Reflective Practice

For the AlphaPlus staff team, the most exciting part of this work was the reflective practice process we used. We found having the time and space to ask questions that we knew we could not answer opened us up to thinking about our work in very different ways.

We talked about creating a reflective practice guide instead of a case notes guide, but considering how stretched many LBS practitioners are in their work, wondered if a guide is the best approach. Perhaps what is needed is something that will highlight why reflective practice is important and a good thing to do. It is valuable work, even if it is unreportable. It is what makes the profession great. Many people are doing it; that needs to be honoured. Reflective practice shouldn’t be a secret.

We want to celebrate the unreportable work that practitioners do. We started by putting together some resources about improving practice through reflection. We will expand on this work in 2019/2020.

Our coaching with LBS educators has pointed AlphaPlus to a need some LBS educators have as they integrate technology for learning into the curriculum. They want to move beyond computer basics and develop opportunities for LBS learners to enhance their ability to create, communicate, collaborate and apply critical thinking skills in a digitally interconnected world but this takes planning and experimentation. As they say in design thinking – problem definition is the hard part, ideation is the easy part, and prototype testing is the scary part. Educators need support in order to work though the iterative process of planning, research, experimentation, reflection, evaluation and revision.

Our work on the case notes project and our investigation of reflective practice methodologies will inform our work with practitioners as they plan, create, develop, adapt, transform and evaluate blended learning and the use of digital resources and tools for learning.

In 2019/2020, AlphaPlus will work with a cohort of LBS educators to