As learning professionals, research and reflective practice are essential to insure success. In a world that’s constantly changing with learners who are constantly changing, if we’re not reflecting on what we’re doing in practice:
- How will we know if we’re successful?
- How will we know what we’ve learned?
- How will we know how to become better at what we do?
Reflective practice, introduced by Schon, involves thoughtfully considering one’s own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline. As a new practitioner of instructional design, research and reflection are essential to my success. I need to think about what I’m doing each day when I’m completing a needs assessment or when I’m stroryboarding a new e-learning. It’s important that I reflect on why I made the decisions I’ve made and where I acquired the information to make those decisions. I need feedback from peers and coaching from mentors and supervisors. I need to read industry publications like ASTD’s T&D and the E-learning Guild’s Learning Solutions E-Magazine.
During these past three weeks in class, I’ve become the reflective practitioner of which Schon is speaking. Although Schon introduced this concept in 1987, with Web 2.0, reflective practice has never been easier than it is today. Blogs and wiki’s allow me to share my ideas with co-workers, classmates and other professionals in the industry. Because I’m a novice at blogging and new to the field, it’s yet another opportunity to solicit feedback and improve as a designer. I read other professional’s posts to learn from and reflect on what they’re presenting. By using Diigo, I’ve joined other e-learning and instructional design groups where we share and comment on links to blogs and sites that may be of interest to other group members.
I look forward to my journey as an instructional designer. Research and reflective practice will be my guide. Michelle Martin said it best on her blog, The Bamboo Project, when commmenting on reflective practice. She said, “reflection is about–considering what you can learn from your experiences and then doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” I want to do more of what works. How about you?
I call it “weeding out”. With an abundance of new knowledge coming through my aggregator everyday, I need to weigh what gets read, what needs attention ASAP, and what can be deleted or moved to another day. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time. That’s why we need to choose the right tools and the right places to go for our information so that the reflection process is not tedius.