REFLECTIVE LEARNING

What is reflection?

Being able to reflect helps you learn from experience. By asking open questions about what you experienced or things like ‘what were your feelings’, ‘what did you see or hear’, helps bring your mind to a greater state of awareness of what actually was going on at that moment in time.

What is reflective learning?

When you do this as part of learning you are also able to understand better how theory can be applied in practice. You’ll also be able to see where actions may be consistent with any theories, models or concepts you might be studying, or see gaps that need to be bridged.

So, taking yourself through a reflective process can help inform what worked or didn't work, what you might need to do differently if you did it again or how you might develop your own behaviour or practice.

How will reflection help me?

Being able to reflect helps develop your critical thinking and analytical skills. It also helps you to:

• develop self-awareness, clarify your personal values and your perspective on change.
• develop your ability to describe clearly, to critically analyse and to identify existing knowledge and skills.
• explore useful or not so useful feelings related to the situation.
• identify and challenge your own assumptions and beliefs.
• imagine, visualise and explore alternative courses of action and consider their potential consequences .
• evaluate and synthesise, which is essential to ensure success or continuous improvement.

Why use a reflective diary, log or journal?

Throughout your study you will build a reflective portfolio. Keeping a log, diary or journal has numerous benefits to you, including:

• providing structure to capture your thoughts and recollections.
• forming a permanent record which can be reviewed to gain further insights or new learning.
• providing evidence of your personal development.

Learning through reflection involves taking yourself through a reflective process which can be based on various models. To support you, particularly if you are new to reflection, we provide a choice of learning log tools to capture your learning as it happens.

To get the best out of your learning opportunity through reflection

• Be frank and honest with yourself, tell it how it is.
• Be spontaneous (Hull and Redfern, 1996) because this could be your subconscious bringing something to your awareness.