Reflective Practice

Most people would accept that it is good practice to debrief any training, exercise or operation in Search and Rescue. A debrief is often done in several parts; with the team that you have been working with as well as with everyone involved in the operation. A debrief is designed to identify both things that went well and things that can be improved upon.

Reflective Practice is a form of debrief for yourself. It is designed to improve personal and industry practice and to imbed a culture of recording, reflection and review in the SAR sector. It always helps to think about what has been done and how we can improve it. There by improving the outcome when faced with similar situations in the future, rather than repeating the same mistakes.

Reflection in this context is "consciously thinking about and analysing what one has done (or doing)". Reflection is part of the cycle of learning; however, it is also reflection in action, where understanding of new concepts occurs through improvisation and experimentation during an exercise or experience. It is a way of analysing your individual experience and it will facilitate your learning from this experience.

It involves reflecting on what you did, deciding what went well and should continue to do, and also looking at what could have been done differently or more efficiently and how that can be implemented for next time.

Capable means that you can do it to a predefined level as it was taught/demonstrated during the training. This is a more true reflection of a students achievement by the end of a training course or workshop.

Competent means that you can take the concepts and utilise them in multiple different situations or scenarios and implement them to suit both the individual unique situation and task. You can do it proficiently and efficiently for all situations regardless of the setting.

Reflective Practice in this context takes you from being just capable to being competently proficient

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What are the benefits to you and the SAR community?

Reflection helps you to frame the problem beyond models or scenarios, so that you are detaching yourself from the experience enabling you to reflect objectively on the experience to identify key learning areas and look at how to implement these learning points.

SAR is an interaction between theory and practical experience and the emphasis is on professional competence. Reflective practice is critical in providing opportunities for the learner to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Reflection will assist you to move from shallow learning (I can do the task) to deep learning (I can do the task and understand the implications and problems that may occur). It is not a new process but a formalisation of a method that many SAR personnel are currently doing informally or subconsciously.

It's the difference from being able to just undertake a skill to being comfortable, from being rusty to fluent, and over all having greater options in the tool bag. Reflective practice is both deepening and widening knowledge and practice to become more rounded and efficient SAR personnel.

It promotes professional competence by encouraging the recognition of mistakes and weaknesses and if logged, it provides written proof of an individual's progression in thinking and deeper understanding. It is one form of evidence that you are current in certain skills for Search and Rescue.

The Adult Learning Cycle or Experiential Learning Cycle

Researchers who have explored learning have identified that there can be Surface Learning and Deep Learning. There are 4 stages required for Deep Learning to occur:

Analysis of your experience in terms of developing learning from it is a key part of this cycle.

Record of Activity

Record each activity you undertake relating to Search and Rescue. Include in this log the situation, your role, and the skills you practiced. The recording of the activity is not reflective practice in itself but is a summary of what you did and when it occurred so you can refer back to it.

Undertake reflective practice

It is important to take it quietly and not to rush the process but realise that by working through the learning cycle it will improve your abilities, knowledge and application of techniques.

Reflective Practice may be undertaken on, but is not limited to:

• A SAR operation
• A training activity or SAR exercise
• Anytime that you were utilising the skills or subject matter learnt on the course or utilisation of some of the concepts taught here in other applications such as in business or in the workplace.

Some important points to consider when completing reflective practice are:

• The quality of reflection and the learning that you derive from it is more important than the quantity of time involved (ie: what you will continue to do and why you will continue to do it that way as well as what would do differently next time and how you will do it differently).
• We are particularly looking for lessons you have learnt in when reflecting on your experience - what would have been done differently or more efficiently and how you might implement these improvements in the future.
• For experienced practitioners you can reflect on past experience in SAR operations and training and reflecting on this in context of the course content
• You may also reflect on the actions of others or on an incident that you have been involved in, it does not have to be your specific actions so long as you were involved and have first hand knowledge.
• Focus on the tasks and activities - not the people. It should be a reflection on practice and actions, not a criticism of others.
• The required times in the Reflective Practice Standards indicate the amount of activity time that should be reflected on - not the amount of time you need to spend reflecting!

As you can see from the above, reflective practice is not a log of your activities, but an important component of the learning and improvement cycle that aims to make SAR in New Zealand stronger. We hope this explanation will make it easier for you to complete this valuable learning component.

What is your assessor looking for?

The reflective practice is your experience, analysis and plan for the future. The evidence we are looking for is:

• You can provide an account of your experience
• Record the skills that you used and show the relevance to the outcomes within the course
• Demonstrate an awareness of the strengths and/or weakness of your experience
• Ask further questions if you are unclear or demonstrate an understanding of the skills
• Plan the way you would approach the situation next time
• Reflection is an advanced analytical process. A few scribbled sentences do not do it justice.

Downloads

You can download the following documents (right click "Save Target As...") to assist you in completing your reflective practice.

• A Reflective Practice presentation
• The Reflective Practice template forms in a PDF version to be completed manually
• The Reflective Practice template forms in a WORD version to be completed electronically

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