This article is a further continuation of my previous blog on effective leadership. In the text of "Discover the child in you to become a better leader," I touch upon continuous learning and knowledge gain as a leader. Here, I will explore more about reflective learning and things you can do to make it not only efficient but also enjoyable and exciting.
Thank you for your gift of time reading this section. I hope you can go through the journey with me. And, please do not hesitate to comment or contact me if there is anything you would like to discuss. I would be delighted to hear from you.
Reflective learning
We have already established that for learning to take place experience needs to be followed by reflection and then conceptualizing and theory building. Thus you move from action from the real-world to a process of detached observation taking place in your mind. This is definitely not surface learning, but there are still some ideas on how to reflect. If you are finding the questions circle at the beginning of this article a little bit abstract, there are also other simpler solutions. One of them has three stages in the circle: What? So what? What next? The middle question: So What? is the key for further analysis. Followed by an equally important issue of what to do next with your analysis.
One one of the methods would be to ask yourself below questions:
Description: What happened?
Feelings: What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience?
Analysis: What sense can you make to the situation?
Analysis: What else could you have done?
Action: If this arises again, what would you do?
In order to continually reflect on your approach: ask questions about what worked and what you have might have done differently. You need to be able to recognize at work the skills you may get and a new knowledge base. Could the actions of others have an impact on your success? Does your development planning need to focus on improving the relationships with them?
If you have not used much of reflective learning before, a good start might be to keep a journal of experiences you have had and consider the entries under the 6 questions method.
Tips for writing reflectively in your journal
1. Writing about an event
If you focus on a particular event or activity, this is likely to have more meaning, than writing in general reflection.
2. Framing your reflections
It can be easy to reflect on events and get carried away with lots of details or focusing on how the behaviour of others caused issues. Framing your focus help to ensure that you are able to recognise personal learning from the experience. Imagine that you were coaching a football team and your team lost. without the framing, you may not get the learning discovered and how to improve. Let's say the team scored lots of goals but allowed the other team to score even more. If you use the framing to identify what went wrong along with the team, this will help you to identify what needs to change to put that right. Framing your reflection with a specific focus and linking it back to your behaviours and approaches will add more value to your learning journey.
3. Staying future-focused
Whilst you are reflecting in your learning journal on something that has already happened the most important part is to learn is how you can use this experience in the future.
4. Generating ideas
How will you know what to do differently to improve your practice? Sometimes the answers may seem obvious, but undertaking further research, talking to colleagues you respect and identifying different concepts are all good approaches in generating ideas.
5. Setting clear goals
Think about what you want to achieve in changing your behaviours and actions. What evidence would have convinced you that you have succeeded? How can you make sure that you track and monitor your progress? Being clear about the evidence being used to measure your progress and having clear milestones to track against will add considerable value to your learning journey.
6. Relationships and feasibility of new ideas
Whilst you must focus on your own learning and development, you will naturally look on how the behaviours and actions of others have impacted on your work. When identifying a potential solution it is important that you consider how feasible the ideas are. Will you have the autonomy to implement the new ways of working? And to develop your practice in the ways you have identified? Could the actions of others have an impact on your success? Does your development planning need to focus on improving the relationships with them? All of these things are important to bear in mind to ensure that you can make the necessary changes in achieving your development goals.
Surface learning, deep learning, and strategic learning
Much of the argument for reflection rests upon the idea of levels or depths of learning. You might, for example, learn five key theories for motivation, their authors, and textbook diagrams in order to examine them. This is the surface level of learning. It is unlikely, therefore, that you will be able to go into the situation where the staff seems to be demotivated, find out why, and do something to improve the situation in the light of this analysis. Being able simply to reproduce material from the textbook seldom helps you to sort out real-life problems. To do this, you will require a rather more understanding and a deeper level of learning. Suppose that you get really excited about the idea of motivation. You will search for and read a range of relevant articles comparing what different authors said. This way you achieve a much deeper level of learning than the simple ability to reproduce the material. The deep learning approach is driven by the desire to understand the ideas and active interest in the subject matter. Thus you try to relate each new idea you come across to your previous knowledge and to any previous experience. You look for patterns or any underlying metaphors. You look carefully and critically at the author's evidence and logic. Material approached like this is far more likely to be remembered. And if ideas are related not just to other ideas, but to the experience they are more likely to lead to improvement actions. Applying ideas in the work context without fully understanding them leads to further misapplication, and worsens problems rather than improving the situation.
Sometimes, however, you may get carried away with your passion for a subject and this will also not be effective. Therefore, a third approach called a "strategic approach" would be required. This will be achieved by balancing the need for the requirement and keeping it in the focus as a priority and look for opportunities for deep learning wherever possible.
Let's look at how this would look like if we convert it into different levels of learning:
Noticing and memorizing the information
Making sense and reproduction, but ideas not well linked
Making meaning and ideas linked to the relevant context
Reflecting on meaning and structure
The meaningful, transformative, and creative outcome
Deep learning is most important to you at work to be successful. You need to go beyond Level 3 which is the focus of school generally and be able to further reflect (Level 4) and create transformative outcomes (Level 5). Reflecting on your work is therefore extremely important as well as talking to others about the issues you are facing. Sharing ideas increase learning potential.
Deeper, more reflective learning is far more exciting than surface learning and if you can make the connection between the ideas and your situation it will have an even more profound impact upon your ability to learn from experience throughout your life.
Many professional organizations require now evidence of such reflective learning as a condition for continued membership.
The reflective process
We have already established that for learning to take place experience needs to be followed by reflection and then conceptualizing and theory building. Thus you move from action from the real-world to a process of detached observation taking place in your mind. This is definitely not surface learning, but there are still some ideas on how to reflect. If you are finding the questions circle at the beginning of this article a little bit abstract, there are also other simpler solutions. One of them has three stages in the circle: What? So what? What next? The middle question: So What? is the key for further analysis. Followed by an equally important issue what to do next with your analysis.
Successful reflection, however, depends foremost on making the time to reflect. I will talk about time management later, but as soon as you understand the value of reflection the time management will become a priority.
So what to reflect upon? Generally, your confusion or perplexity will indicate that some things may need re-examining. Sometimes even reflection on practice which went really well would be a subject to reflection if you wanted it to go better. This can simply be done by asking yourself the question: What could have done better? How did you feel? How do you think others feel? What could you do differently next time? Any of those questions may prompt useful learning.
Some of your reflection may be prompted by reading or lectures.
You may reflect individually, or better as part of a group. You can talk to your team about how well it's progressing and ask whether there is any way in which the team effectiveness could be improved. Group reflection may make you aware of the shortcomings in a project or task.
The role of feelings in reflection
You may have been surprised to hearing the "How did I feel?" question above, but exploring your feelings is an important part of reflection. Often, your feelings will highlight the areas for concern that you have yet to put into words and signal profitable areas for reflection. Suppose, after a job interview you ask yourself "How did I feel?" and get an answer "Somewhat uncomfortable from the very beginning". Identifying the sources of this discomfort may help you learn a lot. Such reflection may indicate that you felt unprepared for the interview or perhaps you have some concerns related to the company ethics.
Feelings can also be important when you are thinking about things you have read or someone else has said. They tend to be driven by your non-conscious, non-rational brain. It could be that your assumptions are being challenged. We tend to be very protective of our identities. It can be unsettling, even painful to have them challenged.
Value of group reflection
For group reflection to be effective, group members need to trust each other. All need to understand the principles of reflective dialogue. Effective group reflection has many advantages over reflecting individually. The aim of reflection is to question not only what happened and how your behaviour affected this, but also to consider the extent to which the thinking which prompted the behaviour needs to change. Discussion on what happened or your views on what should happen with other people provides you with a starting point. By identifying the differences in views you can become more aware of your own theories about how the world works, or what is important. You may find others notice the different aspects of the situation because of their different theories and values.
Collaborative reflection needs to be carried out face to face. It is also possible to work online, but special attention is required for showing respect for others and their views. Virtual collaborative reflection offers advantages.
"Netiquette" (internet etiquette) refers to a set of rules for online interaction that is designed to help with the challenges of working online. It's good for teams to have such a set of rules and study and observe them.
* Take part. You may want to hold back because you feel your views are less valuable than others or because your upbringing has suggested that it is wrong to put your views forward or because of laziness. Whatever the reason, your learning and the learning of others in a group will suffer if you do not take part.
* Greet people at the start of your message, whether as a group "Hi everyone" or as individuals
* Offer your view as a few, nothing more ("I saw this as...")
* Appreciate others views, before adding your perspective ("That's really interesting, I hadn't seen it all like this ... I have assumed that... You have made me wonder whether...)
* Never say anything that suggests that someone else view is worthless. They may never dare venture an opinion again.
* Limit your contributions. Too much can be as bad as too little. When you post a message you are asking people to devote time to read it. Make sure that you have thought enough about your message to be reasonably confident, that it's worth their time. Note. This point applies only to those who post more than the average.
* Check you have understood a point before disagreeing. It is very easy to assume someone intends something just because they have used a word that provokes a strong reaction, or you assume from the knowledge of them that "they would say that". Such assumptions are often wrong.
* Read and re-read anything you wrote before sending. Ask yourself: What am I assuming about the people who read this? Are my assumptions justified? Will they know and understand what I mean?
I hope you enjoyed the article and can incorporate some of the tips in your daily life. In my net Part 2. I will be writing about how to create your Personal Development Plan, prioritise your actions and get back control over your future. I look forward to seeing you there.
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