Introduction to reflective practice and principles

The course is divided into 10 weeks. In the first week is introduction. In the first week we learn from introduction module about 1) links to project placement module 2) what and how of “Reflection.” 3) Values and principles of reflective practices. I will use the REFLECT table to construct my argument about my reflection.  

Remember: During my week 1 of learning, I have come to understand the difference between reflection and evaluation. I have come to understand that refection is careful and serious thoughts. On the other hand, evaluation is the process of judging quality of something, importance or value or a report that includes all information. In the introduction section, I come to understand that reflect is in-depth consideration of an event.

Experience: I had to read different books to increase my knowledge. They were such as practice writing and professional development by Bolton (2014), Handbook on reflective practice and professional development written by Moon (2006). I come to understand some essential things about reflection. I found that it is an in-depth consideration about an event or situation. It involves reliving or review the experience from various points of view (Bolton, 2014). I have come to understand that reflective practice is way of studying my own experience to ehance my working strategy (Brightside, 2016).     

Focus: The week 1 module is mainly related with four major elements. They are such as reflective practices, ways to reflect, values of defective practices and models of reflective practices.

Learn: I come to learn from week 1 study that reflection is a serious and careful consideration of working activity. It includes three inter connected stages. They are such as what, what next and so what. I come to understand that reflection reliving or reviewing the experience from diverse point of view. I come to learn that while working, some details may prove to be essential for personal improvement.   There are major models of reflective practices helped me to develop my own self reflection.   They are such as Schon (1991), REFLECT, Gibbs (1988) and Honey and Mumford (1982). These models are discussed in week 2.

Evaluate: Study of Week 1 helped by to critically evaluate the reflective practices. It helped me to pay critical attention to theories and practical values that inform everyday action. It helps me to evaluate my developmental insight (Bolton, 2014). I also have come to understand that I have considered my personal feeling about a specific action, in order to improve my performance on that particular action in future.   There are various methods that I can use for facilitating refection. They are such as journal writing, self-appraisal and portfolio preparation.

Consider: Reflective practice has considered 5 major questions. They are such as:

1) What I know but do not recognized that I know?

2) What I do not know and want to know?

3) What I think, feel and believe and understand about my roles and boundaries?

4) How my actions match up with what I believe?

Models of reflective practices

5) How I can evaluate and take into account my personal feelings?  

Some major considerations about reflection are mentioned below:

Values: Refection can be manifested in practice

Metaphors: Refection is a way of making sense of the world

Reflexivity: Refection is the method of standing outside the self to examine own capability  

Reflection (Using REFLECT model)

In week 3, we learn about perception and perspective development in oil and gas industry. In this week I come to know about perception perspective in the reflective practice, group working and role of ethics in reflective practices.

Remember: Study of week 3 helped me to differentiate between perception and perspective. It had been found that perception it is a belief or opinion often held by many other people. It is mainly based on how things look like. On the other hand perspective is a specific approach to consider something. It can also be termed as “a point of view.”

Experience: I come to experience that the dynamic psychological process is responsible for attending, organizing and interpreting sensory data (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010).

Focus: Our major focus is to reflect on “BREXIT” on remain and leave perspective. We work improving team performance and understanding own perspective. We take help from Belbin’s team role.  According to Belbin’s team role, we have divided the action of all our team mates in three major areas. They are such as action oriented, people oriented and thought oriented. Action oriented roles are focused on challenging team to enhance its performance. It includes shapers, implementers and completers. On the other hand people oriented people include coordinators, team workers and resource investigators  

Learn: I come learn that my perception about the reality can give shape and direct my own behaviour. We perceive the world around us in various ways. I have come to understand that ethical issues have significant impact on reflective practices. I have come to analyze that reflective framework is mainly originated from western culture. However, it is not applicable or relevant for all cultures. It can even become risky for multinational organizations to take part in reflective practices.  

Evaluate: There are some images that I can perceive this image differently. For example, one of the pictures looks like two people are facing to each other. However, some people can perceive it is a picture of a pillar. There is another picture of half glass (full) water. However, some other people can perceive the glass as half empty.  I played the role of team leader. I had to face various conflicts while working as team due to their different perception and perspectives.  

Consider : We work improving team performance and understanding own perspective. We take help from Belbin’s team role.  According to Belbin’s team role, we have divided the action of all our team mates in three major areas. They are such as action oriented, people oriented and thought oriented. We have to take care of various ethical issues such as rights to autonomy, confidentiality, dignity and  privacy, fairness, professional relationships and cultural boundaries.  Reflection (Using REFLECT model)

Perception and perspective development

Remember: In the week four, I learned about topics such as critical thinking and subjective and objective approaches along with the levels of reflective thinking.

Experience: During this week, four of learning the first think I learned was the meaning of critical thinking. While going through the module in week I learned many things related to critical thinking and its importance. I understood that thinking critically is not an easy task do, as it requires some steps. However, there was question that why critical thinking is important?  During this week’s leaning, I understood that critical thinking is paramount for critical reflections. Next, I also learned about the two main approaches of reflection, which are subjective and objective. While subjective writing puts more focus on feelings, thoughts, judgments and opinions, objective writing focuses on facts and figures. In terms of objective writing, personal believes and opinions are neglected.

Focus: During this entire week, all study materials mostly focused on learning and teaching how critical thinking can help to initiate reflective thinking. Focus was also given on two types of critical thinking which are subjective and objective writing.

Learn: The primary learning experience came through the reflective learning of handout: the parks. From the reflection 1, it can be stated that it was a subjective reflection as there were no data such as facts and figures were mentioned. In that reflection, the writer where he neglected his duty and did not help a child who was feeling ill described a story. On the other hand it was also described that in the next day newspaper, this incident was described as the child was admitted to hospital and was fighting for his life. No data related to what was the name of newspaper or on what date it was published was stated in the reflection. Therefore, it was definitely a subjective reflection.

Evaluate: The experience while learning from the week one courses was wonderful. I learned many new things during this period. However, I felt one thing was bad about the overall experience. The entire course related learning was theoretical. No practical activities were there. I expected to have opportunities to write down some reflection reports to understand my skills. I learned a lot about critical thinking and reflective writing. I learned that both these things are connected to each other and without one, the other cannot take place. Besides, I also learned that while writing a reflection, I must follow both subjective and objective methods, which will allow me to develop a proper reflection report.

Consider: Until now, the learning experience was quite good. I experienced many new things. I also properly evaluated the handout. However, I realized that I could have undertaken some practical activities to evaluate how much I learned about the course. On the other hand, I could have also took help from other books and journal articles to learn this factors more precisely.

From the case study, it is clear that it is not an objective report as the study includes minimum amount of data and figures. A report, for being an objective report, it is required that is includes lots of tables and figures. For example, in the report, it is mentioned that Mr. Cameron always handled tough times better than Mr. Clegg. It was also mentioned that Mr. Cameron’s figures show that clearly. However, those figures are not mentioned. From this part it can be said that it was written based on one person’s or group’s perception. That is why; it was a subjective report not objective.

Belbin’s team role

Reflection (Using REFLECT model) 

Remember: After learning about critical thinking and reflective writing, in this week 5, I was given classes on different types of reflective writing. This learning was based on learning journals, critical incidents and diaries. On the other hand, I learned about evaluating critical writing. I learned that critical thinking is a capability to transfer information from particular disciplines to other cognitive areas. Another major thing that I leaned from the week 5 is the process of writing reflexively. I understood that it is the act of turning back to discover, examine and critique one’s claims and assumptions in response to an encounter with another idea, text or culture.

Experience: About critical writing, I already got an idea from the previous week, which was week 4. However, in this week 5, I learned about critical writing in more details. While critical writing, it is important to deliver an alternative approach by engaging with evidence. I also learned that critical writing could be done sing different types of models such as levels of thinking process, the framework for reflection and structural debriefing model. In the framework for reflection, I learned that there are 4 levels which are descriptive writing, descriptive account, dialogic reflection and critical reflection.

Focus: Within this entire week 5, the total focus was given on reflective writing and different models of reflective writing. However, later, I also learned a difference between reflective writing and reflexive writing. I learned that reflexive research motivates one to commit what that person believes and how those beliefs came.

Learn: I also learned about the importance of learning journals. Learning journals are stated as a collection of notes, observations and materials that are developed over a period. The main purpose of learning journals is to improve one is learning through the method of writing and thinking about learning experiences. Along with learning the contents of learning journal also understood what I can write in learning journals.

Evaluate: From the week 5 course, now I can write reflective reports by using different writing styles.

Consider: While going through this week, I have considered all the available class notes.

Reflection

Learning Style Questionnaire

1. I have strong beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and bad	ü
2. I often act without considering the possible consequences	û
3. I tend to solve problems using a step-by step approach	ü
4. I believe that formal procedures and policies restrict people	ü
5. I have a reputation for saying what I think, simply and directly	ü
6. I often find that actions based on feelings are as sound as those based on careful thought and analysis	ü
7. I like the sort of work where I have time for thorough preparation and implementation	ü
8. I regularly, question people about their basic assumptions	ü
9. What matters most is whether something works in practice	ü
10. I actively seek out new experiences	ü
11. when I hear about a new idea or approach I immediately start working out how to apply it in practice	ü
12. I am keen on self discipline such as watching my diet, taking regular exercise, sticking to a fixed routine, etc.	ü
13. I take pride in doing a thorough job	ü
14. I get on best with logical, analytical people and less well with spontaneous, “irrational”	û
15. I take care over the interpretation of data available to me and avoid jumping to conclusions	ü
16. I like to reach a decision carefully after weighing up many alternatives	ü
17. I’m attracted more to novel, unusual ideas than to practical ones	û
18. I don’t disorganized things and prefer to fit things into a coherent pattern	û
19. I accept and stick to laid down procedures and policies so long as I regard them as an efficient way of getting the job done	ü
20. I like to relate my actions to a general principle	û
21. In discussions I like to get straight to the point	ü
22. I tend to have distant, rather formal relationships with people at work	û
23. I thrive on the challenge of tackling something new and different	ü
24. I enjoy fun-loving, spontaneous people	ü
25. I pay meticulous attention to detail before coming to a conclusion	ü
26. I find it difficult to produce ideas on impulse	ü
27. I believe in coming to the point immediately	ü
28. I am careful not to jump to conclusions too quickly	ü
29. I prefer to have as many resources of information as possible – the more data to think over the better	ü
30. Flippant people who don’t take things seriously enough usually irritate me	û
31. I listen to other people’s points of view before putting my own forward	ü
32. I tend to be open about how I’m feeling	û
33. In discussions I enjoy watching the maneuverings of the other participants	ü
34. I prefer to respond to events on a spontaneous, flexible basis rather than plan things out in advance	û
35. I tend to be attracted to techniques such as network analysis, flow charts, branching programs, contingency planning, etc.	ü
36. It worries me if I have to rush out a piece of work to meet a tight deadline	ü
37. I tend to judge people’s ideas on their practical merits	ü
38. Quiet, thoughtful people tend to make me feel uneasy	û
39. I often get irritated by people who want to rush things	ü
40. It is more important to enjoy the present moment than to think about the past or future	û
41. I think that decisions based on a thorough analysis of all the information are sounder than those based on intuition	ü
42 I tend to be a perfectionist	û
43. In discussions I usually produce lots of spontaneous ideas	û
44. In meetings I put forward practical realistic ideas	ü
45. More often than not, rules are there to be broken	û
46. I prefer to stand back from a situation	û
47. I can often see inconsistencies and weaknesses in other people’s arguments	ü
48. On balance I talk more than I listen	û
49. I can often see better, more practical ways to get things done	ü
50. I think written reports should be short and to the point	û
51. I believe that rational, logical thinking should win the day	ü
52. I tend to discuss specific things with people rather than engaging in social discussions	û
53. I like the people who approach things realistically rather than theoretically	û
54. In discussions I get impatient with irrelevancies and digressions	û
55. If I have a report to write I tend to produce lots of drafts before settling on the final version	ü
56. I am keen to try things out to see if they work in practice	ü
57. I am keen to reach answers via a logical approach	ü
58. I enjoy being the one that talks a lot	û
59. In discussions I often find I am the realist, keeping people to the point and avoiding wild speculations	ü
60. I like to ponder many alternatives before making up my mind	ü
61. In discussions with people I often find I am the most dispassionate and objective	û
62. In discussions I’m more likely to adopt a “low profile” than to take the lead and do most of the talking	û
63. I like to be able to relate current actions to a longer term bigger picture	ü
64. When things go wrong I am happy to shrug it off and “put it down to experience”	û
65. I tend to reject wild, spontaneous ideas as being impractical	û
66. It’s best to think carefully before taking action	ü
67. On balance I do the listening rather than the talking	ü
68. I tend to be tough on people who find it difficult to adopt a logical approach	û
69. Most times I believe the end justifies the means	û
70. I don’t mind hurting people’s feelings so long as the job gets done	û
71. I find the formality of having specific objectives and plans stifling	û
72. I’m usually one of the people who puts life into a party	û
73. I do whatever is expedient to get the job done	ü
74. I quickly get bored with methodical, detailed work	û
75. I am keen on exploring the basic assumptions, principles and theories underpinning things and events	ü
76. I’m always interested to find out what people think	ü
77. I like meetings to be run on methodical lines, sticking to laid down agenda, etc.	û
78. I steer clear of subjective or ambiguous topics	û
79. I enjoy the drama and excitement of a crisis situation	ü
80. People often find me insensitive to their feelings	û

Conducting the assessment of Belbin tool I found my assessment score to be 46. This scoring has been found by awarding point for ticked response. Belbin’s score interpretation framework indicates that 46 score represent that the partitioner is reflectors. Moreover, it has been also found that I have low preferences about the learning habit. In this context, the Belbin’s questionnaire has been quite effective to select learning experiences according to my style.

It has been also highly helpful to provide me a greater understanding with respect to understand the style of others. The analysis has been quite helpful to identify several attributes of mine. I collect data from others as well as firsthand and then come to any conclusion through thorough analysis. In this context, the Belbin’s self assessment model helped me to discern me strengths and weaknesses, which are mentioned below:

Values and metaphors of reflective practices

Strengths:

• Vigilant
• Systematic and Meticulous
• Considerate
• Good at listening and assimilating information
• Rarely Jump to conclusions

Weaknesses:

• Not assertive
• Too Cautious
• Slow to reach decisions
• Avoid direct participation

Career and Personal Development Plan

1. Personal Objectives

Short-term goals (next four months)

· Enhancing my communication skill · Enhancing my interpersonal and teamwork skills

Medium Term Goals (next 2 – 3 years)

· Improving problem-solving skills · Enhancing ICT skills

Long Term Goals (following 3 to 5 years)

· Improving Leadership Skills

 Personal Analysis

STRENGTHS	OPPORTUNITIES
· I am quite vigilant · I work in systematic and meticulous manner · I am highly considerate · I am good at listening and assimilating information · I rarely Jump to conclusions	· I am quite observant · I have the ability grasp in depth knowledge on any topic · I am capable to assess, review as well as analyze any scenario · I can learn from my experience
ASPIRATIONS	RESULTS
· I want to have the learning ability by watching any scenario · I want to study and implement my learning experience	· I would be able to analysis every critical situation · I would be able to take critical and effective decisions

 In order to further, develop my strengths and weaknesses I have to carefully plan out my personal development program. Effective planned activities would be quite effective to strengthen my attributes and help to reduce the drawbacks. In addition to that, I have to focus on my weaknesses and identify the areas for improvement. After that I have to identify the objectives that would help to improve the weak areas. After setting the objectives I have to carefully set the goals or learning activities that would help me to track my progress. It will eventually be able to enhance my skills and abilities at a whole.

C Setting Goals (10%) 

What do I want to learn?	What do I have to do?	What support and resources will I need?	How will I measure my success?	Target date for review of results.
I want to learn alternative languages.	I have to undertake proper training class.	I would need proper guidance	Regular test and communication on that language will be able to evaluate my progress	Next four months
I want to learn soft skills	I have to undergo through proper training program	I need proper supervision	Regular implementation and ease of using soft skills would be great measure of my success	Next four months
I want to adopt the ICT software	I have to undergo through effective training session	I need proper course materials and supervision	Proper test would be crucial for reviewing my progression	Next two to three years
I want to adopt the problem solving skills	I have to study various problem solving models and analytical procedures	I need the support of problem solving and analytical process books	Proper test under supervision would be required for measuring my success	Next two to three years

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