This reflection involves looking back on your experiences of the Professional Challenge/ Work Placement and analysing them so you can learn from them in the future is a vital part of learning generally. The reflective process is also an essential part of professional development in many professions.
Reflection uses the first person ‘I’ and discusses your emotions. However, you still need to be specific and formal. Instead of vague comments like ‘My challenge went well, and I felt pleased’, say why it went well and what specifically you felt pleased about.
When reflecting and documenting your experience you will need to draw on scholarly work around reflection for example, Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle and Kolb (1984).
Guidance – please note these are just guidance, you are not expected to answer every question.
Reflecting on an event involves more than just describing what happened. It involves thinking about possible reasons why it happened, drawing some conclusions from this, and deciding what you will do differently next time.
When writing about your Professional Challenge/ Work Placement experience, you may want to reflect on the following questions:
– Compare your experiences to best practice or explain them using academic theories to help understand what happened and why.
– How did you feel when you were given the tasks to do?
– Were you given guidance? How did that make you feel?
– Identify the experience you want to reflect upon and why. Choose an event that has significance for you, perhaps it puzzled you or made you stop and think.
– Reflect upon your expectations, was the experience what you had expected?
How did you feel during and after this task?Were you able to complete the task?
– What are some of your conclusions? Do you feel more confident with new challenging tasks?
– Compare your experiences to best practice or explain them using academic theories to help understand what happened and why [see the Reading Guide].
