This paper is focused on the concepts of reflection, pracademics and Cognitive Apprentices used within work-based learning contexts. A hermeneutic phenomenological dialogic exchange was conducted between the authors to gain an in-depth interpretive analysis of the concepts of reflection, pracademics and Cognitive Apprentices. It is evident that reflection is not easy to teach and that modelling it as a practice as 'thinking out aloud' could be beneficial for a novice in their own reflective development. Whether, however, pracademics are best suited as Cognitive Apprentices is still contested and debated. Whilst it is undeniably challenging to achieve the "tri-professional" role of the well-rounded academic (subject expertise, research expertise, and pedagogic expertise), and perhaps realistically no academic is likely to have an equally weighted pie chart of professional abilities, our argument is that to be an academic means embracing the notion of developing in all these arenas.