In Engaging Imagination: helping students become creative and reflective thinkers, we offer
fourteen examples of when we believe reflective thinking takes place. Here I consider how six of
these were visible during our flexible and sustainable interventions. Stephen and I advocate
creative and imaginative approaches to reflection arguing that non-textual modes of reflection
(although I stress we are not anti-writing) can energise and illuminate the development of
metacognition and self-efficacy. This happens too when PDP arises ‘accidentally’ as a natural and
important outcome of learning, rather than something stipulated from the outset. The ‘accidental
PDP’ I share here comes from collaborative, reflective and sustainable practices by and between
staff and students in diverse roles and disciplines – including the facilities and support teams,
managers, academics, technicians, under and post graduates and pupils on outreach programmes.
So, in our book we suggest that reflective thinking happens “when students do one or more of the
following things”, and the six which I want to focus on are reproduced here with their original
numbers (for a full set please see James & Brookfield, 2014:29):
1. Check the assumptions that inform their actions and judgements
2. Seek to open the