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Evaluating a strategic approach toprofessional development throughguided reflectionAndrea Nolan a , Bridie Raban a & Manjula Waniganayake aa The University of Melbourne, AustraliaPublished online: 20 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Andrea Nolan , Bridie Raban & Manjula Waniganayake (2005) Evaluating astrategic approach to professional development through guided reflection, Reflective Practice:International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 6:2, 221-229, DOI: 10.1080/14623940500106070

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Reflective PracticeVol. 6, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 221–229

ISSN 1462-3943 (print)/ISSN 1470-1103 (online)/05/020221–09© 2005 Taylor & Francis Group LtdDOI: 10.1080/14623940500106070

Evaluating a strategic approach to professional development through guided reflectionAndrea Nolan*, Bridie Raban and Manjula WaniganayakeThe University of Melbourne, AustraliaTaylor and Francis LtdCREP110590.sgm10.1080/14623940500106070Reflective Practice1462-3943 (print)/1470-1103 (online)Original Article2005Taylor & Francis Ltd62000000May 2005Dr AndreaNolanEarly Childhood Consortium VictoriaThe University of MelbourneVictoriaAustralia

Research on quality in early childhood has consistently shown that staff are the cornerstone of excel-lence, and that staff training makes a difference to services provided to children and families. Thereis also a growing awareness of the importance of adopting a planned approach to career develop-ment and that this begins with self-assessment, and can be enhanced through the use of guidedreflection with a mentor. The Early Childhood Consortium Victoria (ECCV) at The University ofMelbourne, has developed a self-assessment manual (SAM) designed as a tool for early childhoodpractitioners to explore their work in a strategic way. It serves the dual purposes of assisting practi-tioners to address issues of service quality, as well as promoting individual professional developmentthrough reflective practice. SAM has now been piloted in a number of early childhood settings inAustralia and this paper presents a formative evaluation of this work and discusses its potential forprofessional development planning.

Introduction

In 2002 the ECCV embarked on a program of research to develop and evaluate asuite of quality assurance measures for use by early childhood professionals. Epstein(1993, 1999), who conducted a study in the US, ‘Training for quality’, focusing onthe relationship between practitioner initial qualifications, in-service professionaldevelopment training, program quality and children’s development, found a clear linkbetween ‘quality provision’ and professional development. Other studies such asthose conducted by Frede (1995) and Pasha and Wesley (1998), have also identifiedstaff development and education as an important discriminator in separatingmediocre and good quality care.

*Corresponding author. Early Childhood Consortium Victoria, Dept of Learning & EducationalDevelopment, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, 3rd Floor, 234 QueensberryStreet, Victoria, 3010, Australia. Email: anolan@unimelb.edu.au

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The early childhood field is characterized by a diversity of providers with differingphilosophies, goals and approaches (Layzar et al., 1993) and with no global consensuson what constitutes excellence in early childhood education and care (ECEC)programs. Accordingly, practitioners feel confused and at a loss to drive the practiceagenda forward. However, as Serafini (2002) argues, before changes can be made topractices practitioners should have a clear vision of what they are working towards.This is a sentiment supported by Fullen (1993b), who points out that change withoutdirection of this kind would be like asking for chaos.

The self-assessment manual (SAM)

A growing body of literature (Joyce & Showers, 1983; Fullen, 1993a; Winton, 1990;Gusky, 1996) now suggests that a greater chance of positive change within an orga-nization is possible when individuals:

● receive ongoing staff development over an extended period of time;● are involved in assessing their own learning;● have opportunities to apply their new knowledge and skills in work settings; and● have a trusted ‘other’ to discuss their developing practice.

The goal of the ECCV therefore, was to develop instruments and procedures thatsupported the professional development of practitioners in the early childhood fieldin an effort to address issues of quality in the provision of services for communities,families and children. In order to have professionals think clearly and in an informedway about their work and future directions, we chose to use guided reflection as anintegral part of the process. We saw guided reflection as a way of engaging profession-als in reviewing and clarifying their professional practice with the support of a mentor.Based on this work a self-assessment manual (SAM) was developed and has now beenpiloted in early childhood services in Victoria, Australia. During the pilot study, usingSAM as the stimulus and the focus for individual reflection and professional dialogue,representatives of the ECCV played the role of mentors to participants. For theparticipants, involvement in this study meant assessing, articulating and affirmingtheir roles as early childhood professionals.

The self-assessment manual (SAM), presented participants with a series of guidedself-assessment tasks designed to assist them in identifying what works and what doesnot work in professional practice. For instance, SAM asks them to consider factorsthat help or hinder their professional advancement, and design a professional devel-opment plan that would match their personal needs, interests and ambitions. Hence,many of the tasks contained in SAM require participants to think about their past,present and future growth as an early childhood professional. The contents of SAMare presented under three sections:

● Section 1. Understanding my professional career (Past)● Section 2. Understanding my current practice (Present)● Section 3. Charting my professional advancement (Future)

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Professional development and guided reflection 223

The first section asks the participant to document career to date information and alsoincludes influences on choice of career path, as well as notable mentors and priorexperiences with these mentors. Participants also record their current beliefs andvalues with respect to their current professional philosophy.

The second section of SAM comprises of a research tool (‘Excellence in early child-hood’—EECh) that provides participants with an opportunity to systematically reviewtheir current practice. This section has been designed to reflect six perspectives basedon a theoretical framework familiar to early childhood professionals (see Table 1)

Participants are invited to read statements and identify those most closely associ-ated with their own practice. The intention is to assist participants to think about theirday-to-day practice objectively and systematically by taking into account both theirown teaching/learning styles as well as anticipated child outcomes. These reflectionssupport participants in identifying aspects of their work they may want to focus onand develop further. It was important to strive to establish a balance that reflected allaspects of a practitioner’s work. As a direct consequence of extensive piloting, theEECh instrument now consists of 20 components of quality (see Table 2) based onthree dimensions: the environment; pedagogy and partnerships with children; fami-lies and colleagues (Raban et al., 2003).

In the third section of SAM participants begin looking at their professional devel-opment from a long-term perspective in a holistic way. When taken together, thethree sections in SAM allow individual practitioners to document their personalhistory—both past and present—and visualize and plan for their future professionaldevelopment in a systematic way. This capacity to capture the individual narratives isone of the main strengths of SAM, and thereby also enables us to explore diversityamong practices.

The primary aim of SAM is to empower participant’s to become active in their ownawareness of who they are as early childhood professionals, identify what they wantto achieve, and how they propose to set about this. As Corcoran and Leahy (2003, p.33) state, ‘successful teachers are fully engaged in the reflective process’. That is,through a process of guided reflection with a trained ECCV mentor, participants areable to critically examine their current practice from a more informed position andare assisted in setting realistic and achievable goals for themselves. They are alsoencouraged to see the notion of planning for professional development as an ongoingprocess. As part of this process participants are encouraged to ‘develop an orienta-tion’ to their work that incorporates reflection and renewal, as a way of maintainingprofessional growth (Steffy & Wolfe, 1997). This collaborative process is one ofevolution and is ongoing over a number of weeks.

Guided reflection and SAM

During the study, it became apparent that some of the participants’ practices hadbecome very ‘automatic’, and this acted to exclude them in engaging in a deeper levelof reflection, as well as hindered their own professional development. As Schön(1983, p. 61) so eloquently put it, participants needed to ‘surface and criticize the

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Professional development and guided reflection 225

tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of aspecialized practice’. We wanted to support participants in their demonstration of‘mindful practice’ (Stange et al., 2003). Therefore throughout the process of partici-pating in SAM, reflection was highlighted as a deliberate and conscious act. We sawreflective practice as a ‘stance, a willingness to question our teaching’ (Serafini, 2002,p. 3). As the mentors, our role was to facilitate this process. For all involved, reflec-tion became both a social and personal practice where it was shaped and enhancedthrough documentation and dialogue. The ECCV mentors did not praise or advisebut rather raised issues and dilemmas, points of contrast, as a way of focusing partic-ipants’ attention towards analysing their own actions in relation to their espousedintentions. By combining self-assessment, external observation, written reports,questions, interviews and written reflections we were able to help each participantbecome more aware of both consistencies and inconsistencies between their theoryand practice. We worked towards empowering participants to search and discoverwhat they may have stopped seeing in their own practice. These discussions withparticipants were based on trust, and there was an open sharing of reflections onprofessional practice.

To enhance the reflective approach we relied on open-ended strategies. In eachcase, we as the mentors, were also more experienced than the participants. Ourfeedback based on observations of their practice, assisted participants to identify andclarify the perspectives that underpinned their work with children and families, bycritically reflecting on their beliefs, values, and theories in a more knowledgeable and

Table 2. ‘Excellence in early childhood’ (EECH): a descriptive framework

Dimensions of quality Descriptive components

A. Environment Buildings and groundsTeaching/learning spacesDisplay of children’s workTeaching/learning resourcesRoutines and transitionsEnvironmental health and safetyCollection and storage of resources

B. Pedagogy Use of theoretical knowledgeOrganization of childrenInteractions with childrenCurriculum planningCurriculum implementationCurriculum evaluationAssessment and evaluation of children

C. Partnerships—with children, families, communities and staff

Children’s emotional and social well-beingContinuity of careInteractions with colleaguesInformation exchange with familiesAssistance to children with additional needsStaff professional development

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informed way. For instance, ‘critical incidents’ observed by ECCV mentors providedthe focus for joint explorations of teaching and learning styles. In this way, SAMbegan to provide a framework in which guided reflection and professional growthcould take place.

Findings from the study show that participants’ ability to reflect critically on every-day practices deepened over the course of their participation. By receiving ongoingfeedback, information and support from the mentors, participants were able to findout more about who they were as practitioners. These processes also made theseparticipants more likely to question their practice and enhanced their capacity to clar-ify their growth as early childhood professionals. For example, initially, when askedwhere they would like to see themselves in three to five years time, the majority ofparticipants felt quite confronted. However, this question did spur them on toconsider their professional growth from a longer term perspective than theypreviously had done. While SAM is non-judgemental in that it does not favour onepedagogical perspective over another (see Table 1), it promotes questioning ofpractice from a more knowledgeable standpoint, and thereby enables planning forprofessional development to occur in a more systematic way.

Success stories

At the completion of the pilot project, participants were asked to evaluate the experi-ence. Feedback was provided anonymously, however, some participants chose todisclose their identity to personally thank the ECCV mentors for the guidance andsupport they had provided. Responses were also complied during visits to centreswhen participants would freely begin discussing what their involvement in SAM hadmeant for them. The overriding response from participants was positive, with allindicating that they had benefited by their participation in this study. In fact, 85%rated the impact on their own professional development between having ‘someimpact’ to ‘a very big impact’, as reflected in the following comments:

After reflection and discussion it has allowed me to set myself some new goals for my futurecareer in childcare both in the workplace now and further down the track.

Has me thinking about current practice, how this related to different theories and where myphilosophy fits in.

It has made me interested in further education in the childhood field.

It has made me actually think about what I really want to do with my life and to challengemyself with what I believe.

Application of prepositional/content analysis also yielded a range of commonthemes. In the majority of cases, participants highlighted the importance of thinkingand the use of guided reflection being key features of this study. Participants valuedthe opportunity to ‘think’ and ‘talk’ about their work, and these findings highlightthe benefits of guided reflection. The following comments illustrate participants’sentiments in this regard:

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Professional development and guided reflection 227

It opened my eyes to what my practices are and what direction I am heading.

My teaching style has been identified and I can explain to parents why and how I do things.

Feedback was great as I don’t receive feedback from other professionals.

It made me step back and reflect upon where I am headed.

It was good to sit back and think about my work and areas that are important to me.

To clarify my goals.

Time to talk to Uni staff about my practices and personal philosophy.

When participants were encouraged to comment on possible ways to improve theprocess, two issues were identified. These being:

● more opportunities for discussion—participants recognized the commitment oftime required for reflection and wanted to identify other strategies for professionaldialogue and reflection; and

● more direction for the future—having enjoyed the mentoring provided by theECCV, participants wanted to find ways to continue these professional partner-ships beyond the life of the research study.

The ECCV mentors also related similar feelings in that there was a need to developfurther links with participants to continue the momentum and realize the full poten-tial of what had been achieved from the research study. This will be addressed duringthe next phase of developing SAM. This includes the consideration of using profes-sional portfolios to enhance participants’ capacity to document their developingcontrol over their own professional development.

Conclusion

Risko et al. (2002) suggest that engaging teachers in reflective thought provides themwith the opportunity to generate connections between theory and practice, andcome to deeper understandings of their beliefs and previous experiences whileadopting fresh perspectives. The importance of dialogue with others cannot beunderestimated in this process but due to the isolated nature of working with youngchildren, early childhood professionals can find it very difficult to engage with otherpractitioners. The development of the self-assessment manual (SAM) and accompa-nying set of procedures have identified a real need within the early childhoodprofession for more targeted career development and professional support. At theend of the study, we encouraged each participant to stipulate a plan of action to takethem forward and also to identify a possible mentor that could support them inachieving professional objectives they had identified in their plan. They were alsoadvised to use the reports provided by the ECCV mentors as the basis for a continu-ing portfolio that would document their journey towards realizing their goals. Wehope that all of our participants continue to reflect on their practice and in doing sokeep growing as early childhood professionals.

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Notes on contributors

Dr Andrea Nolan lectures and is a research fellow at The University of Melbourne.She is a qualified and experienced teacher who over the past 25 years has held anumber of teaching positions within the early childhood field. Dr Nolan hasconducted research in both schools and kindergartens and since joining theuniversity has worked on a number of State, National and international projectsconcerning program evaluation and professional development for teachers. Herresearch interests include exploring the use of mentoring within the early child-hood sector, and the use of reflective practice as a way to enhance teachersprofessional growth and development. Dr Nolan is a member of the PrimaryEnglish Teaching Association, Early Childhood Australia and the AustralianResearch in Early Childhood Education group.

Professor Raban (BA, TCert, Dip SpEd, PGCE, MEd, PhD) teaches undergraduateand post-graduate subjects addressing the language and literacy development ofyoung children. In addition, she teaches the academic component of the ReadingRecovery Tutor training program and successfully supervises research studentsat Masters and Doctoral levels with interests in teacher change and development,early years curriculum, language and literacy, and Reading Recovery. ProfessorRaban is Director of the Early Childhood Consortium (ECC) and Head of theEarly Childhood Studies Unit in the Faculty of Education.

Professor Raban has directed major evaluation projects both in England (for theNational Curriculum Council), in Australia (for DFACS & DIMIA). She hascompleted an ARC funded project (with C. Ure) focussing on young children’stransition to school, and other funded projects addressing issues of early literacydevelopment during preschool years and the early years of schooling. During1995, Professor Raban was president of the UK Reading Association and during1995-96 was a member of the Australian Language and Literacy Council.

Associate Professor Manjula Waniganayake As a policy analyst in early childhoodDr Waniganayake has participated in a variety of advisory committees dealingwith quality assurance, government regulations and professional developmentmatters. She has in-depth knowledge of the Australia’s national QualityImprovement and Assurance System (QIAS) through her work as a moderatorfor the National Child Care Accreditation Council (NCAC) since its incep-tion. She has a strong knowledge base in children’s services policy and prac-tice concerned with centre management and leadership built through herteaching, research and active involvement in the early childhood field for over20 years. As a cross-cultural researcher, she is keenly interested in exploringdiverse perspectives on professional matters including mentoring and reflectivepractice.

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