Reflection On Self Development Through Reflection

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

This essay will demonstrate an understanding of the theory of reflective practice within healthcare and nursing. Furthermore, the essay will identify and analyse the different models of reflective practice, the effectiveness of the models and how healthcare professionals can apply this within their profession. Also, the barriers that may prevent a healthcare professional from reflecting will be discussed in this essay and how it will impact the quality of care delivered to patients.

I will structure this essay using Gibbs Model of Reflection (Gibbs 1988). Reflective learning helps practitioners analyse their experiences and how they think and feel about them before

This reflection is based upon the 360 degree tool feedback I have received from three anonymous service users, my practice mentor (a fully qualified Health visitor) and myself (a first year student nurse). All this information is then returned to the individual can be used to improve self-learning by reflecting on the responses given and focusing on any areas that can be developed or improved.

Effective reflection helps the practitioner to see the situation from an outsider's perspective, so that they can develop a better way to respond to a similar scenario in the future. Reflection is meant to achieve a change in practice, rather than simply repeating the same mistakes (Schon, 1983). Many different models exist for structuring the reflective process. Regardless of the framework used, the reflection models are meant to accomplish three things. They are supposed to promote reflecting on events, self-evaluation and analysis, and a plan to change actions in the future. This Reflective essay will utilize Driscoll's 'The What?' model as its structure (Driscoll, 1994). This model has three components"

Reflection is a process of reviewing and thinking critically about activities and how this affects learning of student’s. It is not just descriptions of what happened during the lesson; it’s to

The term “reflection” directly refers to one’s own ability for serious thought or consideration regarding events, which have occurred in the past. Professional bodies and organisations utilise reflective practice within continuous professional development as an effective tool to evoke critical thoughts regarding their own actions. This analysis of one’s own

Reflective practice is a self-analysis tool, by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness about the nature and impact of their performance, an awareness that creates opportunities for professional growth and development (Kottkamp & Osterman, 1993). Reflective practice allows professionals to assess their performance, make sense of what happened and learn from mistakes and experiences in order to develop, improve and adapt. (Cropley, et al., 2012).

Reflective practice engages practitioners in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation in order to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). Reflective practice is considered as an evolving concept which views learning as “an active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.” (Reid, B 1993 cited in Garfat, T. 2005).

According to Howston-Jones (2013) reflection is not something that is out of the ordinary for everyone to do in their everyday lives. Reflection is the act of looking back on a situation, event or incident critically and making sense of it to learn from it and alter our actions to gain better outcomes should the same incident arise again (Capelhow, Crouch, Fisher & Walsh, 2013). As new experiences happen to everyone, everyday; it would be right to consider reflection as an ongoing process within everyone’s life, a process that is repeated, honed and a skill to be developed (McKenna, 1998).

The Royal College of Nursing defines reflection as the process of thinking deeply with the purpose of understanding (RCN 2013). Reflection is a way people recollect, think and evaluate their knowledge which is a vital part of learning. (Boud et al cited in Royal College of Nursing). Reflection allows us to be conscious of any form of discrimination. It enables learning from mistakes and prevents future occurrence (RCN 2013). In addition, Jasper et al (2013) looks at reflection as a way professionals learn through various experiences in their role. They also went further to say, for development to happen in our roles as professionals, there is the need for continuous process of building our knowledge.

Creating a personal development plan involves more than simply contemplating what you want from your life and how to go about achieving it. If you want to create a personal development plan that helps you to achieve your goals, preparation is the key. To prepare, one must have a great deal of self-awareness. This includes clear understanding of personal values and ethics, analyzing personality characteristics, evaluation of learning styles and identifying strengths, weaknesses, motivators, opportunities and threats.

Kolb (1984) suggested that reflection plays a key role in transforming experience into knowledge. It has been suggested that reflection is a fundamental process for learning as a development; rather than merely the ability to retain information (Reynolds, 1998). Schon (1983) suggested critical reflection as a strategy for developing from practice to solve complicated or difficult situations, that require problem solving and a degree of “artistry” Schon (1983). Schon (1983) was one of the first theorists to look at reflection in terms of reflective practice. Moon (1999) defines reflective practice as "a set of abilities and skills, to indicate the taking of a critical stance, an orientation to problem solving or state of mind." Essentially, this is a readiness to continuously analysis and review practice.

The idea of reflective practice in an academic context however is new to me, and I did feel lost at first. Now I can see how reflecting on my own learning and experiences has helped me to see where I have improved week on week and I think that as a result, my confidence has improved and I am able to contribute more in class, I have more confidence in my ability to teach and I feel that as a result I am learning more. The process or reflection, evaluation and adaptation is truly a cyclic one.

Reflection helps one to improve especially when they can draw lessons from the positive and negative experiences of the past. It is an active process that enables individuals to understand how historical, social, cultural, as well as personal experiences contribute to how we study or learn. In any aspect of life, reflection can be applied to help individuals focus their efforts in getting the most out of different situations, and, therefore, improving self-performance and becoming lifelong learners.