and with trepidation? Are you comfortable at the deep end where you cannot put your feet down or do you wade in slowly ensuring that you know how to get back?

Reflection is a little like this. You can lean over the pool looking at the blue water glistening in the sunlight and see your reflection looking back at you and while the pool is not disturbed your image is clear and easy to see. Once other people enter the pool the water starts to move and ripple and your reflection gets more difficult to assess. When children enter the water, the splashing and energy with which they engage makes it even harder to see your reflection clearly.

When you see your reflection in the water do you say

• Oh look there's me, or

• Is this what I want to be like?

When you look into the water do you see who you expect to see or can you see someone else at your shoulder? Those of you who are confident swimmers, like confident practitioners, are happy to take the plunge and accept the challenges of the deep water with no armbands or life jacket. As you dive in, the water opens up for you to see as you explore the depths of the pool, touching the bottom, perhaps gathering new things from the floor of the pool. These practitioners perfect their style and levels of confidence by listening to friends and instructors, talking to others who have observed them and perhaps reading about how water is displaced, aerodynamic shapes, speed and velocity.

However, most of us slip gingerly into the cold pool, putting a toe into the water of reflective practice; needing instructors to keep us afloat and to help us to take our feet off the bottom, change our style and review our practices.

It is common to hear early years practitioners say:

• We can do the job so why do we need to do more?

• I have been in the job for the last 30 years and have vast experience; I do not need to do more.

• Forget about what you were taught in college. This is the real world!

Sylva et al (2004) documented, in The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) Project, that early years settings run by critically reflective, well-qualified staff were more effectively run, more reflective and more open to change and challenge. The evidence for the importance of reflective practice is so compelling that it cannot be ignored any more.

Like the experienced swimmer and diver, the reflective practitioner is the one with vision, the ability to judge the depth of the water, the temperature of the water and the content of the water and has creative flair as they dive. With this ability they are able to be responsive and creative in their practice. The experienced swimming instructor is there to take you by the hand and guide you through further training, which will give you better understanding, develop your confidence and resilience and encourage your reflection upon events, critical incidents and experiences past, present and future. So too is a book like this designed to take you through the processes and hold your hand when the reflection appears scary, to raise your levels of confidence and your image as an advanced practitioner.

Reflection could be considered a synonym for 'thought process' which involves looking back at events and asking questions, looking forward and crystal ball gazing. Reflection involves a self-assessment or self-appraisal of practice and competence at a given time and in a given situation. It is about looking for learning points within the reflection, about striving for better understanding and eventually identifying future developmental needs.

Is there really a definition?

The original definition of reflection in education probably came from Dewey (1933), who discusses reflection in the light of professionalism, and this was developed further by Schön (1983), into a process he called 'reflective practice'. How often have you heard the phrase That's all very well in theory but what about here in the nursery, what use is that here in the real world? from practitioners looking for real solutions to real problems? However, Schön (1983) saw this as a serious misunderstanding of the relationship of theory to practice. He thought that attributing to professionals' knowledge and autonomy in their work granted them extraordinary rights and privileges in return for their very special contribution to society. His concern about this led to his idea that there are two types of reflection: reflection on action and reflection in action.

Reflection on action

Reflection on action is looking back, so it can only be done retrospectively, once the situation has happened and a possible solution has been found. This then involves asking questions such as:

• Are these the right solutions?

• Are there other solutions?

• What would be the consequences if different solutions had been found?

If you are a driver you could liken this to replaying a 'near miss' in your mind; as a practitioner this is perhaps an incident with a parent that was not resolved satisfactorily – the scenario of If only I had....

Reflection in action

As a concept this is more debatable, and you could question whether it is even possible to reflect while entrenched within the situation. Remaining with the analogy of the driver there are times when actions are unconscious, for example changing gears and braking. For the practitioner this might be routines such as reading a story or serving a meal. You do them automatically, but reflecting in action is when you switch to conscious mode and start to 'think on your feet'. This might involve changing the activity in response to a new situation which has occurred and drawing more consciously on a range of familiar strategies. Schön's representation of reflection could perhaps appear to be somewhat simplistic or account insufficiently for the context and background of the reflection. Moon (1999) questions whether it is even achievable to reflect at the time and suggests that you need to step away from the situation and look back in context and time. However, looking back into the past can be limited by perception and what you remember, and if you ask several people what they remember about the same incident they will often 'remember' it differently. Psychologists such as Schacter (2001) have shown that the further away in time you are from a situation the less you remember about it and, more disturbingly, you may even appear to remember things related to the event that never transpired. Interestingly, in the legal system this is readily recognised and statements relating to an incident are known to be more accurate if they are taken as soon as possible or within 24 hours of the incident taking place (HSE, 2003). Schacter (2001) believes that there is a common misunderstanding that the memory is like a video or photograph, reproducing an experience. He reported that memory is more about active construction. The problem, according to Schacter (2001) is not storing information but retrieving it. He showed that the things that we block out are often the things that are often those with which we are most familiar and the link between recall and creativity is a powerful one. This could be attributed to the fact that the same areas of the brain responsible for memory are also responsible for the imagination. Schacter (2001) showed that incorrect responses to memories increase exponentially with the passage of time even when given by a competent professional under favourable conditions, so completely accurate recall is rare. Schacter (2001) talked about the 'Seven Sins of Memory':

1. Transience – the weakening of memory over time.

2. Absent minded – the breakdown of the interface between attention and memory.

3. Blocking – temporary failures of retrieval.

4. Misattribution – assigning memories to the wrong source (incorrectly remembering trivia that you read, to a 'fact' that a colleague told you).

5. Suggestibility – memories implanted by others, leading questions or suggestions (Schacter (2001) believes this to be the most dangerous).

6. Bias – how current knowledge and beliefs affect how we remember events.

7. Persistence – recalling things we would like to forget.

This response to memory, according to the HSE (2003), can also be influenced by the practitioner's own values, culture, education, age, prejudices and assumptions. This emphasises the importance of reflecting upon the 'here and now' and even reflecting into the future, that is, on what you would like to happen, with a commitment to your extended professionalism. The more you do something, the more routine an activity is, the less likely you are to think about it, so activities in the nursery such as toileting, meal times and greeting times are often taken for granted and less likely to be put under the spotlight of scrutiny and reflection. The process of choosing which activities to reflect upon can also be a difficult one, with practitioners often feeling that small events or routines are not worthy of close examination, wanting to reflect upon large projects, major incidents and key moments in the day. Frequently you may want to reflect upon things that went wrong, debating how they could have been better or how they could be avoided, but it is as important to reflect upon the things that you do well, and consider why they are so good and what makes them this way. In the things that go well you can see good practice that could be replicated in other contexts and used as solutions to the difficult moments or to help other situations that you find more challenging. It is important to reflect upon good practice to ensure that it remains so, and that it is challenged from time to time as groups change, systems change and contexts are different. Could the good practice be 'even better practice' or even 'outstanding practice'? The process of reflection in action, therefore, really means thinking about your assumptions and the everyday things that you take for granted. This does not imply that you need change for the sake of change, but that you develop a deeper understanding of your own practice and of why you do the things in the way that you do, that is to seek a rationale for their existence.

The whole concept of reflection moved on from Dewey and Schön, and Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985) describe reflection as:

an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it.

(p 43)

This is clearly a much broader and more fluid description and like Moon (1999) it equates reflection with learning. Moon (1999) suggests that you can reflect upon things for which there is not necessarily an obvious solution, and associates reflection with a range of feelings which can be emotional and even spiritual, but certainly a part of the mental processing. Moon (1999) also develops the concept of reflection by emphasising the purposive nature of the process. You usually reflect upon something in order to have an outcome, a solution, so it becomes a processing of knowledge, understanding and emotion:

a form of mental processing with a purpose and/or anticipated outcome that is applied to relatively complex or unstructured ideas for which there is no obvious solution.

(Moon, 1999, p 23)

Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) brought into the process the concept of analysis, ie that reflection starts with an element of curiosity, of asking questions and questioning accepted assumptions:

through reflection and analysis we strive to understand the experience.

(p 23)

Ruch (2002), like Schön, saw the importance of theory and research to the reflective process. She saw that practitioners are often reluctant to see research in the light of real experiences and tend to dismiss them as theoretically remote, impracticable and unusable. This builds upon Schön (1983) who talked about the 'technical rationality' where knowledge is divorced from experience, and the values and understanding that underpin practice are never questioned. Some practitioners believe that this is the way that it has always been done and do not question whether it is still appropriate despite possible changes to the team, changes in customer expectation, changes to the physical fabric of the setting or changes of local and national politics and policy over the years.

The reflective process

The human brain probably processes some 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts every day. As we encounter difficulties and problems in our daily lives we consult what Raelin (2002) calls our 'solution database', which contains all the elements that we have learned in the past to find answers to everyday problems. Of course accepting this means that there is a finite number of possible solutions and no elements of the database will enable us to tackle new, and so far unencountered, problems. This method of problem solving does not allow you to think 'outside the box'. However, by thinking about thinking and other such metacognitive processes, by reflecting on your thoughts and those of others, you are able to add to your 'solution database', to expand ideas and give new meaning to old ideas and older situations. Clearly this type of personal reflection demonstrates great benefit to professional practice, enabling new solutions, creative ideas and imaginative, resourceful thinking to flow into settings. By sharing your reflections with others you open up your thoughts and assumptions to public scrutiny and public examination, but this also allows your thinking to incorporate the ideas of others and you can thereby learn from your actions.

Every situation you may find yourself in will be different – different contexts, different employment cultures, different relationships and so on. Although your existing 'solution database' can lead you in certain directions and give clues for solutions, if no two situations are the same then it is likely that no two solutions will be the same either. This implies that, as you look at a new situation, you need to look for similarities with what you have already experienced, but you also need to look at the differences.

So you should put into the reflective process what you already know or believe, but add new material from your observations, from research, from peers, colleagues and even the children and families in your care, and then draw out something that relates to the reason for that reflection in the first place.

Grushka, Hinde-McLeod and Reynolds (2005) bring in a further suggestion of 'reflection for action'. This they describe as prospective reflection, and some refer to this as crystal ball gazing, allowing the practitioner to consider where they want to be in the future, reflection upon future developments, meeting perceived needs or career planning. However, the crystal ball gazing should not be so introspective that it becomes navel gazing, which narrows the process to such an extent that it ceases to take account of the wider context and the epigenesis (that is the bi-directional relationship) between the environment and the person. Prospective reflection can be likened to looking through a holiday brochure before you go away. You get ideas of what it might be like, what you might do, or who you might meet. It is like superimposing yourself into the picture and imagining the feelings, actions and experiences that will ensue, enabling you to be more prepared when you finally meet with this experience in the future.

So what is reflective practice?

Reflective practice requires practitioners who already see themselves as active researchers and learners, who explore their values and benefits and regularly set learning goals for themselves and their settings. It is about looking beyond reflection to a wider context which incorporates care and education in a political sphere, the curriculum, pedagogy and innovation. Not all practitioners are reflective learning practitioners and for many the learning stopped when they left formal education with their licence to practice. This is often evident in the quality of their practice and the experiences that they offer to the children in their care as well as their resistance to change and a change culture, as highlighted by the Nutbrown Review (2012).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Developing as a Reflective Early Years Professional by Carol Hayes, Jayne Daly, Mandy Duncan, Ruth Gill, Ann Whitehouse. Copyright © 2017 Carol Hayes, Jayne Daly, Mandy Duncan, Ruth Gill and Ann Whitehouse. Excerpted by permission of Critical Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1911106228
• ISBN 13: 9781911106227
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 280