"I don't get it!" -the challenge of teaching reflective practice to health and care practitionersReflective practice is regarded as a fundamental learning tool that encourages the synthesis of theory and skills in health care and written reflective accounts feature heavily in the assessment of skills and development in practice. It is however, a challenging method of teaching and learning for both students and educators and the reflective accounts produced are often superficial descriptions of events rather than evidence of 'reflection in action'. Revisiting writers such as Dewey, Rogers and Schön, I present my own reflective account of teaching health care students to develop reflective thinking and writing and finding ways of using mindfulness and sensory experience to bring reflection-in-action into the classroom. I conclude by suggesting that, as an educator, I have a responsibility to encourage and value subjective experience as evidence of learning.Keywords: reflective practice; teaching; Schon; Dewey; mindfulness; sensory experience IntroductionReflective practice is well established as a key element of learning in a number of professions including teaching, social work, nursing and management (Nelson, 2012) and is cited as 'a valuable learning technique that reinforced the blending of theoretical and applied learning' by the Willis Commission report on the education of nurses (RCN, 2012) however it is a challenging and ill-defined concept that has been subject to question recently for its educational value in producing truly reflective practitioners (Coward, 2014;Rolfe, 2002: Rolfe, 2014 I have been teaching current and prospective healthcare practitioners on a number of modules during the last year and have tried to embed reflective thinking and writing throughout my teaching and assessment activities. With every group I have noticed that encouraging students to move from the academically preferred objective, evidence-based writing to offering a subjective and emotionally rich account of their learning has been challenging. I aim to present my observations of this experience and, drawing from Dewey, Rogers and Schön, who were influential in my own development as a novice practitioner, I offer some ideas about making reflective thinking more effective in the classroom. As a reflective practitioner myself, I am conscious that the classes I teach are my 'research events' and the knowledge I gain from them broadly follows a hierarchy of evidence proposed by Rolfe (2002), including personal knowledge, experiential knowledge and propositional knowledge rather than empirically tested domains. In the tradition of humanistic approaches to learning, this account will also reflect my belief that I work to facilitate the process of learning and enquiry rather than working to secure outcomes (Rogers, 1977in Kirschenbaum & Henderson, 1990. The nature of reflective practiceThe agreement across the literature on reflective practice in health and care appears to be that, whilst considered essential, there are no cl...

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The mainstreaming of students with mental health and/or learning support needs means further education college tutors are carrying an increasingly heavy burden of social and emotional care, often in crisis situations. Colette Eaton says colleges should do more to support tutors in their pastoral roles.

Qualities of reflection: Using Saul's (2001) On Equilibrium to restore humanity to reflection in healthcare. ABSTRACT:Reflection features strongly in health and care work as a tool for personal and professional development and can support us as practitioners to be critical and self-aware in practice, of practice and the impact on clients and patients. Its power to transform learning and practice however has been watered down through recipe-following in reflective recording and through the avoidance of recording uncertainty or practice that might not measure against professional codes. Drawing on the humanist philosophy of John Ralston Saul, I suggest using Saul's (2001) 'six qualities' as themes for reflective questions. I reflect on the influence of reason through codes of practice and offer suggestions for questions to restore an awareness of Self in work with clients and patients. Finally, from my experience as a counselling student and healthcare educator, I argue that we should have a greater appreciation of the power of uncertainty in reflective recording.

Title "My first thoughts were Why?" Using Saul's (2001) Six Qualities to get to the pearl grit of reflection Type Article URL https://clok.uclan.ac.uk/40060/ DOI ##doi## Date 2022 Citation Eaton, Colette orcid iconORCID: 0000-0002-5375-344X (2022) "My first thoughts were Why?" Using Saul's (2001) Six Qualities to get to the pearl grit of reflection. Reflective Practice, 23 (2). pp. 258-265.