Task 2c: Reflective Theory

I feel reflected thoughts are an essential tool in anyone’s life as by reflecting can ignite or defuse positivity and negativity however, I find it hard to reflect or at least tell people how I feel. The only time that I have used reflective practice was when I was at Italia Conti and we had to reflect on classes like I mentioned in my previous blog about journal writing.

Robert Kottcamp talks about reflection-in-action (on-line) and reflection-on-action (off-line). I agreed with what he had to say about ‘the type of profession you come from has an impact on the ways you reflect’ and therefore would say that I found that I reflect-in-action because as a dancer we have to correct movements and positions as we go. This practice then goes on to tacit knowledge which I completely understood. In many moments when I’m teaching I find times when someone asks me a question about a move that I simply can not explain with words but just my body and movement. Tharp and Reiter, 2006 said that ‘memory of movement doesn’t need to be accessed through conscious effort’ which I adopt all the time when performing a routine because I have the trust in knowing what I am doing without trying or thinking to hard.

Kolb’s learning cycle made me stop and really think about how I learn and although I do all of the cycle steps when it comes to starting something new I’m not sure where I fall into first? I think it depends on the job you are doing therefore if I was about to start a new dance job I reflectively observe, to know what I need to do and use concrete experience because dance is my career and obviously a practical ‘do’ experience. If, however looking back on when I started to teach I primarily used reflective observation to think back to when I was a student or watching a teacher teach a class.

In future I will try to verbalize my body movements as I feel this would benefit my teaching and open up to the idea that reflecting is a good thing and be confident in sharing my thoughts.