Curtis – reflective practice

I would define and describe reflective practice as a teacher’s process of research, gathering the details of what’s unfolding with children, slowing down to really marvel and notice what children are doing and collecting that information in some way for study through notes or photos or videos. And then looking at those traces of children’s activities, interactions, play to think through them, to make meaning of what’s going on. And I think you make meaning in different ways.  You do that with other people, your co-workers, with parents, with other professionals and also with the professional literature, like reading research and things about learning theory and brain development.   

And so, that process of collecting and studying and then deepening your own understanding. It’s not necessarily you do something right away with what you’ve learned but I think over time you develop a habit of mind to deeply appreciate children and to see what are all the possible ways I might respond or interact to extend or to enhance these experiences we’re having together. So, it’s not about finding a right answer. It’s about finding all the possibilities and using real life practice as the source of what you study and then finding different ways to make meaning.  

And then you do choose, you choose what you’re going to do based on those things and sometimes you do it in the moment and hopefully with some thoughtfulness because you’ve been practicing that away from the moment. And then sometimes you make plans that are longer term; now I’m going to try this next week and see what happens. So that’s how I would define reflective practice.