Personal development planning

Abstract: What do we mean by reflective practice? What does it involve? How can it help you develop as a teacher? The Teacher’s Reflective Practice Handbook is an essential source of advice, guidance and ideas for both student and practising teachers. Helping you to translate pedagogical knowledge into practice, this Handbook guides you through studying your own teaching for personal development, evaluating your lessons through classroom research, and enhancing the quality of pupil learning. It offers an innovative framework which serves to prepare you for the challenges and complexities of the classroom environment, and supports the continuing improvement of your teaching. Underpinned by key theoretical concepts and contemporary research within the field of education, chapters help you to: systematically evaluate your teaching through classroom research procedures question personal theories and beliefs, and consider alternative perspectives and possibilities try out new strategies and ideas to maximise the learning potential of all students enhance the quality of, and continue to improve, your teaching. Including a range of reflective tasks, links to online resources, exemplification material and further reading to help you develop your own thinking, The Teacher’s Reflective Practice Handbook is an accessible guide which supports the facilitation of reflective practice through self and peer assessment, problem-based learning and personal development planning. The multi-dimensional framework enables you to build a meaningful, personally relevant portfolio of evidence-informed practice.

Abstract: Progress files represent a major policy initiative involving the use of Personal Development Planning (PDP) aimed at the production of autonomous learners who are capable of planning for their own career and personal futures. The paper is organized in three parts and argues for a more critical approach, which locates PDP as part of broader shifts within educational policy and practice. The first part of the paper explores the lack of conceptual clarity associated with the term PDP. It argues that ‘evidence’ of ‘what works’ is unlikely to yield useful knowledge for practitioners as long as this evidence is based on untheorized accounts of PDP. The second part of the paper explores the concept of reflection, which underpins PDP, and argues for greater critical engagement with the conditions of reflection and an understanding of the limitations of reflection. The final part of the paper takes up the broader theme of individualization and returns to the major theme of the paper that the sorts of autonomy that...

Abstract: Reflection, reflective learning, reflective writing and reflective practice are used increasingly in higher education and professional development–but we do not work to one definition and there are considerable differences in the views of educationists on issues of definition. Such discrepancies can exist between the staff working with the same student group. The situation can lead to difficulties in indicating to students how to reflect, and what reflective writing ‘should look like’. Once students do manage to represent their reflection broadly in the required manner (usually writing), there is frequently observed to be a further problem because their reflection is superficial and descriptive. A consequence is that their learning from the reflective process is restricted.This paper addresses the issue of definition of reflection initially through clarifying the different words used around the notion of reflection (e.g., reflection, reflective learning, reflective writing) and providing some suggested definitions. It then addresses the matters both of how we should help students to start with reflection, and with the problem of the superficiality of much of their work. The ‘depth’ of reflection is a concept that has not been much discussed in the literature of reflection and yet it seems to be closely related to the quality of reflective work. The paper discusses the concept of depth and then introduces a style of exercise in which a scenario is reproduced at progressively deeper levels of reflection. The exercise is related to a generic framework for reflective writing. The rationale and justification for the exercise and the framework are discussed and suggestions are made for its manner of use. The exercise and the generic framework for reflective writing are in Appendices 1 and 2.The use of reflection to enhance formal learning has become increasingly common in the past 7 years. From the principle beginnings of its use in the professional development of nurses and teachers, its use has spread through other professions. Now, in the form of personal development planning (PDP), there is an expectation that all students in higher education will be deliberately engaging in reflection in the next 2 years.1 In addition, there are examples of the use of reflective learning journals and other reflective techniques in most, if not all, disciplines.2Reflection is not, however, a clearly defined and enacted concept. People hold different views of its nature, which only become revealed at stages such as assessment. For example, what is it that differentiates reflective writing from simple description? There are difficulties not only with the definition itself but also in conveying to learners what it is that we require them to do in reflection and in encouraging reflection that is deeper than description. In this paper, we consider some issues of definition and then focus on the means of encouraging learners to produce a reflective output of good-enough quality for the task at hand. The latter is presented as an exercise for staff and learners (Appendix 1) with a framework that underpins it (Appendix 2).