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Practice-based and reflective learning

  • Reflective thinking
  • Introduction

Key features

Using academic evidence, selecting the content, getting the language right, useful links for reflective learning.

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reflective writing learning experience

Follow the guidelines for your course. There is likely to be a word limit: you cannot write about everything, so select what will illustrate your discussion best. Remember that most of the marks awarded for your work are likely to be for the reflective insights and not for the description of events, so keep your descriptions brief and to the point.

  • Reflective writing (Study Guide) You can also print off an abridged PDF version of this guide. This is designed to be printed double-sided on A4, then folded to make an A5 guide.

Reflective writing is a way of processing your practice-based experience to produce learning. It has two key features:

1) It integrates theory and practice. Identify important aspects of your reflections and write these using the appropriate theories and academic context to explain and interpret your reflections. Use your experiences to evaluate the theories - can the theories be adapted or modified to be more helpful for your situation?

2) It identifies the learning outcomes of your experience. So you might include a plan for next time identifying what you would do differently, your new understandings or values and unexpected things you have learnt about yourself.

You are aiming to draw out the links between theory and practice. So you will need to keep comparing the two and exploring the relationship between them.

Analyze the event and think about it with reference to a particular theory or academic evidence:

  • Are your observations consistent with the theory, models or published academic evidence?
  • How can the theories help you to interpret your experience?
  • Also consider how your experience in practice helps you to understand the theories. Does it seem to bear out what the theories have predicted?
  • Or is it quite different? If so, can you identify why it's different? (Perhaps you were operating in different circumstances from the original research, for instance.)

Collecting evidence

There are two sources of evidence which need to be used in reflective writing assignments:

1) Your reflections form essential evidence of your experiences. Keep notes on your reflections and the developments that have occurred during the process.

2) Academic evidence from published case studies and theories to show how your ideas and practices have developed in the context of the relevant academic literature.

1)  Write a log of the event. Describe what happened as briefly and objectively as possible. You might be asked to include the log as an appendix to your assignment but it is mostly for your own benefit so that you can recall what occurred accurately.

2)  Reflect . You should reflect upon the experience before you start to write, although additional insights are likely to emerge throughout the writing process. Discuss with a friend or colleague and develop your insight. Keep notes on your thinking.

3)  Select . Identify relevant examples which illustrate the reflective process; choose a few of the most challenging or puzzling incidents and explore why they are interesting and what you have learnt from them.

Start with the points you want to make, then select examples to back up your points, from your two sources of evidence:

reflective writing learning experience

ii) theories, published case studies, or academic articles.

Use the reflective learning cycle to structure your writing:

  • plan again etc.

This will make sure you cover the whole process and explain not just what happened, but why it happened and what improvements can be made based on your new understanding.

As a large proportion of your reflective account is based on your own experience, it is normally appropriate to use the first person ('I'). However, most assignments containing reflective writing will also include academic writing. You are therefore likely to need to write both in the first person ("I felt…") and in the third person ("Smith (2009) proposes that …"). Identify which parts of your experience you are being asked to reflect on and use this as a guide to when to use the first person. Always check your guidelines if you are not sure. If guidelines are not available then, in your introduction, explain when and why you are going to use "I" in your writing.

You will produce a balance by weaving together sections of 'I thought… 'I felt,…' and the relevant academic theories in the same section or paragraph. This is more effective than having a section which deals with the theory and a separate section dealing with your experiences.

Try to avoid emotive or subjective terms. Even though you are drawing on your experiences (and they may well have been emotional), you are trying to communicate these to your reader in an academic style. This means using descriptions that everyone would understand in the same way. So rather than writing, "The client was very unhappy at the start of the session", it might be better to write, "The client was visibly distressed", or "The client reported that he was very unhappy". This shows that you are aware that the client's understanding of 'unhappiness' may be quite different from yours or your reader's.  

When writing about your reflections use the past tense as you are referring to a particular moment (I felt…). When referring to theory use the present tense as the ideas are still current (Smith proposes that...).

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  • Last Updated: Jan 29, 2024 11:24 AM
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  • Academic Skills
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Reflective writing

Advice on how to write reflectively.

Reflective writing gives you an opportunity to think deeply about something you've learned or an experience you've had.

Watch the video below for a quick introduction to reflective writing. The video includes an example of reflecting on practice, but the approach is equally useful when reflecting on theory.

Video tutorial

Reflecting on practice.

Reflective writing may ask you to consider the link between theory (what you study, discuss and read about at university) and practice (what you do, the application of the theory in the workplace). Reflection on practical contexts enables you to explore the relationship between theory and practice in an authentic and concrete way.

"Yesterday’s class brought Vygotsky’s concepts of scaffolding and the ‘significant other’ into sharp focus for me. Without instruction, ‘Emily’ was able to scaffold ‘Emma’s’ solving of the Keystone Puzzle without directing her or supplying her with the answer – she acted as the ‘significant other’. It really highlighted for me the fact that I do not always have to directly be involved in students’ learning, and that students have learning and knowledge they bring to the classroom context."

What this example does well:

  • Links theory to practice.
  • Clearly states where learning occurred.

De-identify actual people you have observed or dealt with on placement or work experience using pseudonyms (other names, job titles, initials or even numbers so that real identities are protected). E.g.:

  • "It was great to observe ‘Lee’ try to..."
  • "Our team leader’s response was positive…"
  • "I observed G’s reaction to this..."
  • "Student Four felt that this was…"

"The lectures and tutes this semester have broadened my views of what sustainability is and the different scales by which we can view it . I learned that sustainability is not only something that differs at an individual level in terms of how we approach it ourselves, but also how it differs in scale. We might look at what we do individually to act sustainably, such as in what and how we recycle, but when we think about how a city or state does this, we need to consider pollution, rubbish collection and a range of other systems that point to sustainability on a much larger scale."

  • Clearly states where learning occurred
  • Elaborates on key issues
  • Gives examples.

"On the ward rounds yesterday, I felt Mr G’s mobility had noticeably improved from last week. This may be due to the altered physio program we have implemented and it allowed me to experience a real feeling of satisfaction that I had made a real difference."

Action verbs are usually expressing feelings and thoughts in reflective writing, e.g. felt, thought, considered, experienced, wondered, remembered, discovered, learned.

Reflecting on theory

Some reflection tasks are purely theoretical, where you are asked to consider texts you have read, or ideas you may have discussed in tutorials, and reflect on them.

"Comparing the approaches of Mayr and Ulich (2009) and Laevers (2005) to what 'wellbeing' means for the early childhood setting was very illustrative in that I discovered they seek to do similar things but within different frameworks. Analysing the two constructs highlighted that the detail in Mayr and Ulich’s framework provided a much richer framework in defining and measuring wellbeing than Laevers’ does."

  • References correctly.
  • Considers what the theory has shown.

Using the DIEP model

When writing reflectively for the first time, it’s not uncommon to produce a summary or description of the event or experience without deeply reflecting on it.

Reflective writing needs to go beyond simply summarising what happened. Your reader needs to gain an insight into what the experience meant to you, how you feel about it, how it connects to other things you’ve experienced or studied and what you plan to do in response.

To be sure you don’t leave out any of these critical elements of reflection, consider writing using the describe, interpret, evaluate, plan (DIEP) model to help.

DIEP approach adapted from: RMIT Study and Learning Centre. (2010). Reflective writing: DIEP .

You can and should refer to yourself in your reflection using personal pronouns, e.g. I, we...

Begin by describing the situation. What did you see, hear, do, read or see? Be as brief and objective as possible.

Starting phrases:

  • The most interesting insight from my lecture this week is ...
  • A significant issue I had not realised until now is ...
  • I now realise (understand ...) that ...

Interpret what happened. What new insights have you gained? How does this experience connect with other things you’ve learned or experienced before? How did the experience make you feel?

  • This experience idea is relevant to me because…
  • This reminded me of the idea that…
  • A possible implication could be…

Make a judgement. How useful was this experience for you? What is your opinion? Why do you think this might be?

  • Having realised the importance of ..., I can now understand…
  • This experience will change the way I view ...
  • Being able to see… in this way is extremely valuable for me because…

Comment on how this experience might inform your future thoughts or actions. How could you apply what you’ve learned from the experience in the future? How might the experience relate to your degree or future professional life?

  • This is beneficial to me as my future career requires…  
  • In order to further develop this skill…I will…
  • Next time…I will…by…

[TS] The most surprising insight I have gained so far is how important recording and distributing succinct and accurate information is to the success of the project. [D] In the first week of my internship, I was asked to record some meeting minutes and distribute them to the project team and the client. [I] I initially felt offended as the task appeared trivial to me; it was something we rarely did during team meetings at university. [E] However, after speaking with my industry supervisor, I began to understand how important it is to keep a clear record of the meaningful points raised during meetings. [I] Making accurate notes of the key outcomes was harder than I expected as the rest of my team was relying on my minutes to know what they needed to do. [D]After reviewing my minutes, my supervisor agreed that they were sufficiently clear and accurate. [I] I’ve realised that poorly recorded minutes could have resulted in missed deadlines, miscommunication and costly implications for our contract. [P] To improve my ability to take notes I plan on reviewing the minutes made by my colleagues for other meetings and to investigate note taking techniques such as mind mapping (Trevelyan, 2014). Mind mapping uses links and annotations to record relationships between words and indicate significance. [I] This will help me to continue to develop my skills in this area and develop my ability to “prepare high quality engineering documents” as part of attaining the Stage 1 competency of written communication (Engineers Australia, 2018).

Trevelyan, J. P. (2014).  The making of an expert engineer: How to have a wonderful career creating a better world and spending lots of money belonging to other people . Leiden, The Netherlands: CRC Press/Balkema.

Ask yourself:

  • Have I based my reflection on a specific incident, activity, idea or example?
  • Have I sufficiently critically analysed the situation?
  • Have I integrated theory in a meaningful way? Can I elaborate further to demonstrate the relevance of the idea and my understanding of it?
  • Are my plans specific enough? Can I be more concrete?

When editing your draft, try colour coding each element of DIEP to be sure you have a balance of elements.

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Study Skills

Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

  • What is reflective practice?
  • Everyday reflection
  • Models of reflection
  • Barriers to reflection
  • Free writing
  • Reflective writing exercise
  • Bibliography

reflective writing learning experience

Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think!  It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

What is reflective writing?

Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience. 

Remember...

Reflective writing is...

  • Written in the first person
  • Free flowing
  • A tool to challenge assumptions
  • A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

  • Written in the third person
  • Descriptive
  • What you think you should write
  • A tool to ignore assumptions
  • A waste of time

Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.

You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:

Created by SkillsTeamHullUni

  • Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
  • Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:

1. Job applications

Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.

2. Appraisals

In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.

3. Written feedback

If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.

4. Blogging

Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.

5. During the research process

When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.

6. In academic writing

Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.

Think about ... When you reflect

Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!

Reflective terminology

A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:

  • The most important thing was...
  • At the time I felt...
  • This was likely due to...
  • After thinking about it...
  • I learned that...
  • I need to know more about...
  • Later I realised...
  • This was because...
  • This was like...
  • I wonder what would happen if...
  • I'm still unsure about...
  • My next steps are...

Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Man writing in a notebook at a desk with laptop

Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.

You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University ,  UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.

Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.

Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.

This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.

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reflective writing learning experience

Reflective Writing

“Reflection is a mode of inquiry: a deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation. It allows writers to recognize what they are doing in that particular moment (cognition), as well as to consider why they made the rhetorical choices they did (metacognition). The combination of cognition and metacognition, accessed through reflection, helps writers begin assessing themselves as writers, recognizing and building on their prior knowledge about writing.” —Kara Taczak, “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development” (78) Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies

Reflective writing assignments are common across the university. You may be asked to reflect on your learning, your writing, your personal experiences in relation to a theory or text, or your personal experiences in an internship or other type of experience in relation to course readings. These are assignments, as Kara Taczak notes, that offer opportunities to solidify knowledge about our experiences and how they might relate to others’ experiences and existing research. Moreso, reflection can lead to more informed understandings of our own experiences and course content in ways that may make that knowledge more useful in future classes and practice. However, often  reflective writing  is not taught as an explicit writing skill and can be problematically treated as a less rigorous form of writing. Below are some broad writing tips that can help not only your reflective writing to be stronger, but also the reflective inquiry to be more meaningful.

Collect relevant evidence before you start writing.

Yes–we recommend using  evidence  in reflective writing! When connecting personal experiences to the readings, that means selecting quotes from the readings and then coming up with specific moments in your life that relate to those quotes. When reflecting on learning or growth, that might mean locating evidence (quotes) from your previous papers that showcase growth.

Be specific.

It’s really easy to see reflective writing as more informal or casual, and thus, as requiring less attention to details; however, strong reflective writing is very precise and specific. Some examples of statements that are too vague and meaningless include, “I learned a lot about writing this semester.” Or, “I feel like my experiences are exactly as Author B says in this quote.” Neither of these statements tells us much–they are a bit devoid of content. Instead, try to name exactly what you learned about writing or exactly how your experiences are related to the quote. For example, you might reflect, “At the beginning of the semester, unsure of how to summarize a text well, I was just describing the main the idea of the text. However, after learning about Harris’ concept of capturing a writer’s “project,” I believe I have become better at really explaining a text as a whole. Specifically, in my last essay, I was able to provide a fully developed explanation of Author A’s argument and purpose for the essay as well as their materials and methods (that is, how they made the argument). For example, in this quote from my last essay,...”

Focus on a small moment from your experiences.

It’s hard to not want to recap our entire childhood or the full summer before something happened for context when sharing a personal story. However, it’s usually more effective to select a very specific moment in time and try to accurately describe what happened, who was involved, and how it made you feel and react. When writing about a moment, try to place readers there with you–help readers to understand what happened, who was involved, where it happened, why it happened, and what the results were. If this is a more creative assignment, you might even include some sensory descriptions to make the moment more of an experience for readers.

Fully explain the quote or focus of each point.

In reflective writing, you are usually asked to share your experiences in relation to something–a perspective in a text, learning about writing, the first-year experience, a summer internship, etc. When introducing this focal point, make sure you fully explain it. That is, explain what you think the quote means and provide a little summary for context. Or, if you’re reflecting on writing skills learned, before you jump to your learning and growth, stop to explain how you understand the writing skill itself–”what is analysis?,” for example. Usually, you want to fully explain the focus, explain your personal experiences with it, and then return to the significance of your experiences.

Use “I” when appropriate.

Often, in high schools, students are taught to abandon the first-person subject altogether in order to avoid over-use. However, reflective writing requires some use of “I.” You can’t talk about your experiences without using “I”! That being said, we’ve saved this advice for the bottom of the list because, as we hope the above tips suggest, there are a lot of important things that likely need explaining in addition to your personal experiences. That means you want to use “I” when appropriate, balancing your use of “I” with your explanation of the theory, quote, or situation you were in, for example.

Reflection conclusions can look forward to the future.

In the conclusion, you may want to ask and answer questions like:

  • What is the significance of my experiences with X?
  • What did I learn from reflecting on my experiences with Y?
  • How might this reflective work inform future decisions?
  • What specific tools or strategies did this activity use that might be employed in the future? When and why?

Write the reflection introduction last.

We always recommend writing introductions after you’ve drafted your entire essay–this allows you to actually introduce the specific essay you’ve already written (it’s easier to do and more likely to be strong). Reflective introductions have a little bit more flexibility. You do want to introduce the focus of your essay right away–and you might do that by naming it, by sharing a related anecdote, by naming a previously held idea/belief that has changed through learning happening during this course, or by explaining a reading or class discussion that make you curious about the focus you selected.

A Link to a PDF Handout of this Writing Guide

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Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

  • Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
  • Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
  • Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
  • Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
  • Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
  • Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
  • Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
  • Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
  • If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

  • Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
  • Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
  • Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

  • Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
  • Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
  • Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

  • Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
  • Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
  • Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

  • Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
  • Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
  • Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
  • Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
  • Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

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  • Research article
  • Open access
  • Published: 22 July 2021

Health professionals and students’ experiences of reflective writing in learning: A qualitative meta-synthesis

  • Giovanna Artioli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1810-0857 1 ,
  • Laura Deiana 2 ,
  • Francesco De Vincenzo 3 ,
  • Margherita Raucci 1 ,
  • Giovanna Amaducci 1 ,
  • Maria Chiara Bassi 1 ,
  • Silvia Di Leo 1 ,
  • Mark Hayter 4 &
  • Luca Ghirotto 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  21 , Article number:  394 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Reflective writing provides an opportunity for health professionals and students to learn from their mistakes, successes, anxieties, and worries that otherwise would remain disjointed and worthless. This systematic review addresses the following question: “What are the experiences of health professionals and students in applying reflective writing during their education and training?”

We performed a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. Our search comprised six electronic databases: MedLine, Embase, Cinahl, PsycINFO, Eric, and Scopus. Our initial search produced 1237 titles, excluding duplicates that we removed. After title and abstract screening, 17 articles met the inclusion criteria. We identified descriptive themes and the conceptual elements explaining the health professionals’ and students’ experience using reflective writing during their academic and in-service training by performing a meta-synthesis.

We identified four main categories (and related sub-categories) through the meta-synthesis: reflection and reflexivity, accomplishing learning potential, building a philosophical and empathic approach, and identifying reflective writing feasibility. We placed the main categories into an interpretative model which explains the users’ experiences of reflective writing during their education and training. Reflective writing triggered reflection and reflexivity that allows, on the one hand, skills development, professional growth, and the ability to act on change; on the other hand, the acquisition of empathic attitudes and sensitivity towards one’s own and others’ emotions. Perceived barriers and impeding factors and facilitating ones, like timing and strategies for using reflective writing, were also identified.

Conclusions

The use of this learning methodology is crucial today because of the recognition of the increasing complexity of healthcare contexts requiring professionals to learn advanced skills beyond their clinical ones. Implementing reflective writing-based courses and training in university curricula and clinical contexts can benefit human and professional development.

Peer Review reports

Education of healthcare professionals supportstheir transformation into becoming competent professionals [ 1 ] and improves their reasoning skills in clinical situations. In this context, reflective writing (RW) is encouraged by both universities, and healthcare training providersencourage reflective writing (RW) since its utility in helping health students and professionals nurture reflection [ 2 ], which is considered a core element of professionalism. Furthermore, the ability to reflect on one’s performance is now seen to be a crucial skill for personal and professional development [ 3 ]. Writing about experiences to develop learning and growth through reflection is called ‘reflective writing’ (RW). RW involves the process of reconsidering an experience, which is then analyzed in its various components [ 4 , 5 ]. The act of transforming thoughts into words may create new ideas: the recollection of the experience to allow a deeper understanding of it, modifying its original perception, and creating new insights [ 6 ]. RWis the focused and recurrent inspection of thoughts, feelings, and events emerging from practice as applied to healthcare practice [ 7 ].

Reflection may be intended as a form of mental processing or thinking used by learners to fulfill a purpose or achieve some anticipated outcome [ 2 ]. This definition recalls Boud and colleagues’ view of reflection as a purposive activity directed towards goals [ 8 ]. For those authors, reflection involves a three-stage process, including recollection of the experience, attending to own feelings, and re-evaluating the experience. This process can be facilitated by reflective practices, among which RW is one of the main tools [ 9 ].

Between reflection-on-action (leading to adjustments to future learning and actions) and reflection-in-action (where adjustments are made at the moment) [ 10 ], RW can be situated in the former. It involves theprofessional’s reflections and analysis of experiences in clinical practice [ 11 , 12 ]. Mainly,RWinvolves the recurrent introspection ofone’s thoughts, feelings, and events within a particular context [ 13 ]. Several studies highlight how RWinfluencespromoting critical thinking [ 14 ], self-consciousness [ 15 ], and favors the development of personal skills [ 16 ], communication and empathy skills [ 4 , 17 ], and self-knowledge [ 3 ]. Thanks to the writing process, individuals may analyze all the components of their experience and learn something new, giving new meanings [ 5 ]. Indeed, putting down thoughts into words enables the individual to reprocess the experience, build and empower new insights, new learnings, and new ways to conceive reality [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].

Furthermore, RW provides an opportunity to give concrete meaning to one’s inner processes, mistakes, successes, anxieties, and worries that otherwise would remain disjointed and worthless [ 21 , 22 ]. The reflective approach of RW allows oneself to enter the story, becoming aware of our professional path, with both an educational and therapeutic effect [ 23 ].

Reflection as practically sustained by RW commonly overlaps with the process of reflexivity. As noted elsewhere [ 24 ], reflection and reflexivity originate from different philosophical traditionsbut have shared similarities and meanings. In the context of this article, we adopt two different working definitions of reflection and reflexivity. Firstly, we draw from the work of Alexander [ 25 ]: who explains reflection as the deliberation, pondering, or rumination over ideas, circumstances, or experiences yet to be enacted, as well as those presently unfolding or already passed [ 25 ]. Reflexivity at a meta-cognitive level relates to finding strategies to challenge and questionpersonal attitudes, thought processes, values, assumptions, prejudices, and habitual actions to understand the relationships’ underpinning structure with experiences and events [ 26 ]. In other words, reflexivity can be defined as “the self-conscious co-ordination of the observed with existing cognitive structures of meaning” [ 27 ].

Given those definitions,a philosophical framework for helping health trainees and professionals conduct an exercise that can be helpful to them, their practice, and – ultimately – their patients can be identified. There is a growing body of qualitative literature on this topic – which is valuable – but the nature of qualitative research is that it creates transferrable and more generalizableknowledge cumulatively. As such, bodies of qualitative knowledge must besummarized and amalgamated to provide a sound understanding of the issues – to inform practice and generate the future qualitative research agenda. To date, this has not been done for the qualitative work on reflective writing: a gap in the knowledge base our synthesis study intends to address by highlighting what connects students and professionals while using RW.

This systematic review addresses the following question: “What are the experiences of health professionals and students in applyingRWduring their education and training?”

This systematic review and meta-synthesis followed the 4-step procedure outlined by Sandelowski and Barroso [ 28 , 29 ], foreseeing a comprehensive search, appraising reports of qualitative studies, classification of studies, synthesis of the findings. Systematic review and meta-synthesis referto the process of scientific inquiry aimed at systematically reviewing and formally integrating the findings in reports of completed qualitative studies [ 29 ].

The article selection processwas summarized as a PRISMA flowchart [ 30 ]; the search strategy was based on PICo (Population, phenomenon of Interest, and Context),and the study results are reported in agreement with Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research (ENTREQ) guidelines [ 31 ].

Selection criteria

Inclusion criteria for the meta-synthesis were:

Primary qualitative studies published in peer-reviewed English journals.

With health professionals or health studentsas participants.

UsingRW in learning contexts (both pre-and in-service training).

Mixed methods where the qualitative part can be separated.

Articles should report the voice of participants (direct quotations).

Given the meta-synthesis indications, we excluded quantitative studies, non-primary research articles, meta-synthesis of qualitative studies, literature and systematic reviews, abstracts, unpublished reports, grey literature. In addition, we also excluded studies where participants were using RW in association with other learning tools and where the personal experience was not about using RW exclusively.

Data sources and searches

An experienced information specialist (MCB) performed the literature search on Medline, Embase, Cinahl, PsycInfo, Eric, and Scopus for research articles published from Jan 1st, 2008 to September 30th, 2019,to make sure we incorporated studies reflecting contemporary professional health care experience. Additional searchinginvolved reviewing the references or, and citations to, our included studies.

We filled an Excel file with all the titles and authors’ names. A filter for qualitative and mixed methods study was applied. Table  1 shows the general search strategy for all the databases based on PICo.

Four reviewers (GAr, MR, GAm, LD) independently screened titles and abstracts of all studies, then checked full-text articles based on the selection criteria. We also searched the reference lists of the full-text articles selected for additional potentially relevant studies. Any conflict was solved through discussion with three external reviewers (LG, MCB,SDL, and MH).

Quality appraisal

We used the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP): it provides ten simple guiding questions and examples to examine study validity, adequacy, and potential applicability of the results of qualitative studies. Guided by the work of Long and colleagues [ 32 ] and previously used in other meta-synthesis [ 33 ], we created 30 items from the 10 CASP questions on quality to ensure we could provide a detailed appraisal of the studies. FDV and LD independently assessed the quality of included studies with any conflicts solved by consulting a third reviewer (MCB and LG). Researchers scored primary studies weighingthe proposed items and ranking the quality of each included study [ 34 ] on high ( n  > 20 items positively assessed), moderate (10 <  n  < 20), or low quality ( n  < 10).

Analysis and synthesis

MCB created a data extraction table, GAr, GAm, and MRdescribed the included articles (Table  2 ). Quotations were extracted manually from the “results/findings” sections of the included studies by GAr, MCB, LDand inserted into adatabase. GAr, GAm, MR, and FDVperformed a thematic analysis of those sections, along with participants’ quotations. Then, they inductively derived sub-themes from the data, performing a first interpretative analysis of participants’ narratives (i.e., highlighting meanings participants interpreted about their experience). The sub-themes were compared and transferred across studies by adding the data into existing sub-themes or creating new sub-themes. Similar sub-themes were then grouped into themes, using taxonomic analysisto conceptually identify the sub-categories and the categories emerging from the participants’ narratives. This procedure allowed us to translate the themes identified from the original studies [ 28 ] into interpretative categories that could amalgamate and refine the experiences of health professionalsor health students on the use of RW [ 29 ]. The final categories are based on the consent of all the authors.

Literature search and studies’ characteristics

A total of 1488 articles were retrieved. Duplicates ( n  = 251) were removed. Then, articles ( n  = 1237) were identified and reviewed by title and abstract. We excluded n  = 1152 articles because they did not match the specified inclusion criteria, based on the title and abstract. Consequently, we assessed 85 full-text articles. Sixty-eight records did not meet the inclusion criteria. At the end of the selection process, 17 reportsof qualitative research were selected. Figure  1 illustrates the search process.

figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram

Table 2 shows the characteristics of the included studies. Eleven studies involved healthcare students (58%, including nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, doctors, dentists, and oral health students), and six (32%, including doctors, occupational and radiation therapists) were referred to health professionals. In thirteen studies, participants were trained on RW before using it: this information could not be retrieved from the remaining articles.

Five articles reported studies conducted in the US, three in Australia, two in Canada, and two in Israel. The other studies were carried out in Italy, UK, Korea, Taiwan, and Sweden.

Critical appraisal results

We critically evaluatedall 17 studies to highlight the methodological strengthsand weaknesses of the selected studies. No article was removed on a quality assessment basis. Results of the quality appraisal are reported in Table 2 .

Meta-synthesis findings

Through the meta-synthesis, we identified four main categories (and related sub-categories): (i) reflection and reflexivity; (ii) accomplishing learning potential; (iii) building a philosophical and empathic approach; (iv) identifying reflective writing feasibility (for the complete dataset, please refer to supplemental material , where we have listed a selection of meaningful quotations of categories and sub-categories).

Given such categories, we developed an interpretative meta-synthesis model (Fig.  2 ) to illustrate the commonalities of the experience of using RW according to both students and professionals: RWas a vehicle for discovering reflection and allowing users to enter personal reflexivity to fulfillone’s learning potential, alongside the building of a philosophical and empathic approach. In their experience, reflection and reflexivity generate different skills and competencies: reflection matures skills such as professional skills and the ability to activate change and innovation. Reflexivity allows students and professionals to reach higher levels of competencyconcerning inner development and empathy reaching. Finally, from our analysis, participants, while recognizing the value of RW, also defined factors that could encourage or limit its use. Differences among participants’ groups are also outlined.

figure 2

Meta-synthesis model: RW as experienced by health professionals and students

Reflection and reflexivity

Within this category, we collected the users’ narratives about the experience of applying RW and its disclosing capacity. By using RW, participants confronted themselves with both reflection and reflexivity. This category includes two sub-categories we named: discovering reflection and entering personal reflexivity.

Discovering reflection

The sub-category shows that experiencingRW deepened their reflection on experiences, practice, and profession. Thanks to RW, professionals, and students could explore previously unexplored topics and learn more about themselves.

“ Writing initiated me to think about my experiences … ” (professional) [ 46 ]. “ I think it’s good for physicians to reflect on what we’re doing ” (professional) [ 50 ]

The analysis showed that RW was considered reflective when it provided an opportunity for those who applied it to stop, reflect and conduct an inner discourse on topics never considered before [ 44 , 46 , 50 ]. Some students affirmed:

“ Helped (me) reflect on positive aspects ” (student) [ 40 ]. “ I don’t usually think too much about what happens to me, but through critical reflective journaling, I was able to think carefully about things happening around me. This activity helped me to look into my mind ” (student) [ 44 ]

This sub-category explains transversal meanings coming from uniformly professionals and students.

Entering personal reflexivity

This sub-category includes data about RW enabling users’reflexivity. In this context, RW was considered training for reflexivity as it enabled participants to question themselves more often [ 48 ], reflect on their experiences [ 35 ], attitudes, actions [ 38 , 45 ], and also reconsider their actions and identify their strengths and weaknesses [ 40 , 44 ].

“ The questions in this study do make me stop and think about things – how I feel about what I’m doing in residency ”(professional) [ 46 ]. “ Helped me ID (identify) my strengths and weaknesses ” (student) [ 40 ] RW also helped eradicate the background noise that my mind does not yet know how to filter out [ 51 ] .

Interesting to note that this sub-category is more present in students’ narratives. While professionals referred to self-reflection practices (probably already acquired in other contexts), students often reported how RW helped them discover reflexivity.

Accomplishing learning potential

Our analysis showed how users RW used the technique to “Accomplish learning potential.”

According to the studies’ participants, RWcan enable a learning performancethat would be difficult to reach otherwise. In this context, participants addressed RW as a tool for“accomplishing learning potential.”Within this category, three sub-categories were highlighted: the improvement of skills, personal and professional growth, and assisting the change and development process.

Improvement of skills

Participants agreed that the development of skills and abilities through RWwas aimed at their clinical skills and –in relevant areas such as question asking – encouraged reflection and research [ 35 , 46 ]. Communication skills were also enhanced, as were their relationship with patients, family,colleagues, and friends [ 35 , 38 , 46 ].

Participants said:

“ Through reflective journal writing, my attitude towards learning has changed. I have been encouraged to be a proactive learner. (...) I have been able to identify necessary places for improvement and through research, question asking, goal-setting (...). I have improved my skills in relevant areas” (student) [ 35 ]. “I feel that it [participation in the study] has been a positive experience by motivating me to improve on my clinical, communication skills, and also my relationships with colleagues, patients, family, and friends ” (professional) [ 46 ]

Participants also reported that,in their experience, RWprovided an opportunity to assess and improve themselves and to enhance their self-confidence [ 38 , 40 ]. Cognitive skills, includinggaining more profoundknowledge and problem-solving, along withtime-management [ 35 , 40 , 46 , 49 ], were also enhanced: RW,therefore,represented a learning mode [ 45 ].

“ Without reflection, I absolutely believe these skills would be more unattainable for me ”(student) [ 35 ]

This sub-category applies more to students’ narratives. Health students mentioned the tools helping them most to develop their skills. Professionals focused principally on what RWcould improve (communication skills or organizational skills).

Personal and professional growth

Participantsidentifiedthat RWhad promoted personal [ 51 ] and professional growth [ 35 , 46 ]. RW meant for participants:an ameliorated attitude towards work [ 46 ]; a development path for one’s job potential [ 38 ]; an enhancement of their introspective knowledge [ 51 ]; an enrichment of their expressive capability [ 38 ];an improvement of their interpersonal relationships with patients and colleagues [ 50 ] and developed their use of critical and reflective thinking [ 38 ].

“ Reflecting introduces a new aspect to clinic that focuses on the individual’s learning experience ” (student) [ 35 ]. “I think that it does change the way that you think about the practice of medicine and your own personal tendencies and your interactions with your patients and colleagues. And I think it can be a really powerful driver of culture change ” (professional) [ 50 ]

This sub-category is more represented among students than professionals. Students are ‘surprised’ at how important RW was to their learning. Professionals still recognized how RW was an essential driver of change for their clinic activities.

Assisting the change and development process

We labeledthe third sub-category“assisting the change and development process.”The changeinvolvedintroducing modifications tothe way of working [ 48 ], assessing what needed to be changed to achieve a work-life balance [ 51 ], understanding elements that did not allow change, and how to act on them in the future, and also considering new and important issues [ 46 ], further information [ 51 ] and new ways of thinking. This sub-category equally explained the meaning given to RW by students and professionals.

“ I think writing answer to some of these questions has allowed me to reflect back on the year and think about specific important topics that I might not have thought about again.” (professional) [ 46 ]. (Reflective journaling encouraged) “Assessing and focusing on the changes that need to be done to achieve the balance in my life and being able to integrate that with my family and in my work as a nurse.” (Student 16/RJ2) [ 51 ]

However, thischange process could not be possible without witnessing change and becoming aware of it [ 38 , 46 ]. This allowedparticipants to ‘see one’slearning history and path of growth,‘have a picture of the problem, handle things differently, and broadening their vision of the problem [ 48 ].

Building a philosophical and empathic approach

The “Reflection and reflexivity” category is closely aligned with the “Building a philosophical and empathic approach” category. Participants defined RW as a means for nurturing an intimate and profound level of learning, i.e., a philosophical and empathic approach towards real-life professional issues. The third category consists of three sub-categories: the ability to find benefits in negativity/adversity, assuming an empathetic attitude, and the awareness of things, experiences,emotions.

Finding benefits in negativity/adversity

According to participants, RWexerted a therapeutic effect by encouraging professionals and students to focus on the present (43)strictly. It seemed that RWeventually reduced their emotional stress [ 44 , 51 ]. Likewise,in the contextofnegative experiences [ 49 ], its practice acted as a catharsis [ 46 ] that could even allow them tolook back at those experiencesafresh – enabling a change in perspective [ 39 ].

“While writing the journal entry, I felt like I was unloading something from inside myself and being set free. This process made me feel better ” (student) [ 44 ]. “It is always good to pause to reflect on my experiences. The most cathartic question was a few months back when I got to describe my really bad experience.” (professional) [ 46 ] “Very therapeutic. I wrote on a bad experience, but at the end, we were laughing at it.” (professional) [ 49 ]

This specific approach allowed the practitioner/trainee to improve their self-care and focus on work objectives [ 51 ]:

“Self-reflection and reflective journaling promote self-understanding and is another part of self-care.” (Student 5/RJ3) [ 51 ]

Even if more emerging from students’ voices, professionals appeared genuinely amazed at how learning can be generated out of negativity.

Assuming an empathetic attitude

Study participants stressed the fact that RWhelped them develop empathetic attitudes. It seems that RWemphasized the importance of sensitivity and empathy by trying ‘to be in someone else’sshoes,’ especially that of patients or colleagues [ 36 , 37 , 44 ].

“How reflecting on patient encounters through field notes allowed her to “take a walk in someone else’s shoes ” (student) [ 36 ]. “It helps you see the humanity... ” (professional) [ 50 ]

This approach also applied in contexts outside of work and helped the practitioner take off his/her‘white coat’ and understand that before being a professional,he/shewas a person and a human being [ 36 , 37 , 46 , 50 ].

“ Which has made me more open to other’s ideas and thoughts ” (professional) [ 46 ]

As previously mentioned, according to the participants’ statements, awareness was the cornerstone to effective personal and professional growth [ 40 , 51 ].

This sub-category is equivalently present among the participants’ groups. Nonetheless, different meaningscould also be highlighted. Students appreciated RWby stressing its value of allowing them to enter deeply ‘into the other’ inner world (mainly patients). Professionals claimed they could recognize the profession’s human and relational aspects, whichcould also be helpful for their extra-professional relationships (family members, friends).

Awareness of things, experiences, emotions

Impartially balanced among professionals and students, awareness was cited in terms of ‘how things have affected me rather than simply continuing to work in a robotic manner’ [ 46 ], the awareness of who one was and who one has become thanks to the process of change [ 51 ]. This professional and relational awareness made it possible to think clearly about one’s practice and the health resources present in the context of belonging [ 50 ].

“Just being aware of what I know now and what I’ll know by the end of the semester … is a great way to learn who I am and what I can change about me for the better.” (Student 9/RJ1) [ 51 ]

The process of awareness that was facilitated by how their RW allowedthem to transform shapeless and straightforward ideasinto words and givethem a specific value and emotional charge [ 36 , 47 , 51 ]: it wasan authentic opportunity to turn emotions and feelings into something tangible –a journey of discovery and personal acceptance [ 43 ].

“ After two years or so, when you look back, it’s like, oh,that’s how I was feeling at the time, and right now, I feel differently. There is also this level of satisfaction. Like you have matured out of this thinking ” (professional) [ 47 ]

Identifying RW feasibility

The fourth category consists of three sub-categories: perceived barriers/impeding factors, facilitating factors, and when and how to use RW. Students and healthcare professionals who had the experience of practicing the RW in their work identified both limitations and facilitating factors and indications about when and how to use RW.

Perceived barriers/impeding factors

Some study participants (almost entirely students) identified several barriers to their activity. Some students could not see the benefits and thought RW was a waste of time [ 35 , 38 , 51 ]. However, others, who did see the potential benefits still felt that they lacked the time needed to devote to RW [ 42 ] or, sufficient mental space to report and describe a work situation, an excessive similarity of this activity to the regular working practice and, consequently, a lack ofmotivation to write [ 47 , 51 ]. In addition, some described the strainthey felt in writing down personal/professional experiences [ 47 ]. A lack of privacy was another problem, both for the concern about sharing the reflection and for the respect of confidentialityin writing itself [ 51 ]. Taken together,it appeared that some study participants did not recognizeRW as an effective means of help [ 39 , 50 ]. Althoughrealizing the potential of RW,others felt that their tutors did not provide noticeably clearexplanations of the aim of RW– which they would have found useful and motivating [ 45 ].

“ To be honest, not a great deal ( … ) it wasn’t really some revelation ” (professional) [ 50 ]. “ I got a hard time referring it [my experience] to citations … I could have sat and cried yesterday when I did my essay … when I actually read it [my essay] I thought, oh I don’t know what it means, myself ” (Female 2 - student) [ 42 ]

Facilitating factors

This sub-category was exclusively interpreted from students’ narratives. They valued the perspectives to use RWin their practice seeing it as a valuable tool to be applied throughout their career [ 35 , 45 ],with many students reporting that they would continue with this technique [ 38 ]. Studentssaw RW as a valuable means of staying focused on their own goals and needs [ 40 , 51 ]. They remarked that it helped them reduce stress, gain clarity in one’s life and practice [ 41 ], and spiritually connect with themselves [ 45 , 51 ]. Furthermore, RW enabled studentsto discover more information about their health and well-being, ‘it also helped me tie in ideas and beliefs from different sources and relate it to my own’ [ 51 ]. RWhelped maintain awareness and recall the medical being/human being dichotomy [ 37 ]. It remindedstudentsof the difference between studying literature and refining manual skills and the ability to learn from experience and mistakes [ 35 ].

“ During the interview, I felt an element of being more like a ‘normal person’ having a ‘normal conversation’ with another human being. This was a strange realization because it reminded me of the dichotomy that physicians may experience, being doctor versus human ” (student) [ 37 ]

When and how to use RW

Health professionals (a few) and many students finally mentioned the time considered most appropriate to use RW, underlining its usefulness primarilywas during hardship rather than daily practice [ 47 ].Moreover,RWshould not be forced onto someone in any given moment but instead left to individual choice based on one’s spirit of the moment [ 40 , 46 ].

“. .. like if you had a patient die; that would be the only time you might write it down ” (professional) [ 47 ]

Otherparticipantsconsidered instructions on RW to be too forceful and notapplicable to their own experience of reflection [ 40 ]. ‘Reflection wasn’t just signing on the line.’ It allowed constructive feedback for the trainee or the professional. Constructive feedback could be positive or negative, but it was a powerful tool for thinking and examining things [ 45 ].

In this meta-synthesis of qualitative studies, we have interpreted the experiences of health professionals and students who used RWduring their education and training. Given the number of studies included, RW users’ experience was predominately investigated in students. This result, although not surprising, raises the question of whether RW in professional training is being used. RW is not used in professional training as often as it is in the academic training of healthcare students.

As to this review’s aim, we could highlight continuities and differences from study participants’ narratives. Our findings offer a conceptualization of usingRW in health care settings. According to the experience of both students (from different disciplines) and health professionals, RW allows its exponents to discover and practice reflectionas a form of cognitive processing [ 2 ] and enablethem to develop a better understanding of their lived situation. We also interpreted that RW allows users to make a ‘reflexive journey’ that involves them practicing meta-cognitive skills to challengetheir attitudes, pre-assumptions, prejudices, and habitual actions [ 24 , 26 ]. This was particularly true for students: “entering personal reflexivity” appears to be newer for them than for the professionals who are likely to acquire reflexivity during academic training. Students seemed more focused on tools than RW-related results. This consideration makes us affirm that reflective capacity is in progress for them.

Challenging pre-assumptions and entering reflexivityenabledRWusers to realize how RW may develop their learning potential to improve skills and personal/professional growth. Skills to be enhanced are quoted mainly by students. Conversely, professionals could comprehend the final purpose of learning, achievable through RW, in terms of communication or organizational abilities. Professionals interpreted skills from RW as abilities to apply in the clinical activities to find new solutions to problems.

The category “Accomplishing learning potential”confirms what many authors highlight: putting thoughts into words not only permits a deeper understanding of events [ 6 ], enhances professionalism [ 52 ] but also improves personal [ 16 ], communication, and empathy skills [ 4 , 17 ]. In this context, RW fulfills its mandate by letting human sciences [ 53 ] and evidence-based health disciplines affect clinical practice. As noted [ 54 ], students and health professionals’RW training allowed integrating scientific knowledge with behavioral and sociological sciences to supporttheir learning [ 55 ].

Users understood that RWcould be a powerful means of developing empathy and developing their philosophy of care: this consideration is in line with a recent study from Ng and colleagues [ 24 ]. Additionally, some authors [ 4 , 17 ] stressed these empathetic skills and “humanistic”competencies as essential to care for patients effectively [ 56 ]. Professionals were amazed how negativity could generate learning through RW. On the other hand, by recognizingand writing experienced negative situations, students could free themselves from feelings impeding empathy.

By employing RW, users reported factors that could encourage or limit its use. These findings further illustrate that RW is not always a tool that is easy to use without adequate training [ 57 ]. Almost exclusively, students reported hindering factors (limited time, difficulty in writing and understanding assignments, privacy issues, feeling bored or forced). As to professionals, few describedRW as a very stressful activity. Although students could identify impeding factors, they also recognized many positive ones. For professionals, RW was not to be used every day but in ‘extreme’ situations, requiring reflection and reflexivity to be applied. In general, enhancing motivation to write reflectively [ 58 ] should be the first goal of any training to make the process acceptable and profitable for trainees. If this first stage is not accomplished, it will reduce RW’sapparent professional and personal effectiveness among health professionals and students substantially.

Strengths, limitations, and research relaunches

This review may enrich our knowledge about providing RW as an educative tool for health students and professionals. However, the findings must be applied,taking into account some limitations. We focused our attention only on recent, primary, peer-reviewed studies within the time and publication limits. Qualitative studies often are available as grey literature: considering it may result in a different interpretation of students’ and professionals’ experience in using RW. Therefore, our conceptualization should be read bearing in mind a publication bias and the need to expand the literature search to other sources. Besides limiting the risk of missing published qualitative studies, we reviewed the reference listsof included studies for additional items. Our meta-synthesis is coherent to the interpretation of the included studies’ findings.

At least two reviewers have conducted each step of this systematic review. We purposely did not exclude studies based on a quality assessment to maintain a robust qualitative study sample size and valuable insights.

During analysis, all possible interpretations were screened by authors, and an agreement was reached. Nonetheless, we did not cover all the possible ways to interpret the voices of students and professionals.

Since RW is not used in professional training as often as it is in the academic training of healthcare students, a research relaunch could be investigatingwhether and to what extent RW is being used in in-service training programs. Moreover, the studies included in this review were conducted within Western countries. Students’ and professionals’ perspectives from Africa and Asia are underrepresented within the qualitative literature about experiences of using RW. Therefore, geographicalgeneralizations from the present meta-synthesis should be avoided, and our paper reveals the necessity for RW research in other cultures and settings. Nonetheless, authors of primary studies have paid little attention to cultural and regionaldiversity. Therefore, we recommend furtherinvestigations exploring the differences between cultural backgrounds and howRW is recognized within training programs in different countries. Finally, additional qualitative and quantitative research is required to deepen our understanding of RW’s clinical and psycho-social outcomes in high complexity health practice contexts.

Our analysis confirms the crucial role of RW in fostering reasoning skills [ 59 ] and awareness in clinical situations. While its utility in helping health students and professionals to nurture reflection [ 2 ] has been widely theorized, this meta-synthesis provide empirical evidence to support and illustrate this theoretical viewpoint. Finally, we argue that RWis even more critical given the increasing complexity of modern healthcare, requiringprofessionals to develop advanced skills beyond their clinical ones.

Practical implications

Two important implications can be highlighted:

students and professionals can recognize the potential of RW in learning advanced professional skills. ImplementingRW in academic training as well as continuing professional education is desirable.

Despite recognizing the effectiveness of RW in healthcare learning, students and professionals may face difficulties in writing reflectively. Trainers should acknowledge and address this.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Critical appraisal skills programme

Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research

Population, phenomena of interest and context

Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Reflective writing

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Silvia Tanzi for her insightful feedback about this work and Manuella Walker for assisting in the final editing of the paper.

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Giovanna Artioli, Margherita Raucci, Giovanna Amaducci, Maria Chiara Bassi, Silvia Di Leo & Luca Ghirotto

Medical and Surgical Department, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

Laura Deiana

European University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Francesco De Vincenzo

Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, UK

Mark Hayter

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GArwas responsible for the original concept. MCB performed the literature search on databases. MCB, GAr, GAm, LD, MR were responsible of data curation. GAr, MR, GAm, and LD screened titles and abstracts of all studies. LG, MCB, SDL, and MH served as external auditors. FDV and LD assessed the quality of included studies. MCB and LG gave a third opinion in case of disagreement. GAr, GAm, MR, and FDV derived sub-categories from the data. GAr, LG, MH drafted the first version of the manuscript. FDV, LD composed tables, and figures. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Giovanna Artioli .

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1:..

Meta-synthesis framework with participants’ narratives.

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Artioli, G., Deiana, L., De Vincenzo, F. et al. Health professionals and students’ experiences of reflective writing in learning: A qualitative meta-synthesis. BMC Med Educ 21 , 394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02831-4

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  • Health care education
  • reflective writing
  • Health professionals
  • Health students
  • qualitative meta-synthesis

BMC Medical Education

ISSN: 1472-6920

reflective writing learning experience

Module 1: Success Skills

Reflective writing, learning objectives.

  • Examine the components of reflective writing

Reflective writing includes several different components: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and future application. Reflective writers must weave their personal perspectives with evidence of deep, critical thought as they make connections between theory, practice, and learning. The steps below should help you find the appropriate balance among all these factors.

1st Step: Review the assignment

As with any writing situation, the first step in writing a reflective piece is to clarify the task. Reflective assignments can take many forms, so you need to understand exactly what your instructor is asking you to do. Some reflective assignments are short, just a paragraph or two of unpolished writing. Usually the purpose of these reflective pieces is to capture your immediate impressions or perceptions. For example, your instructor might ask you at the end of a class to write quickly about a concept from that day’s lesson. That type of reflection helps you and your instructor gauge your understanding of the concept.

Other reflections are academic essays that can range in length from several paragraphs to several pages. The purpose of these essays is to critically reflect on and support an original claim(s) about a larger experience, such as an event you attended, a project you worked on, or your writing development. These essays require polished writing that conforms to academic conventions, such as articulation of a claim and substantive revision. They might address a larger audience than you and your instructor, including, for example, your classmates, your family, a scholarship committee, etc. It’s important before you begin writing, that you can identify the assignment’s purpose, audience, intended message or content, and requirements.

2nd Step: Generate ideas for content

As you generate ideas for your reflection, you might consider things like:

  • Recollections of an experience, assignment, or course
  • Ideas or observations made during that event
  • Questions, challenges, or areas of doubt
  • Strategies employed to solve problems
  • A-ha moments linking theory to practice or learning something new
  • Connections between this learning and prior learning
  • New questions that arise as a result of the learning or experience
  • New actions taken as a result of the learning or experience

3rd Step: Organize content

Researchers have developed several different frameworks or models for how reflective writing can be structured. For example, one method has you consider the “What?” “So what?” and “Now what?” of a situation in order to become more reflective. First, you assess what happened and describe the event, then you explain why it was significant, and then you use that information to inform your future practice. [1] [2] Similarly, the DIEP framework can help you consider how to organize your content when writing a reflective piece. Using this method, you describe what happened or what you did, interpret what it means, evaluate its value or impact, and plan steps for improving or changing for the future.

The DIEP Model of reflective writing

The DIEP model (Boud, Keogh & Walker, 1985) organizes the reflection into four different components:

Describe what happened, what did you do; Interpret: what does the experience mean to you as a learner; Evaluate: how valuable was the experience?; Plan: what will you do with your learning?

Figure 1 . The DIEP model for reflective thinking and writing has you first describe the situation, interpret it, evaluate it, then plan what to do with that new information.

Remember, your goal is to make an interpretive or evaluative claim, or series of claims, that moves beyond obvious statements (such as, “I really enjoyed this project”) and demonstrates you have come to a deeper understanding of what you have learned and how you will use that learning.

In the example below, notice how the writer reflects on her initial ambitions and planning, the a-ha! moment, and then her decision to limit the scope of a project. She was assigned a multimodal (more than just writing) project, in which she made a video, and then reflected on the experience:

Student Example

Keeping a central focus in mind applies to multimodal compositions as well as written essays. A prime example of this was in my remix. When storyboarding for the video, I wanted to appeal to all college students in general. Within my compressed time limit of three minutes, I had planned to showcase numerous large points. It was too much. I decided to limit the scope of the topic to emphasize how digitally “addicted” college students are, and that really changed the project in significant ways.

4th Step: Draft, Revise, Edit, Repeat

A single, unpolished draft may suffice for short, in-the-moment reflections, but you may be asked to produce a longer academic reflection essay. This longer reflection will require significant drafting, revising, and editing. Whatever the length of the assignment, keep this reflective cycle in mind:

  • briefly describe the event or action;
  • analyze and interpret events and actions, using evidence for support;
  • demonstrate relevance in the present and the future.

The following video, produced by the Hull University Skills Team, provides a great overview of reflective writing. Even if you aren’t assigned a specific reflection writing task in your classes, it’s a good idea to reflect anyway, as reflection results in better learning.

You can view the transcript for “Reflective Writing” here (opens in new window) .

Check your understanding of reflective writing and the things you learned in the video with these quick practice questions:

Contribute!

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  • Driscoll J (1994) Reflective practice for practise - a framework of structured reflection for clinical areas. Senior Nurse 14 (1):47–50 ↵
  • Ash, S.L, Clayton, P.H., & Moses, M.G. (2009). Learning through critical reflection: A tutorial for service-learning students (instructor version). Raleigh, NC. ↵
  • Process of Reflective Writing. Authored by : Karen Forgette. Provided by : University of Mississippi. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
  • Reflective Writing. Provided by : SkillsTeamHullUni. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoI67VeE3ds&feature=emb_logo . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
  • Frameworks for Reflective Writing. Authored by : Karen Forgette. Provided by : University of Mississippi. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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Reflective Writing Guide

A great deal of your time at university will be spent thinking; thinking about what people have said, what you have read, what you yourself are thinking and how your thinking has changed. It is generally believed that the thinking process involves two aspects: reflective thinking and critical thinking. They are not separate processes; rather, they are closely connected (Brookfield 1987).

reflective writing learning experience

Figure 1: The Thinking Process (adapted from Mezirow 1990, Schon 1987, Brookfield 1987)

Reflective thinking

Reflection is: 

  • a form of personal response to experiences, situations, events or new information.
  • a 'processing' phase where thinking and learning take place.

There is neither a right nor a wrong way of reflective thinking, there are just questions to explore.

Figure 1 shows that the reflective thinking process starts with you. Before you can begin to assess the words and ideas of others, you need to pause and identify and examine your own thoughts.

Doing this involves revisiting your prior experience and knowledge of the topic you are exploring. It also involves considering how and why you think the way you do. The examination of your beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions forms the foundation of your understanding. 

Reflective thinking demands that you recognise that you bring valuable knowledge to every experience. It helps you therefore to recognise and clarify the important connections between what you already know and what you are learning. It is a way of helping you to become an active, aware and critical learner.

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is:.

  • documenting your response to experiences, opinions, events or new information
  • communicating your response to thoughts and feelings
  • a way of exploring your learning
  • an opportunity to gain self-knowledge
  • a way to achieve clarity and better understanding of what you are learning
  • a chance to develop and reinforce writing skills
  • a way of making meaning out of what you study

Reflective writing is not:

  • just conveying information, instruction or argument
  • pure description, though there may be descriptive elements
  • straightforward decision or judgement, e.g. about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad
  • simple problem-solving
  • a summary of course notes
  • a standard university essay.

See next: How do I write reflectively?

Essay and assignment writing guide.

  • Essay writing basics
  • Essay and assignment planning
  • Answering assignment questions
  • Editing checklist
  • Writing a critical review
  • Annotated bibliography
  • How do I write reflectively?
  • Examples of reflective writing
  • ^ More support

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Reflective writing: a tool to support continuous learning and improved effectiveness in implementation facilitators

Tanya t. olmos-ochoa.

1 HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation and Policy (CSHIIP), VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System – Sepulveda, 16111 Plummer Street (152), North Hills, CA 91343 USA

Karissa M. Fenwick

David a. ganz.

2 David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA

Neetu Chawla

3 Department of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA

Lauren S. Penney

4 Elizabeth Dole Center of Excellence for Veteran and Caregiver Research, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, TX USA

5 Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX USA

Jenny M. Barnard

Isomi m. miake-lye, alison b. hamilton.

6 Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA

Erin P. Finley

Associated data.

Consents associated with primary data collection for clinician/staff participants in CTAC did not include permission to share data in publicly available repositories. De-identified administrative datasets may be eligible for future data sharing once national VA guidance on request and distribution processes are provided (in process). Final datasets will be maintained locally until enterprise-level resources become available for long-term storage and access.

Implementation facilitators support the adoption of evidence-based practices and other improvement efforts in complex healthcare settings. Facilitators are trained to develop essential facilitation skills and facilitator effectiveness is typically evaluated post-implementation, but little is known about how facilitators apply and adapt didactic knowledge after training, or how learning and refining experiential knowledge occurs during the facilitation process. We propose the use of reflective writing as a tool to document and support facilitator learning and facilitator effectiveness.

Using an instrumental case study of the Coordination Toolkit and Coaching (CTAC) project, we explore the use of reflective writing by facilitators to support their learning and effectiveness. Six primary care clinics participated in weekly hour-long facilitation calls over a 12-month period to implement quality improvement projects related to care coordination. Two facilitators completed templated reflections after each facilitation call for their assigned sites, totaling 269 reflections. We used the declarative-procedural-reflective model, which defines the process of skill development in clinical practice, to qualitatively analyze the reflections. Two independent coders used content analysis principles to code text that captured facilitators’ observations, evaluations, interpretations, and communication. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze reflections by facilitator and by code within and across reflections.

CTAC facilitators primarily used the reflections to summarize the calls (observation), assess the facilitation process and the tasks and activities they used (evaluation), document their thoughts about how to improve their own effectiveness (interpretation), and describe their communication with implementing teams. Ninety-one percent of reflections included observations, 42% interpretation, 41% evaluation, and 44% facilitator communication. In total, we coded 677 segments of text within reflections: 39% represented observation, 20% interpretation, 18% evaluation, and 23% facilitator communication.

Conclusions

The process of reflective writing allowed the CTAC facilitators the time and structure to evaluate their facilitation and to think critically about how to adjust their facilitation in response to their observations and interpretations. Reflective writing is a feasible and acceptable tool to support and document facilitator learning and effectiveness.

Trial registration

The project was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov ( {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT03063294","term_id":"NCT03063294"}} NCT03063294 ) on February 24, 2017.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43058-021-00203-z.

Contributions to the literature

  • Implementation facilitators are highly skilled individuals who enable change and support improvement in complex healthcare settings. Although the skills and training required for effective facilitation have been evaluated previously, few studies have explored how to support facilitator learning and effectiveness during facilitation.
  • Clinicians and other professionals use reflective writing to improve and refine their skills through observing, interpreting, and evaluating their practice. Reflective writing by facilitators may support facilitator learning, while also documenting the facilitation process in close to real time and providing additional context to evaluate facilitator effectiveness and implementation outcomes.

Implementation facilitation is an evidence-based implementation strategy used by healthcare organizations and health services researchers to support the adoption of evidence-based practices and to enable quality improvement (QI) [ 1 , 2 ]. Facilitation, which often requires high-intensity interactions with healthcare staff to be successful [ 1 ], can be challenging work that entails attending to both the technical (e.g., QI methods) and relational (e.g., interpersonal dynamics) needs of the implementing staff [ 3 , 4 ]. The skills needed by facilitators to effectively support implementation and QI efforts are well documented [ 5 – 8 ]. Less is known about whether and how the experience of facilitation impacts facilitator learning and effectiveness during the facilitation process [ 3 , 9 ].

Reflection, “the process of intentionally focusing one’s attention on a particular content; observing and clarifying this focus; and using other knowledge and cognitive process to make meaningful links,” [ 10 ] has been used to enable learning within clinical and other professions [ 11 , 12 ]. The declarative-procedural-reflective (DPR) model used in clinical psychology offers a comprehensive framework illustrating how reflection acts as the “engine” for learning [ 13 ], and describes the process of skill development, from didactic learning to its application and refinement in practice. Learners can engage in reflection about their interactions with clients, patients, or colleagues in the context of structured activities like supervision, consultation, and reflective writing [ 10 , 13 ].

Reflective writing is defined as the practice of writing descriptively and analytically about experiences and interactions, including personal reactions and interpretations [ 13 ]. The use of reflective writing is a long-standing tradition across a variety of professions. In management, personal and unstructured reflective writing by managers can promote analysis, synthesis, and critical thinking [ 11 ]. In psychotherapy training, reflective writing can deepen skill in evidence-based practices [ 10 ]. In medical training, reflective writing through structured rubrics and creative writing exercises can improve patient care skills and provider wellbeing [ 14 , 15 ].

Early evidence suggests that reflection, such as through reflective writing, may promote the development of expertise, reduce stress, prevent burnout, and increase the effectiveness in clinicians [ 16 , 17 ]. Despite being distinct practices, both clinical work and implementation facilitation hinge on the application of conceptual skills and knowledge within the context of a structured interpersonal relationship. Therefore, we propose that the benefits of reflective writing seen in other fields, including skill acquisition, may also extend to implementation facilitation. Recent studies have examined how facilitators acquire and retain knowledge from trainings and how key skills are transferred from expert to novice facilitators [ 17 , 18 ]. Underexplored is how facilitators adapt and refine their facilitation during the facilitation process and how facilitator effectiveness can be supported and sustained. Documentation of the facilitation process from the facilitator’s perspective may provide a more nuanced understanding of facilitator efforts to learn and adapt their facilitation skills and inform strategies to support and evaluate facilitator effectiveness. In this paper, we use an instrumental case study of the Coordination Toolkit and Coaching (CTAC) project in the Veterans Health Administration (VA) to describe the use of reflective writing by implementation facilitators.

CTAC initiative outcomes

CTAC was a QI initiative funded by the VA to improve patients’ experience of care coordination in primary care [ 18 – 20 ]. A cluster-randomized design was used to recruit matched pairs of VA primary care clinics assigned to either an active (distance-based facilitation plus online toolkit access) or a passive (online toolkit access only) strategy. Clinics selected locally initiated projects to address their care coordination concerns. Facilitation played a key role in helping clinic sites organize their projects to assure clinic-wide implementation, which helped improve intra-clinic communication and created hands-on experiences enabling broader QI skill development for participating staff. In contrast, clinic teams with no facilitator experienced more variable project uptake and skill development was limited to project-specific knowledge [ 21 ].

Study design

To describe the use of reflective writing by CTAC facilitators and to better contextualize our evaluation findings, we used an instrumental case study design, which focuses more on the issue being researched (use of reflective writing) than on the case from which the issue is analyzed (CTAC) [ 22 – 25 ]. Data were generated by two CTAC facilitators employed to deliver the intervention; both were novice facilitators with doctoral training in health services who had reviewed a facilitation training manual developed for CTAC and shadowed a more experienced facilitator for at least 6 months prior to facilitation of CTAC sites. Each CTAC facilitator was assigned as the primary facilitator for three clinics and was responsible for hosting weekly hour-long facilitation calls with each site over a 12-month project period ( n = 269 calls across six clinics).

At the start of facilitation, the two CTAC facilitators debriefed verbally with each other about what transpired on the initial facilitation calls; these debriefings proved helpful in thinking about the facilitation process. As a result, the two facilitators began to document and reflect on their facilitation process more consistently, with the goal of improving their facilitation over time. Facilitators logged these reflections using a simple template developed in consultation with the CTAC team, which contained prompts about the facilitation call’s date, duration, participants, an open-ended summary of what transpired on the call, and descriptions of facilitation challenges and success experienced on the call. Figure ​ Figure1 1 provides an example of a completed facilitation reflection. Thus, in addition to hosting facilitation calls and completing site-related facilitation tasks (e.g., introducing QI methods), CTAC facilitators also completed brief (<5 min) written reflections after each facilitation call [ 26 ].

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Object name is 43058_2021_203_Fig1_HTML.jpg

Example of CTAC facilitator reflection

Conceptual framework

We used the DPR model to guide our coding and analysis of facilitator reflections [ 10 , 13 ]. In the DPR model, skill development and learning occur via three cognitive systems. The declarative system consists of conceptual, technical, and interpersonal knowledge gained from didactic training and study. In the procedural system, declarative knowledge is put into practice during communications with clients. Finally, the reflective system analyzes past, current, or future clinical experiences; compares them with stored information; identifies plans of action; and either maintains or changes stored information as a result of the analysis [ 13 ]. Thus, “information is imported into the reflective system from the declarative and procedural systems for analysis and evaluation, prior to re-export back to these systems with plans for action, change, or retention of the status quo.” [ 13 ]. Reflection is defined as “a metacognitive skill, which encompasses the observation , interpretation , and evaluation of one’s own thoughts, emotions and actions, and their outcomes.” [ 10 ]. Reflection through observation, interpretation, and evaluation requires focused attention on a problem, reconstruction and observation of a situation, elaboration, self-questioning, problem-solving, and imagining of alternatives [ 10 ] during and after clinical encounters. Through reflection, individuals can derive perceptual learning, or learning from a “mental representation” of events “to facilitate new understandings” that are then reinforced or debunked when applied in practice to generate new learning [ 13 ].

Data analysis

We conducted a retrospective qualitative analysis of CTAC facilitators’ use of reflective writing during implementation. To operationalize the DPR model’s reflective system in our analysis, we generated three top-level codes representative of the reflection process: observation, evaluation, and interpretation. We defined observation as text in the facilitators’ reflections that was descriptive, contextual, and a neutral account of what transpired on the facilitation calls. The evaluation code was used to identify text that provided a general valence of the facilitation call (e.g., productive, challenging) and/or the facilitators’ self-perceived effectiveness, such as through descriptions of whether their facilitation methods were successful/unsuccessful. The interpretation code represented facilitators’ analyses of why events transpired as they did, along with the facilitators’ theories about how to refine their facilitation as a result of their analyses, which suggests perceptual learning or efforts to learn. Facilitators also provided examples of implementation tasks and activities that enabled them to support clinic sites (e.g., discussions related to the project timeline, providing QI methods support). We created an additional code, facilitator communication , to capture these tasks and activities and organize them into sub-categories in our results.

Two independent coders iteratively generated a codebook and used content analysis principles to code facilitator reflections in ATLAS.ti (version 8, GmbH, Berlin), resolving discrepancies in code application through weekly discussions to reach consensus [ 27 , 28 ]. Codes were applied to complete sentences and spanned multiple sentences as needed to capture each theme occurrence. Within reflections, each code could be used more than once to capture multiple occurrences of observation, evaluation, interpretation, and facilitator communication. Following coding, the coders identified general themes and presented them to the broader CTAC team (principal investigator, project manager, project evaluator, CTAC facilitators) for discussion and further refinement [ 29 , 30 ]. We used descriptive statistics to analyze reflections by facilitator and by code across sites.

CTAC facilitators’ use of reflective writing varied within and between facilitators, by length (word count), number of reflections completed per site (mean = 45), and processes logged (observation, interpretation, and evaluation, facilitator communication) (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). These processes were not mutually exclusive, and reflections often contained all four.

Code occurrence by reflections and coded text segments

Content of facilitator reflections

The content of facilitator reflections (Fig. ​ (Fig.2) 2 ) typically started with observations that provided useful context for the facilitators’ evaluations and interpretations of the facilitation call. Observations primarily summarized the call, including descriptions of call attendance, project progress and updates, decisions made, and team dynamics. Evaluations generally focused on the perceived valence of the call (e.g., productive, challenging), facilitators’ assessment of the effectiveness of facilitation strategies used to address project goals, and the affective (e.g., mental, emotional) impact of the facilitation process on the facilitator.

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Exemplary quotes of reflective processes in facilitator reflections. Abbreviations: AMSA Advanced Medical Support Assistant, HAS Health Administration Service

Text coded as interpretation revealed the most about the facilitators’ perceptual learning and efforts to learn by documenting adaptations facilitators tested and made to their facilitation during each facilitation call. In their interpretations, facilitators reflected about their facilitation successes and challenges, including factors related to team dynamics, resistance to change, lack of participation or engagement, and project progress. Facilitators also wrote about future strategies to overcome challenges and enable success by weighing possible next steps in their facilitation. In their reflections about the facilitation process, facilitators considered the clinic environment and its impact on project progress, the implementation site’s response to QI methods and tools, and the site’s enthusiasm and engagement vis-à-vis project progress.

Descriptions of facilitators’ communication with the implementation team (Fig. ​ (Fig.3) 3 ) often occurred alongside examples of reflective interpretation and evaluation, suggesting that communication style was a frequent source of reflection, adaptation, and learning for facilitators. Facilitators communicated with sites about managing the project timeline and adjusting project expectations and suggested alternatives to elements that did not work or were outside the scope of the project. They also offered QI and implementation resources to facilitate project progress and the completion of project deliverables. Generating and maintaining enthusiasm and engagement for the project made up a significant part of the facilitators’ communication-related reflections, including maintaining momentum, encouraging attendance and verbal participation on calls, and fostering effective team communication. Facilitators also communicated with teams to create buy-in for data collection, manage team dynamics, navigate project setbacks, guide effective communication with leadership and other key stakeholders, and discuss project sustainability and spread. Additional file 1 contains exemplary quotes.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 43058_2021_203_Fig3_HTML.jpg

Exemplary quotes of facilitator communication in facilitator reflections. Abbreviations: AMSA Advanced Medical Support Assistant, HAS Health Administration Service, SMART Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

The process of reflection through writing allowed CTAC facilitators the time and structure to evaluate their role, to adjust their facilitation in response to their observations and interpretations, and to process the affective impact of facilitation. Reflections included observations of what transpired on the facilitation calls, evaluations of the facilitation process including facilitators’ self-perceived effectiveness, interpretations of the facilitation process including facilitators’ perceptual learning and efforts to learn, and descriptions of the facilitators’ communication.

To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the use of reflective writing by facilitators during implementation. Existing facilitation studies report on facilitators’ characteristics and skills and on activities used by facilitators during facilitation [ 6 – 8 ]. However, few studies have reported on facilitators’ experiences of the facilitation process [ 9 , 31 , 32 ]. Reflective writing may help to capture examples of facilitator learning and self-perceived effectiveness by documenting facilitators’ application of basic didactic knowledge, perceptual learning, and the incremental development of facilitation expertise [ 15 ]. Reflective writing also enabled facilitators to continuously evaluate their facilitation process, identify areas for improvement, and support their learning and effectiveness. Reflecting via writing produced a record of facilitation activities that facilitators could later consult to recall facilitation activities and discussions. It is unclear whether reflective writing offered other unique benefits compared to alternative forms of reflection (e.g., supervision/mentoring, recordings); more work is needed to compare the potential impact of different forms of reflection on facilitator learning. Based on results, we developed and refined a sample reflective writing template with prompts designed to encourage facilitators to reflect on and document their facilitation efforts (Additional file 2 ).

Written reflections also provided the CTAC team and external evaluators with context to better understand the mixed-methods outcomes of the CTAC initiative [ 33 ]. For example, external evaluators reviewed the written reflections to better understand how implementing teams addressed critical junctures in the implementation process (e.g., failure/obstacles to implementation) from the facilitators’ perspectives. The reflections were helpful in providing additional context to explain trial results, assessing fidelity and adaptations to the facilitation process, documenting facilitators’ perspectives on successes and challenges to implementation, and aiding facilitator recall during weekly updates to the CTAC team. Our findings align with others suggesting that regular check-ins during implementation may improve documentation of and engagement in implementation activities [ 34 ]. Additional research is needed to assess the potential of facilitator reflections as a novel data source to evaluate facilitation and implementation outcomes.

There were several study limitations that should be considered. The CTAC reflective writing template was open-ended and relatively brief, potentially limiting the extent to which facilitators described thoughts and activities. Nonetheless, these data were rich in detail and offered insight into how facilitators reflect when given minimal prompting. CTAC facilitators were novice facilitators who chose to complete reflections; we were therefore unable to assess whether and how facilitators with different levels of training or expertise may use reflective writing differently. Furthermore, data were limited to reflections from only two facilitators, the total employed for the project. Nonetheless, the high facilitation intensity (weekly, 1-h calls over 12 months) and multiple study sites in this project resulted in a large number of written reflections that captured variations in content within and across reflections and facilitators. CTAC facilitation took place in the context of a funded QI project, and facilitators had protected time to complete their reflections (<5 min each to complete). Facilitators with higher caseloads and/or a lack of protected time may have more difficulty completing reflective writing. Finally, we did not empirically measure the relationship between reflective writing and facilitator outcomes, although the two facilitators in this study anecdotally reported that reflective writing improved their wellbeing and practice. Additional work assessing the use of templated reflections with larger facilitator samples and varying levels of facilitator expertise may address some of these limitations. Work to explore reflective writing across different facilitation settings, and in both internal and external facilitation contexts, is also needed.

Two facilitators, given protected time, found reflective writing to be a feasible and acceptable tool that enabled them to document their observations, interpretations, evaluations, and communication during the facilitation process. Reflective writing provided facilitators a means by which to attend to opportunities for learning and improving their effectiveness as facilitators, while also providing an important source of real-time qualitative data on implementation progress and activities. Reflective writing by facilitators may also have potential for informing the broader study of fidelity to and outcomes in implementation facilitation.

Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge and thank Lisa Rubenstein for co-conceiving CTAC and Debbie Delevan for the administrative support she provided on the project. We thank Polly H. Noël, Danielle E. Rose, Alissa Simon, and Susan E. Stockdale for their valuable contributions to the CTAC project.

Source of support

This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Quality Enhancement Research Initiative through a grant to the Care Coordination QUERI Program (QUE 15-276). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the US government.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions.

DAG (principal investigator) conceived the project, acquired funding, and contributed to the manuscript. TTO and KF led the development of the manuscript, and EPF contributed to the manuscript and provided guidance regarding framing and theory. LP, NC, IM, and ABH contributed to and reviewed the manuscript. JB coordinated the project and contributed to the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. None of the coauthors has competing interests.

This project was funded by the Veterans Affairs, Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) through a grant to the Care Coordination QUERI Program (QUE 15-276). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the US government.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

This project was supported by the VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI). VA Central Office and the IRB at VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System designated and approved the project as non-research. Process data collected by the facilitators were collected as part of the quality improvement project and do not identify individual participants in the project. As non-research, participants were not formally consented, but they were also not mandated to participate and could opt out from participating. Their consent was implied through their participation in the project.

No individual person’s data in any form are included in this manuscript.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Critical Reflection

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Writing Critical Reflection

Reflective writing is a common genre in classrooms across disciplines. Reflections often take the form of narrative essays that summarize an experience or express changes in thinking over time. Initially, reflective writing may seem pretty straightforward; but since reflective writing summarizes personal experience, reflections can easily lose their structure and resemble stream-of-consciousness journals capturing disjointed musings focused on only the self or the past.   

Critical reflection still requires a writer to consider the self and the past but adopts an argumentative structure supported by readings, theories, discussions, demonstrated changes in material conditions, and resources like post-collaboration assessments, testimonial evidence, or other data recorded during the collaboration . Common arguments in critical reflections present evidence to demonstrate learning, contextualize an experience, and evaluate impact. While critical reflections still require authors to reflect inwardly, critical reflection go es beyond the self and examine s any relevant contexts that informed the experience. Then, writers should determine how effectively their project addressed these contexts. In other words, critical reflection considers the “impact” of their project: How did it impact the writer? How did it impact others? Why is the project meaningful on a local, historical, global, and/or societal level? H ow can that impact be assessed?  

In short: reflection and critical reflection both identify the facts of an experience and consider how it impacts the self. Critical reflection goes beyond this to conceive of the project’s impact at numerous levels and establish an argument for the project’s efficacy. In addition, critical reflection encourages self-assessment—we critically reflect to change our actions, strategies, and approaches and potentially consider these alternative methods.  

Collecting Your Data: Double-Entry Journaling

Double-entry journaling is a helpful strategy for you to document data, observations, and analysis throughout the entire course of a community-based project. It is a useful practice for projects involving primary research, secondary research, or a combination of both. In its most basic form, a double-entry journal is a form of notetaking where a writer can keep track of any useful sources, notes on those sources, observations, thoughts, and feelings—all in one place.  

For community-based projects, this might involve:  

  • Recording your observations during or after a community partner meeting in one column of the journal.  
  • Recording any of your thoughts or reactions about those observations in a second column.   
  • Writing any connections you make between your observations, thoughts, and relevant readings from class in a third column.  

This allows you to document both your data and your analysis of that data throughout the life of the project. This activity can act as a blueprint for your critical reflection by providing you with a thorough account of how your thinking developed throughout the life of a project.   

The format of a double-entry journal is meant to be flexible, tailored to both your unique notetaking practice and your specific project. It can be used to analyze readings from class, observations from research, or even quantitative data relevant to your project.  

Just the Facts, Please: What, So What, Now What

Getting started is often the hardest part in writing. To get your critical reflection started, you can identify the What , So What , and Now What? of your project. The table below presents questions that can guide your inquiry . If you’re currently drafting, we have a freewriting activity below to help you develop content.  

Freewrite your answers to these questions; that is, respond to these questions without worrying about grammar, sentence structure, or even the quality of your ideas. At this stage, your primary concern is getting something on the page. Once you’re ready to begin drafting your critical reflection, you can return to these ideas and refine them.  

Below are some additional prompts you can use to begin your freewriting. These reflection stems can organize the ideas that you developed while freewriting and place them in a more formal context.  

  • I observed that...  
  • My understanding of the problem changed when...  
  • I became aware of (x) when....  
  • I struggled to...  
  • The project's biggest weakness was…  
  • The project's greatest strength was…   I learned the most when...  
  • I couldn't understand...  
  • I looked for assistance from...  
  • I accounted for (x) by...  
  • I connected (concept/theory) to...  
  • (Specific skill gained) will be useful in a professional setting through…  

Analyzing Your Experience: A Reflective Spectrum

Y our critical reflection is a space to make an argument about the impact of your project . This means your primary objective is to determine what kind of impact your project had on you and the world around you. Impact can be defined as the material changes, either positive or negative, that result from an intervention , program , or initiative . Impact can be considered at three different reflective levels: inward, outward, and exploratory.

Image portraying types of reflection (inward, outward, exploratory)

Inward reflection requires the writer to examine how the project affected the self. Outward reflection explores the impact the project had on others. Additionally, you can conceptualize your project’s impact in relation to a specific organization or society overall, depending on the project’s scope. Finally, exploratory reflection asks writers to consider how impact is measured and assessed in the context of their project to ultimately determine: What does impact look like for the work that I’m doing? How do I evaluate this? How do we store, archive, or catalog this work for institutional memory? And what are the next steps?  

This process is cyclical in nature; in other words, it’s unlikely you will start with inward reflection, move to outward reflection, and finish with exploratory reflection. As you conceptualize impact and consider it at each level, you will find areas of overlap between each reflective level.   

Finally, if you’re having trouble conceptualizing impact or determining how your project impacted you and the world around you, ask yourself:   

  • What metrics did I use to assess the "impact" of this project? Qualitative? Quantitative? Mixed-methods? How do those metrics illustrate meaningful impact?  
  • How did the intended purpose of this project affect the types of impact that were feasible, possible, or recognized?  
  • At what scope (personal, individual, organizational, local, societal) did my outcomes have the most "impact"?  

These questions can guide additional freewriting about your project. Once you’ve finished freewriting responses to these questions, spend some time away from the document and return to it later. Then, analyze your freewriting for useful pieces of information that could be incorporated into a draft.  

Drafting Your Critical Reflection

Now that you have determined the “What, So What, Now What” of your project and explored its impact at different reflective levels, you are ready to begin drafting your critical reflection.  

If you’re stuck or find yourself struggling to structure your critical reflection, the OWL’s “ Writing Process ” [embe ded link ] resource may offer additional places to start. That said, another drafting strategy is centering the argument you intend to make.  

Your critical reflection is an argument for the impact your project has made at multiple levels; as such, much of your critical reflections will include pieces of evidence to support this argument. To begin identifying these pieces of evidence, return to your “reflection stem” responses . Your evidence might include :  

  • H ow a particular reading or theory informed the actions during your partnership ;  
  • How the skills, experiences, or actions taken during this partnerhsip will transfer to new contexts and situations;  
  • Findings from y our evaluation of the project;  
  • Demonstrated changes in thoughts, beliefs, and values, both internally and externally;  
  • And, of course, specific ways your project impacted you, other individuals, your local community, or any other community relevant to the scope of your work.  

As you compile this evidence, you will ulti mately be compiling ways to support an argument about your project’s efficacy and impact .  

Sharing Your Critical Reflection

Reflective writing and critical reflections are academic genres that offer value to the discourse of any field. Oftentimes, these reflective texts are composed for the classroom, but there are other venues for your critical reflections, too.  

For example, Purdue University is home to the Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement ( PJSL ) which publishes student reflective texts and reflections with research components. Although PJSL only accepts submissions from Purdue students, other journals like this one may exist at your campus. Other venues like the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Impact publish reflective essays from scholars across institutions, and journals in your chosen discipline may also have interest in reflective writing.  

Document explaining the theories, concepts, literature, strategies that informed the creation of this content page.  

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Reflection Toolkit

Reflecting on experience

A range of models that can be used to prompt and structure reflection on experience.

Using reflective models is one of the easiest ways to engage with the reflective process. The ones highlighted below will support you with structure, guidance and questions. Your use of these models might change depending of why you are doing reflection:

  • Private reflections can take on any form and language you want. You can be as creative or structured as you want as long as you ensure you go through the reflective process of self-questioning.
  • Reflection for an assignment often requires a particular language and structure. You should therefore always follow the guidelines provided by the staff who assess the assignment. Moreover, here you might want to keep somethings private – that’s okay. You should never share something you are not comfortable with.

More information about the different places reflection may happen and how to produce reflections for assignments can be found on:

Producing reflections (within Reflectors’ Toolkit)

The last thing to consider is that viewing the reflective process as a structured model is just one approach; you might prefer to reflect freely with no structure. In that case see:

Free-form reflection (within Reflectors’ Toolkit)

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

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What? So what? Now what? 

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The Integrated Reflective Cycle

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The four F's of active reviewing

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The CARL framework of reflection

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The 5R framework for reflection

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Purposefully pause.  Think critically. Reflect on your teaching and your students' learning.

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  • May 12, 2016

Reflective Writing: Engaging Students in a Contemplative Practice

Dr. Cheryl Hoy

Director and Lecturer, General Studies Writing Program - Bowling Green State University

Writing reflectively as a contemplative practice in courses across all disciplines offers faculty and students a powerful and insightful look into learning processes and cognitive development. Reflective writing can be narrative, descriptive, analytical, evaluative, or critical; it can be dynamic or discordant; it can be ambiguous or discerning. Regardless of what it can be, it is a tool that assists students in thinking critically about course content and in connecting course material with practical experiences. Student written reflections allow faculty to see misunderstandings and misapplications of course content that illuminate gaps in knowledge acquisition. In their book, Contemplative Practices in Higher Education , Barbezat and Bush (2014) describe contemplative writing “as a practice that emphasizes process rather than outcome” (p.124). They delve into journal writing, freewriting, writing about reading, mindful writing, and storytelling. But, to dispel possible misconceptions about contemplative writing practices, Barbezat and Bush (2014) assert that “Sometimes students need direct instruction to pay attention to their own process; sometimes they need guidance to be able to discern their own development” (p. 129). While all of these writing practices mentioned by Barbezat and Bush have their important uses in higher education, I have focused on the contemplative practices I have used in teaching undergraduate students in first-year composition courses and graduate students in workshops. In the following paragraphs I include reflective writing practices I have considered that move beyond content-based reflections to metacognitive reflections and to critical (or transformative) reflections, as examined by Grossman (2009) in “Structures for Facilitating Student Reflection.”

The Argumentative Essay

For an argumentative essay, students are asked to acknowledge opposing viewpoints, which requires them to think about their own stance on an issue, to reflect on what others may think about the issue, to consider the perspectives and arguments of those against their stance, to acknowledge and respond to those opposing views, and to answer “so what does this all mean” for society or for some segment of society. For example, students in an environmental science course could write an argumentative essay on the impact of going green on the atmosphere. Students in a sociology course could write an argumentative piece on the long term effects of social media on the family. Students in a business entrepreneurship course could write an argumentative essay on the sustainability of small businesses in a global economy. In all of these examples, an argumentative essay requires an examination of evidence, a consideration of multiple viewpoints from various stakeholders, and a negotiation of the stakeholders’ and the student’s assumptions, beliefs, and values, and an assertion of the significance of the issue.

The argumentative essay assignment provides a constructive means for a reflective writing practice. Prior to writing, students must reflect on the issues surrounding the topics presented in the course content. Thus, content-based reflective writing will aid students in finding suitable issues for assignments, and it will assist students in exploring what they already know and what the course material reveals about the issue. A sequence of metacognitive reflective writing prompts will guide students through the process of uncovering multiple perspectives on the issue as well as through the process of mediation among those perspectives and the students’ own beliefs, values, and assumptions. Critical reflective writing prompts will provide students a space in which to discover insights as they reconsider their initial understanding of the issue and its implications for stakeholders. Accordingly, courses that include reflective writing as part of argumentative essay assignments prepare students for a deeper learning experience.

In courses without an argumentative essay component, reflective writing practices will facilitate a deeper learning experience for students when those practices are linked to course learning outcomes. In my consideration of the use of reflective writing in undergraduate composition courses, I sought to motivate students to think more critically about their writing process and their progress in achieving the course learning outcomes throughout the semester. I created a series of reflective writing assignments, as adapted from Bart’s (2011) four steps for critical reflection, for which students wrote reflective responses to prompts at different stages of their writing process and for different assignments. The writing prompts, each focusing on one or two aspects of a particular learning outcome, moved students from content-based reflections through metacognitive reflections. At the end of the semester, students reviewed all of their reflective writing pieces (a total of eight to ten), noting thought patterns and evidence of their progress in the course. After their review, students wrote critical self-reflective narratives based on new insights gained through their analyses and considerations of their previous written reflections. Integrating reflective writing prompts shaped by learning outcomes into this course enabled students to see connections among the course expectations and their course work.

The Application to Courses Across Disciplines

Whether through argumentative essay assignments or through a contemplation of learning outcomes, reflective writing can enhance the quality of the student learning experience in courses across all disciplines. Regularly assigning written reflections in any course provides opportunities for students to progressively delve deeper into course content and to contemplate ideologies, theories, and precepts central to the discipline. Transformative learning is achieved when students comprehend and alter their own assumptions, beliefs, and values in relation to disciplinary traditions, expectations, and standards resulting in the cultivation of new knowledge.

Reflective writing is a valuable practice that enriches course material in all disciplines. In science courses, students can write content-based reflections on scientific principles, methodologies, and hypotheses and move through metacognitive reflections that prompt them to analyze and contemplate the interrelationships among these approaches and their own observations and experiences. Assigning written reflections about content in business courses allows students to grasp core concepts, techniques, and strategies. Encouraging metacognitive reflections provides opportunities for students to make connections among various business practices used in diverse organizational and occupational settings and to develop an understanding of business philosophies. Students in interdisciplinary courses can write content-based reflections on their understanding of and experiences with pertinent topics and issues, and they can write metacognitive reflections on the complications of negotiating congruent and competing sets of beliefs, values, and assumptions within and across disciplines and among groups, societies, and cultures. Regardless of the discipline, course content provides an effective starting point for reflective writing practices that lead to deeper, more intense metacognitive and critical reflections.

Integrating a contemplative, reflective writing practice into my first-year composition instructor-training workshop for new graduate teaching instructors facilitated the application of theoretical concepts to teaching practices. Along with content-based discussion prompts, I integrated prompts that touched upon several types of reflections. For weekly content-based reflections, students read texts about writing and teaching, reflected on the points made in the texts, shared their thoughts, insights, and experiences in relation to the points made in the texts, and discussed how they might apply what they have learned to the classroom. For metacognitive reflections, students wrote about their writing, teaching, and learning practices, processes, and behaviors, about how these have developed over the years, and about how these have been reinforced, altered, or completely changed by their experiences. At the end of the semester, the students wrote critical reflections based on a contemplation of the beliefs, values, and assumptions underlying their thoughts as evident in their reflective writing throughout the semester. Students also considered the implications of what they learned as evident in their metacognitive reflections to their teaching persona and practice. The sequencing of these reflections fostered better discussions, deeper reflections, and better informed practices among the graduate teaching instructors.

Making Reflective Writing Work

reflective writing learning experience

The key to making reflective writing assignments a transformative experience for the undergraduate and graduate students is to provide time and space for students to devote the energy and effort to ponder, question, and reconsider their beliefs and assumptions. Based on my, and my students’ experiences, I have noted some key considerations when assigning written reflections:

Reflective writing works best when it is an ongoing practice. Faculty must strategically develop a series of activities that foster reflective writing throughout the semester. Similarly, students must continue to complete the reflective writing tasks throughout the semester. Missing more than one or two content-based or metacognitive reflections could hinder progress toward a transformative reflection.

Superficial reflection takes all involved in this process nowhere. Faculty must strategically develop a series of activities that progressively foster deeper, more thoughtful, critical reflection. Similarly, students must be motivated to move away from surface-level responses and to engage in deeper reflective thought.

Reflective writing could leave unanswered questions or end without closure. Faculty and students should approach reflective writing without an expectation of obtaining answers or closure. Often the unanswered questions, lack of closure, or gaps at the end of the process allow for an even deeper critical and transformative reflection.

It is an investment of time. Faculty must devote time to developing writing activities that stimulate reflective thinking. Similarly, students need to devote time to think about the prompts and then to write a reflection.

Helpful Guidelines

I recommend following these practical suggestions before integrating a contemplative writing practice into any college course.

Provide a framework or structure for the written reflection. While there are many benefits in freewriting and journaling, in an effort to move students into transformative learning, creating a series of reflective activities that progressively move the student into deeper reflection requires planning.

Guide the students through the process. Sometimes students will want to know what is expected from the activity or want to know that they are completing the task “correctly” especially if it something new to them, so modeling the first activity will prove useful.

Provide many opportunities for students to “practice” reflective thinking and writing. Planning a variety of reflective activities that continue throughout the semester will help to foster a reflective practice that students can transfer to other courses.

Periodically, or more often if time permits, provide feedback . Responding to students, individually, will guide them into deeper reflections.

By integrating reflective writing into courses, students have an opportunity to develop a contemplative practice that leads to a more meaningful engagement with course content and beyond. As Zajonic (2013) asserts,

“We can see how contemplative pedagogy deepens experience through repeated engagement and so leads students to gradually foster those capacities for insight that will aid them in the true understanding of the content of their studies and perhaps even assist in the precious moment of discovery” (p. 89).

Barbezat, D., & Bush, M., (2014). Contemplative practices in higher education: Powerful methods to transform teaching and learning . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bart, M. (2011, May). Critical Reflection Adds Depth and Breadth to Student Learning. Faculty Focus . http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/critical-reflection-adds-depth-and-breadth-to-student-learning/

Grossman, R. (2009) Structures for Facilitating Student Reflection. College Teaching , 57 (1), 15-22.

Zajonic, A. (2013, Summer). Contemplative pedagogy: A quiet revolution in higher education. New Directions for Teaching and Learning , 134, 83-94.

This blog is based in part on a presentation made at the 2015 Lilly Conference in Traverse City, MI.

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Reflective Learning: Thinking About the Way You Learn

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  • Reflective learning involves actively monitoring and assessing your knowledge, abilities, and performance during the learning process, in order to improve the process and its associated outcomes.
  • For example, if you’re studying for a test, you can engage in reflective learning by asking yourself how well you understand each of the topics that you’re studying, and based on this figure out which topics you need to spend more time on.

Reflective learning can be beneficial in various ways and in various contexts, so it’s often worthwhile to engage in it. As such, in the following article you will learn more about reflective learning, and see how you can engage in it yourself, as well as how you can encourage others to engage in it.

Examples of reflective learning

An example of reflective learning is a person who starts a new hobby, and asks themself how well they’re learning the new information that comes with the hobby, whether there are any gaps in their knowledge, and which learning strategies they enjoy using the most.

Other examples of reflective learning appear in various domains, both in academia and outside of it. For instance:

  • A student taking a difficult course can ask themself which parts of the material they struggle with and why, in order to figure out what they should be focusing on, and how they can modify their learning to make it more effective.
  • An intern learning to perform various tasks at their new workplace can assess their ability to perform those tasks, so they can know which tasks they need to ask for help with.
  • An athlete who’s preparing for a competition can think about which learning strategies aren’t working well for them and why, and then either improve the way they use those strategies, or replacing those strategies with better ones.

The benefits of reflective learning

There are many potential benefits to reflective learning:

  • It can help you assess your situation , for example by prompting you to identify gaps in your knowledge and areas where you need to improve.
  • It can help you figure out how to improve your learning process , for example by prompting you to figure out which learning techniques work well for you and which ones don’t.
  • It can help you understand yourself better , for example by prompting you to consider what kind of assignments or information you struggle with the most.
  • It can help you develop your general metacognitive skills , by training you to think critically about how you learn.
  • It can increase your feelings of autonomy and control, by making you feel that you’re actively in charge of your learning process.
  • It can increase your motivation to learn, by making you feel more in control of the learning process, and by making that process more deliberate and effective.
  • It can improve your learning outcomes , both directly, by helping you modify the learning process, as well as indirectly, through the other benefits that it offers, such as increased motivation.

Accordingly, many studies have shown that reflective learning can lead to personal growth and improved learning. For example, one study found that encouraging students to reflect on what they’re learning and how they learn had a positive impact on their learning outcomes, and had additional benefits when it came to their critical thinking skills and their ability to organize their thoughts. Similarly, another study found that reflective learning helped students process the learning material and link it to material that they’ve encountered previously.

Furthermore, in addition to students, instructors can also benefit from the reflective learning that their students engage in. For example, reflective learning can prompt students to generate helpful feedback that instructors can then use to improve their teaching, for instance by identifying areas where students require more thorough explanations, or by identifying teaching methods that need to be modified.

Overall, reflective learning has various potential benefits, including helping learners assess their situation and improve their learning process, helping learners understand themselves and develop their metacognitive skills, and increasing learners’ feelings of autonomy and control, as well as their motivation. Accordingly, the importance of reflective learning is widely recognized in various fields , and it’s an important part of many education, training, and work programs.

How to be reflective in your learning

Being reflective in your learning means thinking about what you’re learning and how you’re learning it, in a way that helps you understand yourself and your learning better. There are several things that you can reflect on:

  • Your understanding of the material. For example, how well you understand certain concepts.
  • Your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned. For example, when and how you can use a certain formula.
  • Your learning process. For example, how well certain learning strategies work for you.
  • Your abilities, preferences, and thoughts. For example, how difficult or enjoyable you find a certain topic.
  • Your goals. For example, where and when you plan to implement something that you’ve learned, and what you hope to achieve by doing so.

You can reflect on these things in various ways and to different degrees.

For example, in some cases, you might engage in quick and shallow reflection while you’re studying, by asking yourself “do I really understand this material?”. Alternatively, in other cases, you might want to engage in slower and deeper reflection, by writing down all the key topics that you’ve learned about, and going over this list to identify areas that you don’t understand well.

Similarly, in some cases, you might want to quickly ask yourself “is this learning technique working well for me?”. Alternatively, in other cases, you might decide to write down a list of all the learning techniques that you’re using, and then rank them based on how effective they are for you. Furthermore, if you do this, you can also ask yourself what all the techniques that work well for you have in common.

When doing all this, you can use various questions to guide your reflection, as shown in the examples above, and the following are some specific questions that you might benefit from using:

  • Which parts of the material do I understand well? How do I know that I understand this material well?
  • Which parts of the material do I struggle with? What specifically am I struggling with, and why?
  • Which learning techniques do I feel are helpful? Why do I feel that they are helpful?
  • Which learning techniques do I feel are unhelpful? Why do I feel that they are unhelpful?
  • Are there any changes that I can make to my learning process to make it better for me?
  • Should I ask someone else for help, either with my reflection or with my learning? If so, then what should I ask about, and who is a good person to ask this?

Keep in mind that it’s often more difficult to engage in reflective learning than it is to simply move forward without reflection, especially in the short term. Accordingly, people often avoid reflection, particularly when they’re under time pressure. However, in the long term, reflective learning can be better, both when it comes directly to your learning outcomes, as well as when it comes to related benefits, such as your general ability to learn and your motivation to do so.

Overall, you can reflect on various aspects of your learning, including your understanding of the material, your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned, your learning process, and your abilities, preferences, thoughts, and goals. You can encourage and guide reflective learning by asking relevant questions, such as “which parts of the material do I struggle with?”, “which learning techniques work well for me?”, and “is there anything I can do to make my learning process more effective?”.

Note : when engaging in reflective learning, you can also benefit from focusing on knowledge-building , an approach to learning and teaching that involves relatively deep engagement with the study material.

Reflective learning as a shared activity

Reflective learning can be something that you do by yourself or together with others. When done as a shared activity, reflective learning can take many forms. For example, it can involve a group of students openly discussing what challenges they faced while studying for a test, or a one-on-one meeting between a student and a tutor, where the tutor asks the student guiding questions about the student’s learning process.

There are advantages and disadvantages to individual reflection and shared reflection, as well as to the various forms of shared reflection. For example, while shared reflection as part of a group exposes people to more perspectives, which can help them identify more issues with their learning than they would be able to identify in a pair or by themselves, this approach can also make the reflection process much more stressful for people who are shy and struggle to work in groups.

Accordingly, when deciding whether and how to make reflective learning a shared activity, it’s important to consider the situation, and take any potential advantages and disadvantages into account.

Note : when it comes to shared reflective learning, an important concept to be aware of is the protégé effect , which is a psychological phenomenon where teaching, pretending to teach, or preparing to teach information to others helps a person learn that information. This is because the protégé effect means that shared reflective learning can help not only the person who is reflecting, but also those who help them do it.

How to encourage reflective learning in others

To encourage reflective learning in others, you can:

  • Explain what reflective learning is.
  • Explain why reflective learning can be beneficial.
  • Explain how people can generally engage in reflective learning, potentially using relevant examples.
  • Explain how they specifically can engage in reflective learning, potentially using relevant examples.
  • Create an environment that is conducive to reflective learning, for example by giving people enough time to engage in reflection.
  • Guide people’s reflection directly, for example by asking them questions that prompt them to think about their learning.

There are many ways in which you can do this. For example, you can give students a worksheet a day after an important exam, which has questions that guide them through the reflective-learning process. Similarly, you can dedicate 10 minutes at the end of class to having discussions in pairs, where students are encouraged to help each other reflect on their studies.

When encouraging reflective learning in others, you should remember that the end goal is to help them develop their skills and improve their learning outcomes. As such, you want to avoid the potential pitfalls of promoting reflective learning in an inappropriate manner. This can happen, for example, if you make the reflection feel like a pointless exercise, if you push learners to share information that they don’t feel comfortable giving, or if you force learners to use reflection techniques that don’t work well for them.

For example, this means that if you generally use reflective writing as a technique for promoting reflection, but someone feels much more comfortable engaging in reflection through sketching and drawing, then you should consider letting them do so, as long as it’s appropriate given the circumstances.

Reflective learning and reflective practice

Reflective practice involves actively analyzing your experiences and actions, in order to help yourself improve and develop.

The terms reflective learning and reflective practice  refer to similar concepts, and because their definitions vary and even overlap in some cases , they are sometimes used interchangeably.

Nevertheless, one possible way to differentiate between them is to say that people engage in reflective learning with regard to events where learning is the main goal, and in reflective practice with regard to events where learning is not the main goal. For example, a nursing student might engage in reflective learning when learning how to perform a certain procedure, whereas an experienced nurse might engage in reflective practice while performing the same procedure as part of their everyday routine.

Alternatively, it’s possible to view reflective learning as a notable type of reflective practice, which revolves around improving one’s learning in particular.

Overall, there is no clear distinction between reflective practice and reflective learning, and these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, potential distinctions between these terms are generally not important from a practical perspective, since they are unlikely to influence how the underlying concepts are implemented in practice.

Summary and conclusions

  • Reflective learning has various potential benefits, including helping learners assess their situation and improve their learning process, helping learners understand themselves and develop their metacognitive skills, and increasing learners’ feelings of autonomy and control, as well as their motivation.
  • You can reflect on various aspects of your learning, including your understanding of the material, your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned, your learning process, and your abilities, preferences, thoughts, and goals.
  • You can encourage and guide reflective learning by asking relevant questions, such as “which parts of the material do I struggle with?”, “which learning techniques work well for me?”, and “is there anything I can do to make my learning process more effective?”.

Other articles you may find interesting:

  • Knowledge-Telling and Knowledge-Building in Learning and Teaching
  • Reflective Practice: Thinking About the Way You Do Things
  • The Factors that Determine Success at Learning
  • Our Mission

An Effective Strategy for Successful Group Work

Articulating what good teamwork looks like takes planning, reflection, and respect for student choice.

Illustration of people holding hands to form an arrow

One of my all-time favorite reflective protocols is the Start-Stop-Continue exercise. It encourages learners to consider the impact of whatever is being learned by asking them about its perceived impact. A teacher or facilitator completes a lesson or an instruction sequence and then pauses, asking their audience to consider what they’re going to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing based on a learning experience.

One example of how this structure was impactful for my growth occurred after I participated in a series of professional learning communities (PLCs) focused on collaborative learning. I was teaching middle school, and while collaborative learning can and should be done at any grade level, it’s especially important in middle school, because tween learners need support as they encounter more complex emotions and social situations for the first time . 

Based on what I learned from the PLC and the impact those strategies had in my classroom, I committed to start, stop, and continue certain things in regard to collaboration, each of which had profound impacts on how I viewed work time within a project-based learning (PBL) context. 

START: Differentiate between group work and team work

Calling project work time “group work” is a bit of a misnomer. I once heard a colleague of mine, who also happened to be an experienced little league coach, explain the importance of this distinction in a very clever way: “There is a reason why we call them baseball teams rather than baseball groups.” His point was that groups are not invested in the long-term success of their partners, while teammates recognize that individual efforts contribute to the success of all and are therefore more invested. 

The reason this differentiation is key is that it reminds teachers to provide temporary grouping structures throughout the course of an assigned project that are different from the team that is producing the final product. There are many benefits to this, but here are three that I’ve observed: 

  • It provides students access to different perspectives and solutions that may exist outside their project team. 
  • It allows teachers to leverage protocols that might call for pairs, trios, or larger groupings than the project teams may provide. 
  • It gives students a break from the people they’re collaborating with the most. This is sometimes critical to the continued harmony in a classroom, especially at the middle school level where relationships and hormones seem to change with the tides.

STOP: Assuming That collaboration is built by experience alone

Having students work in groups is not the same as teaching them to collaborate. It’s akin to teaching someone to swim by throwing them in a lake and shouting at them from a distance until they figure it out; it’s skill development born out of desperation, and there are definitely less stressful ways to learn. 

I believe that providing specific, teacher-facilitated opportunities to discreetly develop collaboration skills should be a part of any project where teamwork is required, especially early on. You want students to have a chance to follow Tuckman’s stages of group development before grades add extra stress to the experience. Provide them time for storming and norming before deadlines, and you’ll be setting them up for a better chance at success.

This can be done with short group challenges accompanied by a quality assessment tool, such as a rubric that clearly articulates what good teamwork looks like. Books like the summer camp classic Silver Bullets or the evidence-based rubrics on the PBLWorks website are resources worth checking out. Building your students’ collaboration muscles takes planning, but it doesn’t need to add full days to your PBL projects. Look for places to include 15-to-20-minute experiences at the beginning of your day for greatest impact. 

CONTINUE: Include student voice in groupings

Whether or not to allow your students to pick their own groups for collaborative learning is a common question. While student choice can promote positive class culture and engagement, students don’t always make grouping decisions based on who will be their most effective learning partner. Despite this, I did and still do advocate for occasionally allowing students to have some say in their groups, but this doesn’t mean completely unstructured, or on scaffolded control. 

Group and team formation should be a shared endeavor. Sometimes you’re the one who makes the decision, and sometimes you allow a degree of student choice—but most often in a shared process.

An example of this would be allowing students their choice of roles, then a teacher uses that choice to form groups based on those roles. Another example might be allowing them to submit the name of a partner whom they want to work with and then forming the final group by putting two pairs together. They might also choose the type of final product they would like to create and then form groups based on that choice.

These choices I made about what to start-stop-continue doing in regard to group and team work became much more than just kids working in groups, but an opportunity to increase a key college- and career-readiness skill that would benefit them for the rest of their lives.

COMMENTS

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