reflective writing exercise

reflective writing exercise

The Benefits of Reflective Writing

1. Introduction

Boud and Walker (1993) provided a valuable analysis of the features of reflective thinking. They argue that such thinking is not used to produce knowledge, but used to learn and to make sense of the complexities of the situations encountered in the day-to-day service of patients. Boud et al. (1994) posit that one of the main problems in promoting reflective thinking in work situations is the lack of opportunity for people to discuss with knowledgeable others the day-to-day practice which raises interesting and important issues to think through. This theory tying reflective thinking to situations encountered in professional practice highlights the pertinence of reflective writing to clinical or academic practice in a health or social service context.

In the academic context, reflective thinking and writing have a clear purpose: we are trying to learn more about something, often trying to make sense of it, or trying to learn how to do it better. This “something” is viewed as a learning opportunity. Reflective writing is an activity that includes description (what happened), analysis (what was good and bad about the experience), outcomes (what was learned), and conclusion (what could have been done better) (Boud et al., 1985).

Even for the most confident writers, putting words onto paper is not an easy task. First and subsequent drafts are often composed in a flurry of activity, research suggestions and other tasks related to the writing process are more likely to be haphazardly pursued. Poor organization frequently leads to writer’s block – the difficult, often painful inability to move a writing project forward. Though some suffer this malady only fleetingly, others find it almost paralyzing at various points in their careers (Boice, 1983; Rose, 1984).

2. The Importance of Reflective Writing

There is still great need for professionals in the workplace to be able to collaborate, solve problems, think critically and innovatively. The ability to reflect is a learned behavior that is cultivated by the individual skills and habits a person can develop and apply in their life. Reflective writing is an important, if not crucial, element in the learning process that enables the possibility of personal and professional growth. The self-reflective essay is looking at the different stages of the essay process. The self-reflective essay follows the stages of a conceptual and framework. Essentially this is a theory-driven framework which is specifically focused on the use of theory and evidence. The two vital elements of this assignment are: the effective use of theory to underpin the discussions and the importance of the said theory in the clinical practice. Having looked at these two elements we must now consider the situation as a whole. After reflecting on the article and subsequent writing of the self-reflective essay I feel as if I have reached the desired outcome. This is obviously something subjective, but using the Gibbs model to appraise my performance, I feel that I have utilized the theory and evidence to construct a framework that will effectively analyze the given situation. There are a nigh on infinite number of ways to play out the events in the article, and subsequently further explanations and re-framings can utilize a different theory and go even further to expand my abstract framework. For the purpose of this assignment, I will state that the assignment needs no further explanations. The four-stage framework is put together well and knowing I can revisit new theories and expand this at any time, I feel that I have reached a firm and satisfactory conclusion.

3. Techniques for Effective Reflective Writing

Write formally, this is a chance to develop your formal writing skills. This can be important and useful in various aspects of life. Don’t worry about ‘Creative writing’, this piece will be concerned with your thoughts and feelings about the event, and can overlap with a personal piece of writing.

Focus on the event and your internal reactions and perceptions of this. An over reflection of the content and less about how you were feeling and what you were thinking at that specific time will result in a descriptive account of the event.

There are no right or wrong answers to this type of writing.

Write about your personal reactions to an experience, a lecture or other material. This can be the easiest way to start a more formal piece of reflective writing, and can be quite simple. A useful way of prompting your thinking is to use a series of questions: Who? What? When? Where? How?

Spending time talking with a friend, parent, or counselor about our thoughts and feelings can be a great first step to writing. Here are some basic tips on keeping a reflective journal. These are general points that will get you started towards creating a journal and the ideas can be developed further later on.

4. Examples of Reflective Writing

In my second year of university, my pressure of classmates and friends and competitive spirit had triggered a monumental journey of self-discovery for me. Making mistakes, from an incorrect answer to an unfinished question – by doing so I am not viewing these as failures, instead events that have happened and moments in time which have contributed to my development of self-awareness and purpose, rather than self-esteem and identity. I have taken attribute to my passion for wanting to succeed to rather independent self-regulation and intrinsic motivation. In comparison from my first letter, I wasn’t aware of the depth of ability raced between EAL and standard learners taking the same subject. With further investigation and clarification from my professor, it wasn’t until the module of EAL learners that I noticed the blatant distinguishing features between the two. It an interesting observation, I took note of some comments said by Japanese EAL learners with reference to Front-loading – I want to take note of and learn about the positive and negative effects. Though it sounds like an incredible bias approach, I want to investigate and learn about how I can effectively teach Japanese students and create an atmosphere where they can understand my native spoken English and develop their abilities in English comprehension and production. This will be a good segue from a personal to a professional component as I explain the teaching methods and lesson plans in future letters.

5. Conclusion

Reflective writing is a powerful tool, which, when used to its full potential, can have a lasting positive impact on your personal and professional development. It allows you to turn your past experiences into useful insights by enabling you to evaluate your actions and thought processes, aiding in the improvement of decision-making and judgement. It also helps to avoid the tendency to jump to conclusions too quickly, enabling a more thorough understanding of an experience or situation (Fook and Gardner, 2007). Through the process of reflection, an individual is able to see, and more consciously change, their methods of doing things to achieve a higher quality of output. It is an exploration of problems, by delving beneath the surface and seeing complicated and messy situations as they truly are. In actuality, reflective writing has far more benefits. The one not to be underestimated and a feature of good reflective writing is its ability to connect theory and practice (Schon, 1996). This occurs throughout the reflective process and helps you to become more aware of the theories and the evidence for their use. This will, in time, make you more critically analytical and equip you for change or improvement. All reflective outcomes will result in improved clinical judgement and better patient outcomes. Reflective practice is an integral part of developing new nursing approaches and with the increased long term, complex and more skilled interventions; it is essential to develop clinical reasoning and personal reflection on practice.