REFLECTIVE THEORY‘I LEARN BY DOING; I THINK WHEN I PERFORM’

M. C. Rafael Alberto Velasco Argente

WHAT IS THIS THEORY ABOUT?

Imagine that I ask you to create a chair out of recycled materials such as bottles, cans, paper, carton.

How would you do the chair? Just imagine In your mind now I have created the idea that

you are working with these materials. You are ordering and selecting which are the best to build that chair. Of course, you have thought that some of them would be a problem, right?

Well that process in your head is called ‘reflection’.

DEFINITION

The reflective theory is a complement of behaviorism and cognitive theory.

Behaviorism: emotions, instinct, basic human feelings

Cognitive theory: Mind and mental processes; schemas

To complete these basic theories of learning, then we need to know what happens in your head when you perform an action

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Simple and Hard at the same time.

Simple: Everytime you teach and you provide an activity your student is thinking on how to do that activity.

Hard: As a teacher, guide, tutor, parent or whatever authority you are, you need to be smart enough to think and to trust that your students are smart as well, and they could be even smarter and more creative than you ever imagine

THE CORE

This theory from ShÖn, is based upon to main ideas or processes:

Reflection in-action: Lets go back to our first exercise (the one of the chair and the recycled materials). Imagine this is a task you gave your own students (no matter the class it is). Imagine all the dfferent forms and processes they can make when you give the correct instructions: THOUSANDS!

Learning by Doing: They are going to follow different processes because they are creative and they are using all their previous acquired knowledge and at the same time performing. They do trial-error processes but they think about what goes correct and what goes wrong and they learn from it.

How would you apply Reflective theory

to Education?

THINK…

What I want my students to learn at the end of my class…

What they have to be able to do when they finish the activities…

What the ´situation’ I need to create is so they can learn from it…

What materials I need to help them to DO… What my role will be during the process:

guide, consultant, critic, advisor… How much time I have available for them…

EXAMPLE

What’s your name? How old are you? Are you currently in a relationship? How many boyfriends or girlfriends have you

ever had? Are you in favor of ‘open relationships’? Yes,

No, why?