The month of May is dedicated
to Ongoing Learning and Reflective Practice. Over the course of the month we
will be sharing links and information that will support your understanding and
practice with Ongoing Learning and Reflective Practice.These links will be
'archived' in this blog post which will be updated to include the full listing.
We are operating in this way so that we can support you in
your role as Educational Leader - or you may not be an Educational Leader, but
simply an educator who is striving to better understand reflective practice.
Principle 5 of the Early Years Learning Framework: Ongoing
Learning and Reflective Practice.
"Reflective practice is a form of ongoing learning that
involves engaging with questions of philosophy, ethics and practice. Its
intention is to gather information and gain insights that support, inform and
enrich decision-making about children’s learning. As professionals, early
childhood educators examine what happens in their settings and reflect on what
they might change.
Critical reflection involves closely examining all aspects
of events and experiences from different perspectives. Educators often frame
their reflective practice within a set of overarching questions, developing
more specific questions for particular areas of enquiry.
Overarching questions to guide reflection include:
• What are my understandings of each child?
• What theories, philosophies and understandings shape and
assist my work?
• Who is advantaged when I work in this way? Who is
disadvantaged?
• What questions do I have about my work? What am I
challenged by? What am I curious about? What am I confronted by?
• What aspects of my work are not helped by the theories and
guidance that I usually draw on to make sense of what I do?
• Are there other theories or knowledge that could help me
to understand better what I have observed or experienced? What are they? How
might those theories and that knowledge affect my practice?"
(DEEWR, 2009 p. 13)
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From Facebook: 5th of May 2014
Continuing on with this month's theme ... Ongoing Learning and Reflective Practice ...
Here's a resource from Victoria:
"About this guide: This guide is part of a series of eight guides to the Practice Principles in the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF).
This guide aims to support early childhood professionals to engage in reflection in their work. The guide will support you to reflect alone or with a mentor, critical friend, with families, children and with other professionals. The guide can also be used as part of a regular cycle of meetings that support learning communities.
Reflective practice is integral to quality improvement. It is a continuous process that over time leads to better outcomes for every child and family. It takes time and effort to embed it in daily practice.
Reflective practice starts with taking time to think more carefully about what you, how you do it and why. Reading this guide and using it to support conversations with others will help you along the way.
The guide draws on the Evidence Paper for Practice Principle 8: Reflective Practice written for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development by the University of Melbourne. For detail about the evidence mentioned in this guide, and for more depth on this practice principle refer to the evidence paper."
Written by Dr Anne Kennedy and Anne Stonehouse for
the Early Childhood Strategy Division, Department of
Education and Early Childhood Development.
Melbourne
January 2012
© State of Victoria (Department of Education
and Early Childhood Development) 2012
Our Links: To Be Continued ...
