CPD23 Thing 5

Reflective Practice

When I first read this thing I thought, hey, no problem, I am pretty reflective. But, on further reading and reflection, I realized that most of my reflection comes before I start. Such as before beginning this task. I read Thing 5 yesterday and reread it again today, going a little deeper, looking at links. In between I have been thinking about what I first read and how I would respond. And that has changed after rereading.

I do reflect on what I have dome, especially when I feel I have done something wrong or could have done it better. But that reflection is usually not that productive as it tends to be negative rather than thinking about how to do it better. Although I try to learn from my mistakes I tend to be hard on myself about my mistakes.

Learning from what we have done well or rather, stopping to realize that we have done it well and recording that for the future is also important. For instance, we have had to close 3 branches in the past 5 years for renovations but we have not stopped to write down what has gone well, or not gone so well, with those procedures. So each time it feels like a new thing we are doing and we forget what steps we need to take.

Or we are in the midst of changing to a new ILS and I would love to have a checklist somewhere of what you need to do as a library to prepare for this. I will try and take some time after we are done to work out went well and what didn't go well. A colleague at another library did this for a presentation at a conference and I found it helpful as a listener, I wonder if she found it helpful herself.

Taking the time after a project has been completed to say what worked and what didn't work is very hard to do. After all you've put in all this time and worked hard for months and are just glad to be done. But it is important to stop and take the time, while it is still fresh in your mind, to be reflective.

I don't know if I'll be able to do that but if I could spend some of the time after as well as before a project reflecting I believe it would be a benefit to me and my work.