How can we use Reflective Practice as Students?

Reflection allows us to understand our own actions on a deeper level and identify patterns in our behaviour. It is helpful to think back on situations we have been in and reflect on what we did well, or what we would do differently should the situation arise again.

Reflection has many benefits to students, most importantly for your future: if you can reflect effectively on your actions and situations you have been in, you will be able to identify the transferable skills you have used.

Reflective practice – reflecting in a measured and often structured way – can help you to develop a positive professional approach to learning from your experiences. It means engaging intellectually with this field of study and applying that to your thoughts, behaviours, and experiences.

How can we reflect?

People have been thinking about this, developing theories and models, debating principles and approaches, and generally giving it a go, for quite a long time. The modern history of these ideas and the development of Reflective Practice go back around one hundred years (see next section).

Over the following sections, we’ll consider a few of the models and techniques that are widely used today for self-reflection, but here are a few simple questions and prompts you might want to consider when you think reflectively about your experiences:

• What went well?
• What did I not expect?
• What went wrong?
• What was difficult?
• How did I get to that conclusion?
• If I could start again, what might I do differently?
• What did I learn here that I can use next week? Next month? Next year?
• What skills did I use?
• What skills did I need?
• How did I feel?
• How do I feel now?
• How did I adjust at the time?

When can we reflect?

You can use these techniques as reflective exercises in lots of different ways, including:

Assignment writing and feedback

This can help you step back, see what you’re doing well, and pick out specific things to improve on. You could reflect on your work itself, your approach to the assignment, how you feel about it, the comments from the marker, and verbal feedback on your writing from someone once a term to consolidate what you’ve learned.

Employment or voluntary work

A long, busy shift, or an intensive period of work leading up to a deadline, can be emotionally draining. Reviewing things after you’ve rested, and considering the experience objectively, can be good for your wellbeing and help you learn something clear and relevant from these tough intensive challenges.

Warwick Award Activities

We ask you to reflect on the skills you’ve practised across the activities you can get points for in the Warwick Award. This is because if you’re aware of the skills you’ve developed, and can associate them with specific experiences, you’ll be readier to talk about them or apply them in the future with more confidence.

Big life events: leaving school or home, finishing university, moving in with someone, starting new jobs.

Reflecting at these times can help us to come to terms with major changes in our life, and to mark them clearly as moments of transition where we can transfer lessons from one experience or mode of living, to a new and potentially unfamiliar one