Thing 5

Thing 5 should have been done the week beginning 28th May so I am about four things behind.  It is ironic that Thing 5 is all about reflective practice which is what I find most difficult; not the actual process in itself, but actually stopping and taking the time to think about what I have learned from a  particular training opportunity or from reading a particular article etc.  It does seem that I hurtle from one thing to another without actually pausing to think and I can honestly say that this has been the hardest part of my chartership.  I looked with interest at a proforma  on Googledocs used by @joeyanne to critically evaluate and reflect on the impact of events, reading, projects etc as part of her chartership and then how it becomes part of her overall spreadsheet linking to her PPDP.  It was really good and I can see why others on Twitter have adopted and adapted it for their own practices, although as I am someway into both my chartership and my blog I shall continue my rambling.

The original purpose of this blog was to 'chart' the progress of my chartership and it has definitely helped to focus and get down in writing what I have 'done' this past year or so and hopefully will help me when I begin to write up my portfolio (which I should have started already according to my mentor), but again I think I am too busy 'doing' and not stopping to reflect.  I am not too naive to think that this practice is only limited to schools (where I work), but a product of most people's workplace and I certainly believe that our working habits, knowledge and applied understanding would be much improved if we all had the 'time' to reflect.

I don't  especially use a model like the one suggested on the CPD23 blog - recall it, evaluate it and then apply it, but I do like the prompts suggested e.g. what did you learn, enjoy, think worked well/went wrong, would change etc and will consider them in future.  I also think that more could be made of this at the end of courses that you attend as part of your CPD.  In my experience, leaders of CPD sessions are so eager to cram as much as possible into the time they have, that they often forget the need for reflection and to consider how new skills, knowledge may be applied.  A recent course I went on actually built self reflection time into the course; we were challenged to reflect on what we had learned and to come up with one way in which we would apply what we had learned using SMART targets and guess what!  I went back and did it which makes that course a really worthwhile experience as I can see the tangible evidence of it in my work.

If I can manage to reflect more on what I do, I can only see it having an advantageous effect on my work; I just need to stop more and think rather than rushing on to the next thing.