You know you're reflecting on your practice... but can you prove it?

If a reflective question is discussed between educators and there is no assessor/authorised officer around to hear it... did the reflection even happen? 

When I deliver professional learning around reflective practice for services, they typically tell me "we are definitely reflecting", but they often can't show me how. 

Why is that a problem? Of course, the whole point of reflective practice is thinking, discussing, wondering, considering.... and much of that (well, perhaps except for the discussion) happens inside your head. I think as educators we are amazing at reflecting "in action" - thinking about what is happening and why it is happening, while it is happening. We just aren't always great at evidencing that. Sure, we can say "assessors/authorised officers should be able to see it in action", but let's be honest - when someone is watching, we are less likely to be engaging in a reflective discussion. We might worry that they will think we aren't really doing our job, or that we are just standing around having a chat. 

So, what do we do about that? Okay, we could say "but we know we are reflecting, why should we have to prove it?" We could rebel against the system and know that our thinking, wondering and discussing is enhancing our practice, and know that to some extent it will be evident through our practice. But if we are talking honestly, we know that our sector requires evidence. It requires us to prove why we do what we do. It requires us to make it clear where changes come from, where new ways of working come from. 

This is one of the reasons that we created our reflective journals over a decade ago. We knew that educators and services needed a system for staying "on track" with reflection - something to remind them to consider various ideas, perspectives, theories, and aspects of the learning frameworks. We also knew that they needed a system for documenting those considerations. Of course, this isn't the only option - there are so many ways to evidence your reflective practice either individually or as a team, including: 

• Mindmaps (if using a whiteboard, take photos and keep them) 
• Post-it notes
• Recordings of team meetings (you can use some great software to record and transcribe meetings now, that is pretty accurate and saves one person from trying to capture the nuances and minutiae of conversation

The important thing is to find an approach (or blend of approaches) that works for you and your team.

Services have been telling us for years now how beneficial our reflective journals have been in supporting them to not only engage in reflective practice, but to evidence it too. One educational leader said that when an assessor asked for evidence of how they support their educator team to engage in reflective practice, they started by just handing over their journal! 

We would love to hear some of your favourite strategies for evidencing your reflective practice too - share them in the comments.