How to Write Reflectively Personal and professional growth Pausing to reflect on our experiences or key events gives us an opportunity to work out what we've done well, what we could do differently, and learnings we can take into the future to develop ourselves personally and professionally. In your studies, you'll be asked to reflect on various tasks, such as collaborative activities, concepts and teamwork. So how do I reflect? Reflective thinking models Reflection is the ability to look at an event, examine it, make connections and then learn from it. It is a personal response to an experience which encompasses any event, learning, situation or critical incident (Tripp, 1983). It is a key skill for personal and professional development as it develops our awareness of self, makes us active and empowered in process and outcome, and contributes to deep and lifelong learning. The experience that causes you to reflect, or that you are asked to reflect upon, might be something quite typical to your workplace or life, may have arisen out of studies, and may at times not seem particularly sensational or exceptional. Nevertheless, it provides you with an opportunity to learn how to do something differently and more effectively in the future. This outcome is an example of transformative learning, whereby you resolve to act differently in a similar situation in the future because you have learned from your mistakes, successes or uncertainties. However, such transformative learning does not happen automatically, nor does writing critically and reflectively. Models therefore help to scaffold us through the reflective process.
There are a number of models for effective critical reflection. Here are two models that you can adapt and adopt when approaching reflective task work. Applying a reflective thinking model will enable you to go beyond a purely descriptive personal account, to an analytical and productive piece of reflective writing. What? So what? What now? Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper (2001) introduced the What?, So what?, What now/next?model of reflection. With this model, you first describe the event (What?). You then gain understanding and insight by drawing on research to construct your personal theory of how the event has brought new understanding (So what?). Finally, you attempt to learn from the event so that you do things differently in the future (What now/next?). Descriptive level of reflection What? Theory & knowledge building So what? Action-oriented level of reflection What next? The What? So What? What now/next? model for reflection (Rolfe at al., 2001). Adapted from Surgenor (2011, p.10) <bit.ly/1wnorWM>
The four lenses Brookfield (1995) introduced the four lenses model of critical reflection, primarily for education contexts like teaching. With this model, you look at an event (experience, situation or incident) from four stakeholder perspectives in order to understand it and learn from it. These four perspectives are your own (i.e. autobiographical), your students' (e.g. feedback), your colleagues' (e.g. peer review), and, finally, those of existing research (e.g. academic publications). The more lenses reflected upon in regard to an event, the deeper the