reflective writing template

reflective writing template

The Importance of Reflective Writing

1. Introduction

Reflective writing involves an exploration and analysis of an event, opinion, or experience. It may not be immediately obvious what this has to do with academic writing. In fact, the reflective process is so important that many professional bodies use it as a criterion for accreditation. Reflective writing is a way of processing your practice-based experience to produce learning. It has two key features: 1) It integrates theory and practice. For example, considering an incident from practice, a concept learned in a lecture or from a book. 2) It is a way of helping you to become an active, aware and critical learner. This may be through greater understanding of cultural and contextual factors, or through development of a skill. The process of reflection doesn’t have to be formal, indeed, all of us reflect in our day to day lives. But it can be enhanced with preparation and support.

2. Benefits of Reflective Writing

The student and the teacher writer benefit from the process: the student gains insight and its academic value is given credence. The teacher, because he is able to monitor the thought processes occurring within a student, can offer advice and guidance as appropriate. It follows that assessment of the reflective writing built into most models of reflective practice becomes crucial in validatory terms. Learners should be encouraged to reflect on experiences with a view to learning from them. This monitoring of learning may, for some students, be more efficient in the sense of bringing about a change in concepts and assumptions, and in awareness of predispositions and attitudes, if it is recorded in some way. Written reflection is the most potent tool for this. If teachers are to foster reflective practice it is almost hypocritical of them to neglect their own reflection. This is increasingly recognised in the field of teacher education. Reflective methodology is used commonly as a form of training for teachers and it is assumed that instilling a reflexive habit will reinforce the commitment of teachers to their own reflective practice.

3. How to Engage in Reflective Writing

Reflective writing is a tool for you to express your experiences or storytelling in order to learn. It allows for the progression of problem solving and learning and can lead to an outcome in the future. Reflective writing can be used as a solution to some problem, an answer to a question, or a decision that can be made in the future. It can also help to develop new ideas and give us some direction in life. According to MacKay, J.S & Ahlberg, J.R. (1998), the creative and critical thinking process are characterized as combining to produce the rails for reflective thinking. This gives us a starting point to engage in reflective writing, as according to the study, creative and critical thinking are the driving forces behind reflective thinking, and a sound reflection is enabled through a clear understanding of the personal and conceptual factors which influence the situation for which one has to reflect. This understanding is arrived at via questioning and re-questioning what and why it is that has happened. It is this event, the thought process, which leads to the generation of reflective writing.

4. Examples of Reflective Writing

During writing such as this, before moving away from a point, there is always a consideration as to whether or not what was written is important or really needs to be there. Often I have had to delete or change a word, sentence or even a whole paragraph that I have written, as it was not concise enough to elucidate the point that I had intended (this seems to be a common problem for me). This form of writing can be beneficial in that the mistakes are often able to be identified more easily when they are read back, and as a result of this, you may notice that I have gone back and made corrective notes to certain parts of the text as it seemed to make more sense as a point to remember it for later, or it seemed to be a little out of place. Another example of reflective writing can be seen in the diary excerpt below: Monday 30 July, 1984 I came home at 5pm, feeling tired and frustrated. The traffic had been busy and it had taken me an hour to get home, or what seemed like an hour. They phoned to tell me that I hadn’t got the job. I feel so disappointed. It was ideal, part-time and close to home. Now I have to start looking again. I couldn’t face cooking, so we had fish and chips for tea, then I sat and watched emergency, feeling sorry for myself. I should have gone for an evening walk; it might have revived my flagging spirits. Next day Joan came in with the job section from the paper. Not much going at the moment on the clerical side, but I circled a few prospects and will keep on looking. I hope it won’t take too long. A long break would be nice now, but it is out of the question. I must try to keep motivated. This person has written about their feelings and thought processes, arguing with themselves as to what would have been the best action, so that it may serve as a reminder in the future that this was what they had to do. Reflective writing like this can help the author to re-evaluate an event and can be beneficial, for example, if the author has to learn from an event and is noting it as a reminder for future action.

5. Conclusion

An improvement to be recommended to students would be the ‘early start’; whereby students attempt to reflect on a learning experience at the earliest possible time, such as after a lesson to review what has been learned and how it fits into the larger topic, or at the end of a project or study period. This will help students to develop the skills necessary to review and re-evaluate the learning at different times, thus increasing generalization and the probability of making changes to future learning.

From the above, reflective writing can be articulated to be an informed learning strategy. It enables students to bridge the gap between the learnt and learning. Hence, it can be inferred that students do not learn only from what they are taught, but also from what they have understood. Often, students are asked to think about events and how they affect their learning. In a subject like Education Studies, in which students will often be studying their own learning processes, reflective practice can be an invaluable aid to understanding. This does not mean that reflective writing is only useful for students studying education. It has been found that students from different disciplinary areas have used the strategy successfully, as an ‘in-depth’ understanding of learning can be useful to all.