reflective writing sentence starters

reflective writing sentence starters

Reflective Writing: Enhancing Self-Reflection and Critical Thinking

1. Introduction

It is widely agreed that experience is a key to effective learning and that this learning requires the ability to think abstractly and to develop our knowledge further. Such thinking and knowledge development is strongest when it is based on a relevant concrete experience. However, ‘experience’ is a very elusive and nebulous concept, and the learning that is based upon it is ineffable. Since the experience itself resides in the doing, it is difficult to capture and make use of. Similarly, the learning stemming from it is often unrecognized, unacknowledged, and not easily retrieved in order to use it for further learning or application. Yet for learning to be effective, the knowledge that has been developed from an experience must be made more conscious and more ‘formal’. It must be identified and then described in a way that it can be retained and used. The experience and the knowledge must be shaped and formed. This is what is meant by learning through reflection.

This is a practical book on self-reflective writing. With an emphasis on learning from experience through reflection, this book is aimed toward those who are new to writing reflectively. It is especially targeted to students in any discipline who are required to write papers or theses about their own experiences.

2. Understanding Reflective Writing

The Gibbs model is built around the notion of practice and consists of six stages. The first stage or ‘description’ is important link between the first trigger of the reflective process and the construction to follow this. It will involve the practitioner recalling the events of the practice and will provide a basis for later comparisons with the ‘theoretical’ understanding of the events in stage 3. Stage 2 ‘feeling’ is a statement of emotive response to the event which may be essential in some situations but is frequently omitted in reflection, whereas the ‘evaluation’ stage is a more general description of events where the evaluation value may change and be revisited at later dates in further reflection.

To capture and categorise the complexity of reflection, it is a good idea to develop a reflective framework. This is a reference guide to the different types of reflection which can be used in different situations. It will assist a learner to choose the type of reflection most likely to help them to learn from a given experience. Reflected learning is said to be an effective method of constructing meaning and generalising from an experience, which has a cyclical nature and involves an open-minded, active, persistent and questioning attempt to gain a clear view of the experience—leading to action to change the experience if the reflection uncovers a lack of coherence, and one to three levels of conscious reflection with a review being carried out if the action is deemed unsatisfactory. An example of such a reflective framework is the Gibbs model. This is a simple but effective model which is based around a six stage cyclical framework. This framework is very useful abstract learners who prefer to concentrate on the essence of things and/or course cognitively complex ideas. It is also ideal for students in manageable sized chunks over time. Finally it is a very flexible model which can be adjusted for different assignments. An example for the nursing profession has been take form the Edinburgh Napier University, Critical Thinking and Writing for Nursing Students Broughton and Charlton (Long), but it is the stages defined in the Gibbs model which are crucial if the learner is to develop the skill of continuous critical reflection whose aim is to change clinical practice.

Reflection has many facets. For example, the term is sometimes used to describe the activities of a learning process and sometimes to describe an outcome of the activity (Smith and Pon). It is applied in a wide range of learning experiences from laboratory work to lectures, seminars and fieldwork, and can be recorded in a variety of ways, for example in diaries, logs and files, and etymologically it has the sense of ‘bending back’. This rich picture of reflection has been developed by medical educationists to provide a workable account of learning from experience to inform the design of educational experiences in the training of medical practitioners. They identify a number of different learning experiences and label them as a continuum of ‘reflection in action’ to ‘reflection on action’ (Schon).

3. Benefits of Reflective Writing

The significance of reflective writing lies in its capacity to consolidate practical experience with theoretical knowledge and to provide a framework for self-regulation and personal development. As an aid to professional development, reflective writing can enable the practitioner to identify further learning needs and take control of his/her own learning and development. It is a way of reinforcing professional knowledge as well as a means to more effective clinical decision making and problem solving. Carrying out critical reflection on an incident or work experience in light of known theory can sharpen a practitioner’s understanding of the relationships between what he/she does, what he/she knows, and how he/she comes to know it. This journeying from practical experience to theory and back to practice often results in changed behaviors or approaches to practice. Through careful construction of reflective writing, a practitioner can take further opportunity to develop a fuller and more meaningful understanding of a given situation which can change his/her future practice. A well-developed understanding of specific incidents can also be communicated to others, its potential impact on practice, or the nurse can use it as a basis for specific learning conversations with colleagues. Further learning needs to be taken in broaching the move of nursing degree from the position of student to that of a registered nurse. Many students find this transition extremely difficult and stressful – reflective writing can be an essential tool in making sense of the learning processes that have occurred, and gained knowledge and skills which have led to the achievement of competence and confidence in practice. Through this process, the student can map the move from novice to experienced beginner and further identify future learning needs for competency development. Reflection of this nature can help prevent the loss of enthusiasm that can occur in times of stress and also reduce the psychological dissonance of those who feel they have not actualized their studies or learning in a successful move to practice.

4. Strategies for Effective Reflective Writing

Some general ideas about how to reflective writing include: • Writing in a personal and highly descriptive style that mimics the way you would speak about the event… coffeeshop.cns.cornell.edu Example: Reflective Writing: Enhancing Self-Reflection and Critical Thinking There are a few things you should note about the way this writing is set out. Firstly, the style is conversational and the language… [Link] Example: Reflective Writing – Descriptive On the basis of a case scenario, here’s an ‘on the spot’ account of reflective writing using Driscoll’s model, with my comments in brackets… mikemcsharry.blogspot.com Additionally, there are steps to reflective writing suggested in numerous academic articles, and they normally look something like this. Step 1: Selecting a Specific Situation to Reflect – Think of a specific event / experience you wish to retell… (A good tip is to stick to the writing guidelines above, despite the instructions being quite academic. A descriptive writing style still works best) Step 3: Evaluate and analyze how the situation unfolded. Developing and applying a questioning approach will enable you to review and evaluate the experience at a deeper level… mikemcsharry.blogspot.com

5. Conclusion

In this essay, we have seen the immense power of reflective writing and its ability to enhance students’ self-reflective and critical thinking. The greatest thing about reflective writing is that it is never too late to start. There is always room for improvement. By introducing the reflective process to your students and by encouraging them to cultivate this practice, we are giving them a skill that will last a lifetime – and one that will continue to shape their opinions, decisions, and ways of thinking for the better. It is a skill that will not only serve them well in their academic pursuits but also in their personal and professional lives. While the students engage in reflective writing, instructors can also engage in reflection about how best they can encourage and provide opportunities for reflective writing to occur in the subjects they teach. By deepening our own understanding of how we think and learn, we might just inspire our students to do the same. This can be achieved by providing some form of reflective diary or journal as part of the assessment in the course. By sharing stories and experiences about the successes and challenges in employing reflective teaching into our various educational contexts, we can both support and learn from each other.