Reflective practice
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Reflection is a type of self-assessment that includes critically reviewing your
performance in a specific activity in order to learn from experience by identifying
and developing strengths and improving on weaknesses.
Personal Development
Reflection is now seen as crucial to professional development. Most professional bodies and many employers have
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) schemes where reflection is essential, including appraisals and
keeping a professional portfolio. In professional practice – such as teaching, nursing and management – reflection
has been identified as an important way of generating knowledge and experience. Personal Development Planning
(PDP) has become increasingly important in higher education, at Northumbria, this means encouraging students
(and staff) to plan and reflect on their own progress and build up a range of transferrable skills that could be useful in
the workplace and later in life.
Reflective writing
Reflective writing can take a number of forms, including essays, learning journals or eportfolios such as PebblePad.
When writing reflectively you should:
1.
Describe your experience and provide some context to the situation. What happened and why?
2.
Describe your response, including any thoughts and feelings you had at the time. How do you
normally feel about the type of activity you are reflecting on? Were you well prepared or unprepared?
3.
Analyse the experience and objectively evaluate what went well, what didn’t work so well and more
importantly, why? It can be useful to discuss your experience and consider feedback from your tutor and
fellow students, as well as looking at past experience and academic theories.
4.
Consider what you have learnt from the experience and your reflection on it. What general
conclusions can you draw? What can be concluded about your specific experience? How and why has your
prior understanding of the type of experience you are reflecting on changed?
5.
Plan what you would do differently next time based on these conclusions and how you will develop
your strengths and improve on your weaknesses.
How can I ensure my reflection is effective?
To ensure your reflection is effective, it is important to be:

Objective

Honest

Balanced

Clear

Open
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Take a ‘step back’ and give yourself time to process the thoughts and emotions
that might otherwise bias your reflection. It can be useful to pretend you are critiquing someone
else’s work, rather than your own.
It can be difficult to talk about your own experiences, especially the negative or upsetting ones,
but understanding what went wrong can help you to avoid similar situations in the future.
It can be easy to focus on what went wrong, but it is also important to appreciate what went well
and the reasons for both. Sometimes these reasons are not obvious and you may need to go
over events repeatedly and consider different points of view.
Before you do any writing, you should take time to ensure that you understand what happened
and why as fully as possible so that you can explain it more clearly.
Discussing your experience with your tutor or fellow students is a good way to get feedback on
your performance and useful advice for improvement. Whether you think they are right or wrong,
you should consider the reasons why they might have that opinion. Even if the feedback you
receive is negative, it is more important to demonstrate that you understand what happened and
what you can learn from your experience rather than that think that everything went perfectly firsttime.
This leaflet is available in other formats on request.
Gibbs’ reflective cycle
Gibbs’ reflective cycle (1988) is a popular model for reflection that can help you to think through each stage of your
experience. The model can provide a good, general, framework when planning your reflective writing, but you should
aim to refine and expand upon the questions based on your unique experience.
Description
What happened?
Action plan
Feelings
What were you thinking
and feeling?
If it arose again, what
would you do?
Conclusion
Evaluation
What else could you have
done?
What was good and bad
about the experience?
Analysis
What sense can you
make of the situation?
Adapted from Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education
Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.
How can I use reflection to improve my performance?
Reflection is a type of personal development, and for it to be worthwhile and effective, you need to put what you
have learned into practice. You should review your reflective writing regularly to ensure that you have implemented
the changes you thought would improve your performance. If you haven’t implemented these changes, you should
think about how you can make sure you do so in the future.
This leaflet is available in other formats on request.
204_1738 / March 2017