Donald Schon

Donald Schon’s 1983 book The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action gave the field its working vocabulary. Most of the words used to describe teacher reflection today, including the phrase “reflective practitioner” itself, come from this book. Schon’s central claim is simple. Real professional work involves a kind of thinking that does not fit the textbook picture of “apply theory to problem.”

Reflection in action and on action

Schon developed two paired ideas: reflecting in action and reflecting on action.

Reflection-in-action

Reflection-in-action is thinking while doing. A teacher in the middle of a demonstration notices that two students are confused. Without breaking the lesson, she changes the example, slows down, and asks a different question. The adjustment happens inside the work, not after it.

Schon treated this kind of reflection as the core of professional artistry. It is what separates a teacher running on autopilot from a teacher actually paying attention to what is in front of her. Most experienced teachers do this without naming it. Schon’s contribution was to name it.

Reflection-on-action

Reflection-on-action is after-the-event thinking. The teacher consciously reviews, describes, analyses, and evaluates past practice with a view to gaining insight that will improve future practice.

This is the slower, more deliberate kind. Most journals, mentor meetings, and post-observation debriefs sit here. Reflection-on-action has the time that reflection-in-action does not have. It can consult theory, consult colleagues, and weigh evidence carefully.

In both kinds of reflection, teachers aim to connect with their feelings, attend to relevant theory, and build new understandings that shape action in the unfolding situation.

A working cycle for teachers

Schon’s two ideas can be turned into a practical cycle that fits a teaching week.

The cycle is simple, but the discipline is hard. Most teachers skip the second and third steps under time pressure. The cycle works only when the post-lesson notes are actually written and the planning step actually uses them.

The limits of technical rationality

Schon contrasted reflection-in-action with what he called technical rationality, an idea favoured by positivist theorists. Technical rationality treats professional practice as the simple application of scientific knowledge to a clearly defined problem. The teacher, in this view, is a delivery system for prepackaged knowledge.

Schon argued that technical rationality fails to resolve the dilemma teachers actually face: rigour versus relevance. Rigorous theoretical knowledge often does not fit the messy classroom. Knowledge that fits the classroom often lacks academic rigour. A teacher who only follows set procedures cannot bridge the two.

For Schon, real teachers have to do more than follow procedures. They draw on practical experience and theory together, often improvising on their feet. They act intuitively and creatively. The two kinds of reflection let teachers revise, modify, and refine their expertise as they go.

This argument was sharper in the 1980s, when teacher training in some places treated teachers as technicians. It is still relevant. A teacher who feels that “I learned the theory but the classroom is different” is meeting exactly the rigour-versus-relevance gap Schon described.

Tacit knowledge: what teachers actually know

Schon argued that reflection begins in working practice with confusing situations. A teacher may have theoretical knowledge of their subject and of teaching method. That knowledge does not by itself explain how their practice actually works.

From real life experience in the classroom, teachers build tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is a synthesis of theory and practice that the teacher has developed for themselves. It cannot easily be written down. It shows up in the small adjustments a teacher makes without thinking.

Examples of tacit knowledge in teaching:

1. Knowing when a class needs five more minutes on a topic before moving on, even when the lesson plan says move on
2. Sensing which students will benefit from a public question and which will only freeze
3. Hearing in a student’s first sentence whether they understand the topic or are guessing
4. Feeling the difference between a productive silence and a stuck one

This knowledge does not come from reading. It comes from teaching, reflecting on what happened, and slowly building a more refined sense of the work. Schon’s point is that this kind of knowing matters and deserves to be taken seriously.

Flashcard

What is tacit knowledge in Schon's account, and where does it come from?

Tap to reveal

Answer

A practical synthesis of theory and practice that teachers build from real experience

Tacit knowledge is the knowing-how that experienced teachers carry but cannot easily write down. It develops from years of teaching, reflecting on what happened, and refining intuition. Schon argued that this kind of knowledge sits at the centre of professional artistry and that technical rationality alone cannot account for it.

Why Schon’s framing has lasted

Schon’s two-part split (in action, on action) is simple enough to remember and rich enough to use. Three reasons it has lasted.

1. It names something real. Most teachers recognise both kinds of reflection in their own work.
2. It pushes back against the idea that teaching is a delivery system. This pushback was needed in 1983 and is still needed in policy environments that treat teachers as implementers.
3. It honours what experienced teachers actually know, even when that knowing is hard to put into words.

Later writers, including Brookfield, Johns, Boud, and Gibbs, built on Schon’s distinction. None of them replaced it.