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Reflective Thinking And Writing Process Analysis

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Reflective thinking and writing is an essential part of life and work it gives us the opportunity to learn new things, giving insight and reasoning into new experiences learnt on things that we may not otherwise have given much thought to. By deeper reflection on our experiences, we can increase our learning potential (Exeter University, 2001). Reflective writing is important as it gives us the opportunity to consider and evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, so we can apply changes for the next time. According to Shohet, 2011 this gives us the chance to gain a new perspective on new ideas on our experiences to logically make sense and to create a meaning of our experiences.

There are many influential reflective theorists, each having …show more content…

They state that with the awareness of the experience follows, the description of the situation, followed by analysing of feelings, then the evaluation of the relevance of knowledge and finally, identifying any learning and what has occurred (Open University, 2015).
The concern with these opinions with reflection on action, are, they do not take into account the importance of reflection before action, meaning when we plan, before we act what we want to do (Atkins and Murphy,1993b).
Professor Graham Gibbs’ model of reflection is demonstrated in a Reflective Cycle (1998) and states that there has to be a more direct approach to reflection. Gibbs suggests you learn by doing, proposing that individuals make their own description, analysis and evaluation of the experience, helping the reflective practitioner make sense of their experiences is to examine their practice. Gibbs believes that reflection is not enough, you need to put into practice the new experiences gained, allowing the reflective process to inform your practice. Gibb’s model on reflection has six stages: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. Gibbs’ model was developed by an earlier concept by David Kolb’s experimental learning cycle. However Kolb’s reflective model was experimental (meaning learning through experience), Gibb’s model was referred to an iterative model (learning through repetition) (Learning Theories,

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