Using Reflective Practice to Enhance Professional Development Through Written, Spoken and Visual Materials☆

Abstract The study provides a two-year reflective overview of the professional development process of one early education professional team (RODACIE: Romanian Danish Center for Integrated Education Center in Bucharest). This paper reflects on various materials gathered within a three years action-research project in which the authors are involved. More specifically we discuss results of photo analysis of everyday interactions with children and a self-assessment tool on professional practices of RODACIE staff. Both photos and self-assessment tools give practitioners the opportunity a) to reflect on their professional practices in relation to everyday interactions with children and b) to focus on their own practices in relation to different formal indicators of professional development through their own cognitive and emotional interpretation of practice. Main topics approached through crosscutting analysis of written, spoken and visual materials are the following: health and nutrition, care and development, planning and spontaneous, body and mind, autonomy and discipline, competition and cooperation etc.