Why Reflect?
‘It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn.
Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten,
or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging
from this reflection that generalizations or concepts can be generated.
And it is generalizations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively.’
(Gibbs 1988)
What is Reflective Writing?
What is Reflective Writing?
In Learning by Doing, Gibbs outlines the stages for a ‘Structured Debriefing’, which are based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (1984) and encourage deeper reflection:
Description: What is the stimulant for reflection? (incident, event, theoretical idea) What are you going to reflect on?
Feelings: What were your reactions and feelings?
Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience? Make value judgments.
Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation? Bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you.What was really going on?
Conclusions (general): What can be concluded, in a general sense, from the experiences and the analyses you have undertaken?
Conclusions (specific): What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or ways of working?
Personal Action plans: What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time? What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learned?
Pete Watton
Jane Collings
Jenny Moon
April 2001
There is very good example of reflection given in J. K. Rowling’s book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that can effectively answer the question, “What is reflective writing?” Following is the excerpt:
Harry stared at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.
“What is it?” Harry asked shakily.
“This? It is called a Pensieve,” said Dumbledore. “I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”
“Err,” said Harry who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.
“At these times” said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, “I use the Penseive. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into a basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.’
Reflection is an integral part of the learning process, and often, we are not even aware we are doing it. Reflective Writing in the Health Care field may include any of the following:
1. An analysis of your learning experience within a course.
2. An analysis of a past experience, such as internship or field work.
3. A description of what you learned from a course or a placement.
4. A review of the course up to that point.
5. A description and analysis of a specific incident.
Reflection and Learning
By contributing to this blog you become both a learner and a teacher:
Learner: Have you ever struggled to describe an experience to someone else? Have you ever had a life-changing realization that is forgotten when you try and recall it a week later? Writing can be a valuable way to process experiences as they come, often reaching new conclusions in the process of putting ideas to paper.
Teacher: Influential teachers, from elementary school teachers to biochemistry professors, use illustrative examples. I learn best when instructors incorporate stories into their teaching. For example, I discovered that if I knew someone with a disease spoken of during a pathology lecture I retained the information with significantly less effort. I have labeled this learning style narrative learning. I'm sure I am not the only one who learns from the experience of others.
Give it a try. Just like LeVar Burton, "You don't have to take my word for it!"
