Reflective Practice - Part 1 - (Meta)Reflection.

...Meta what?

Reflective practice; two words that bring instant hatred and mild psychological trauma to most first year university students. Whilst I was definitely in the same boat, initially. With some guidance from people who know better; I now know better.

This series will go away from India and more into general thoughts and theories behind reflective practice. Whilst rarely spoken about - we all do it, here is how:

- Thinking at the end of the day.
- Analysing memories, photographs, videos that we took.
- Listening and telling stories of our (mis)adventures.
- Learning from our mistakes.

It's easy m'kay?

Simple stuff right? Since I want this series to be an easy read we will focus on one thing at the time. The buzz word for today is Meta-reflection. A wise man has introduced me to this idea telling me I do it. what META-reflection refers to reflecting on your reflections. In the context of reflective practice - reflecting on the the reflective practice process.

- How do I do it?
- How do I make it better?
- How can I work better?

This is of interest to me as my dissertation idea focuses on the emotional journey of an intern. Questions I asked myself at the beginning is how do I record my emotions? Do I record my rants and happy moments? Do I make long videos on how the grass is green and the sky is blue? Photographs? Speak to my family and friends? Writing? In the fear of not doing the job good enough I ended up doing everything. Turns out its not a bad thing. Why put yourself through this ball ache? Easy, multiple sources of information. This means you have different perspectives on the same thing.

Tell me more...

To link this back to meta-reflection - whenever you do either of above, your memory gets a tease and a tickle in different ways. Imagine your brain to be like you were the first time you went on a date. You (by assumption) take time in making sure you cover all bases to ensure the courtship processes succeed; be clean, smell nice and say the right things. Now let your brain to be the partner of choice, it will not give us everything from the start, it requires stimulation from you, show it visual and audio stimuli helps it remind and analyse. The 'preparation' stage is collecting this data in a way that makes these processes the best they can be.

To make long story short. Meta-reflection is very simply about giving thought and attention in making sure your methods of reflection works for you. Help yourself by learning which tools work best for you and how to use them more effectively.