When
I think of the words, “reflective practice” I am reminded of my
graduate studies in Education. In 2010 I undertook a Graduate Diploma
of Education at the University of Queensland. I was intending to
become a high school English and Religious Studies teacher. Through
out the year I was encouraged to actively reflect on my teaching
practice. The purpose of this -my lecturers and professional mentors
insisted- was to learn from our ‘mistakes’ and become better
educators. Initially I was resistant to the idea of reflection, I
often asked myself why it was relevant and doubted that something
akin to diary writing could help me develop professionally. How wrong
I was. By the end of the year I was reflecting every week during my
studies and after every practical lesson I taught. After I graduated
I began to feel depressed about my state of unemployment. In my
apathy towards seeking meaningful employment I looked over my
reflections again and realised something that I had felt all along
and wasn’t admitting: that explicit classroom teaching was not for
me and that my heart just wasn’t in education.
Now,
in 2013, a couple of years after my graduate studies, I find myself
in a happier place and I have reflective practice to thank for that.
To be honest, I did not realise that reflective practice was such a
large part of LIS. I am excited to utilise the e-portfolio that is
required for this course. I believe it is a useful, fun, and dynamic
tool that will be helpful in my professional development. While I
have not given much thought to the process at this stage, I am
contemplating using a blogging website ie. wordpress rather than the
QUT e-portfolio. In terms of a reflective framework to structure a
reflection, I generally ask myself three simple questions:
What
happened?
Why
did it happen?
How
can I improve?
I
am genuinely excited to begin my journey as an information
professional. I believe that professionals never stop learning and
reflective practice is a tool for us to keep searching for knowledge.
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