Jlou rr~o('lrkunmadSupetloa6 P1 199.Vor 9Nr 1.6-9

A Symposium on Sch6n's Conceptof Reflective Practice:

Critiques, Commentaries, Illustrations

QUOTATIONS

DONALD A. SCHON

Donald A Scbon's books on the rjlecti e practitioner have provoked avariety of resonses among educationalpractiioners and scolars concernedwitb teaching teacher education, and supersion ' Thbis issue of the Journalof Curriculum and Supervision presents a symposium of seven articles commenting on, critiquing and illustrating the use of some of Scd6n's ideas Thbeauthors of these aracles explore the merits of Schon's concept of reflectivepraaicefrom variousperpeatives and in different contexts This syposiumprovides mucb to stimulate thought on the relatlonshty between research andpractice in teaching and on the implicationsfor supen'rion and teaching Asan introductio weu reproduce selected quotations from Schon's own booksand speecbes here, and the synposum begins uith an extended excerptfroman article by Robert T O'CGorman that summarizes some other of Schbn's keyideas.

On knowing-in-practice. "As practice becomes more repetitive and rou-tine, and as knowing-in-practice becomes increasingly tacit and spontaneous,the practitioner may miss important opportunities to think about what he isdoing. Through reflection, he can surface and criticize the tacit understandingsthat have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice,and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness whichhe may allow himself to experience. Practitioners do reflect on their knowingin-practice. But they may also reflect on practice while they are in the midstof it. Here they reflect-in-action."2

On reflecting-in-action. "If common sense recognizes knowing in-action,it also recognizes that we sometimes think about what we are doing. Phrases

'Donald A. Sclbn, 7be Rejlete Praatoner. How Professaonas 7hink in Action (NewYork Basic Books, 1983X. Donald A Schn, Educating te Refecttve Practitioner Toward a NeuDesignfor Teacding and Learnng in the Professomn (San FranciJo ossey-Bass. 1987)

Donald A Schon, Tbe Reflecave Pmactioner How Professionals T7ink n Acion (NewYork: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 61-62.

DonaldA SCbOn 7

like 'thinking on your feet,' 'keeping your wits about you,' and 'learning bydoing' suggest not only that we can think about doing but that we can thinkabout doing something while doing it. Some of the most interesting examplesof this process occur in the midst of a performance. An artful teacher sees achild's difficulty in learning to read not as a defect in the child but as a defect'of his own instruction.' So he must find a way of explaining what is botheringthe pupil. He must do a piece of experimental research, then and there, inthe classroom. He must be ready to invent new methods and must 'endeavorto develop in himself the ability of discovering them.' "

On reflectie researcb. "Researchers and practitioners enter into modesof collaboration very different from the forms of exchange envisaged underthe model of applied science. The practitioner does not function here as amere user of the researcher's product. He reveals to the reflective researcherthe ways of thinking that he brings to his practice, and draws on reflectiveresearch as an aid to his own reflection-in-action. The agenda of reflectiveresearch will be generated out of dialogue between reflective researchers andpractitioner-researchers, and will be constrained by the requirement that theresearch be of the kind that practitioners can also undertake. The extent ofour capacity for reciprocal reflection in-action can be discovered only throughan action science which seeks to make what some of us do on rare occasionsinto a dominant pattern of practice."'

On cap/ta/ ng on uncertairty. "Teachers in a seminar were shown avideotape of two boys separated from each other by an opaque screen. Eachof the two boys had before him a set of pattern blocks of different size, shape,and color. In front of one boy was a fixed pattern; in front of the other, ajumble of blocks, which tat boy was to make into the fixed pattern byfollowing the first boy's instructions. As the teachers watched the tape, theysaw that, although the first boy's instructions seemed very well stated, thesecond boy began to get more and more confused The teachers said thingslike, 'The second boy seems to be a slow learner,' 'He doesn't have a verylong attention span,' 'He doesn't seem to know how to follow directions.'Then one of the researchers pointed out, 'You know, I think the first boy gavea directiot, that was mistaken, he said, "Put down a green square," but therewere no green squares, there were only orange squares and the only thingsthat were green were triangles.' The nice thing about videotapes is that youcan back it up. So the teachers backed up the tape and looked again. Sureenough, they found that the first boy's instructions specified a green squarewhen there were no green squares. As they continued to look at the tape, theywere astonished to see that the second boy was in fact a ttfruoso at followingdirections, improvising sense out of nonsensical instructions, And then one

3Ibid, pp. 49, 66.

'Ibid, pp. 323-324, 354. SchOn outlines four kinds of reflective research on pp. 309-325.

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8 Symposum: Quorafions

of the teachers said a wonderful thing. 'What we did, you know, was to givethe kid reason.' That slogan-giving the kid reason-followed the teachersthrough the remaining two years of their seminar."'

On coprfng two epistemologies of practice: "A practitioner's stancetoward inquiry is his attitude toward the reality with which he deals Accordingto the model of Technical Rationality, the practitioner must maintain a clearboundary between himself and his object of inquiry His stance toward inquiryis that of spectator/manipulator. In a practitioner's reflective conversation witha situation, he functions as an agent/experient. The sense he makes of thesituation must include his own contribution to it. The positivist epistemologyof practice rests on the separation of means from ends Given the separationof knowing from doing, action is only an implementation of technical decisionIn reflective conversations, means and ends are framed interdependently Andinquiry is a transaction with the situation in which knowing and doing areinseparable. The idea of reflective practice is an alternative to the traditionalpositivist epistemology of practice." 6

On reflectiepraaicums. "The traditions of education for the arts, as wellas athletic coaching and apprenticeships in crafts and industry, embody attheir best the features of a reflective practicum. In architectural design studios,for example, students begin to design before they know what designing is Allthis takes place in a practicum which is a virtual world that represents theworld of practice where the price of making mistakes is very low Studentspractice in the presence of a coach who engages them in a dialogue of wordsand performance.'" 'These practicums are reflective in that they aim at helpingstudents learn to become proficient at a kind of reflection-in-action Theireffectiveness depends on a reciprocally reflective dialogue of coach and stu-dent. Students learn by undertaking projects in this outside world with itsown mix of materials, tools, languages, and appreciations This practical worldembodies particular ways of seeing, thinking, and doing that tend, overtime, as far as the student is concerned, to assert themselves with increasingauthority."8

On re7lecte practicums in professional schools. "In order to accept areflective practicum, a professional school would have to make room for it

Donald A. Sch6n, "Teachers as Reflective Practitioners" (talk given at the annual conferenceof the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Orlando, FL, March 1988)(audocassette).6

Donald A. Schn, 7The Reflective Practitioner How Professionas Thbink in Action (NewYork Basic Books, 1983), pp. 163-165, 345

Donald A. SchOn, "Teachers as Reflective Practitioners" (talk given at the annual conferenceof the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Olanda, FL, March 1988)(audiocassette).

Donald .SchOn,Educang tbe Refleve Pracftoner Toward a NeuDesgnfor TeachingandLearning in tbe Profession (San Francisc~Jossey-Bass, 1987), pp. 36-40

8 Sympos1um� Quotations

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Its introduction would reverse the usual figure/ground relationship betweenacademic coursework and practicum. In a normative curriculum, a practicumcomes last Its espoused function is to provide an opportunity for practice inapplying the theories and techniques taught in the courses that make up thecore of the curriculum. A reflective practicum would bring learning by doinginto the core. The work of a reflective practicum takes a long time-time tolive through the initial shocks of confusion and mystery, to unlearn initialexpectations, to master the practice, and to shift repeatedly back and forthbetween reflection on and in action. Creation of a reflective practicum callsfor kinds of research new to most professional schools. research on thereflection in-action characteristic of practitioners, research on coaching andlearning by doing, and research on the relation of practicums to academiccourses.'

"

On refleiepcticumsfor insertice teacbers. "Reflective practicums forteachers may occur at different stages of professional education and practice.The supervisory setting may become a reflective practicum. At the Universityof British Columbia, for example, Gaalen Erickson has worked for severalyears with science teachers in middle and high schools, helping them reflecton what they do with kids. This sort of reflection, if it's to be rigorous, dependsupon the development of directly observable data. It isn't enough to askteachers what they do, for what they do and what they say often diverge. Onemust get at what teachers do through direct, recorded observation that permitsa very detailed description of behavior and a reconstruction of intentions,strategies, and assumptions. The confrontation with directly observable dataoften produces an educational shock, as teachers discover that they act according to theories of action different from the ones they espouse."' °

Ibid., pp. 310-311, 171.'D)onald A SchOn, "Teachers as Reflective Practitioners" (talk given at the annual conference

of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Orlando, FLt March 1988).(audiocassete).

Copyright © 1989 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.