Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions

Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions Donald A. Schon San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1987 ISBN: 978-15-5542-220-2, 355 pages

Donald A. Schon was Ford Professor of Urban Studies and Education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the time of the publication of this book. He had been a researcher and consultant on organisational learning and professional effectiveness and was active in a number of American professional organisations. Earlier publications included The reflective practitioner (1983), Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective (1978, with Chris Argyris), and Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness (1974, with Chris Argyris).

The comment shared when I received this book for review was, Td forgotten how good this is', and so in reviewing this book, I embarked on a journey back to my earliest postgraduate coursework and then employment as a TAFE teacher. Schon had begun his quest in The reflective practitioner to answer the question: What kind of professional education would be appropriate to an epistemology of practice based on reflection-in-action? Educating the reflective practitioner seeks to answer this question in more detail.

Schon proposes that higher education professional undergraduate and postgraduate programs need to learn from the rich history of (deviant) education for practice in the studios of art and design, conservatories of music, athletics coaching and apprenticeships in the crafts. He argues that the...