Community Engagement and Reflective Practice: A Study on Tesco Experience and Gibbs Reflective Cycle

This essay explores the concept of community engagement and reflective practice through a study on the experience at Tesco and the application of Gibbs Reflective Cycle. It discusses the nature and purpose of reflective practice, the theoretical model of reflection, and the relationship between Gibbs Reflective Cycle and the Tesco experience. The essay also includes a conclusion and an action plan for improving communication and interpersonal skills.

Community engagement

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Community engagement refer to way in which people engage with some work and learn
something. They learn skills and gain knowledge about the work which they do. This enables in
their growth and development. Moreover, by critically reflecting on their experience people are
able to identify areas in which they lack and how well they performed. In this essay it will be
explained about experience of working in Tesco along witb applying of Gibbs model. Also,
relationship will be described among model and experience.
MAIN BODY
The nature and purpose of reflective practice
It is a method of evaluate our actions and own thoughts for the purpose of personal
development and learning. A reflective practice is an instinctive and natural activity. Reflective
practice is a method of studying our own experiences to alter, improve and the modify the way
you work. It is very useful for employees who wants to improve their learning and knowledge by
their job. The act of reflection is best to enhance more confident. It also help the person to
become a more qualified professional and proactive. Reflective practice assists employee to
learn from their experience and also improve and developed their future practices (Johnston.,
2017). it enables us to gain a effective awareness of our knowledge, understanding, our
competencies and skills, our practices at work place etc. reflective practice has to major types
such as reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action. Reflection practices helps to transform
experiences into a great learning about personal goals, individual value etc. By a reflection
practice individual can increase their higher level thinking and also problems solving technique.
Reflective practice has various key principles such as read, ask, watch and feel. For the
reflective practice individual should have to focus on the main topics they wants to learn or
develop. They also should have to ask others about the manner they conduct things (Knott and
Scragg., 2016). For the effective reflective practice individual should have to watch that what is
going around them and then after they have to pay attentions, to their emotions and take
necessary actions to deal with problems.
Reflective practice is a major tools to identified and elaborate the previous experiences
of the person. it inspire reflection and experiences about what happened, actions and steps that
were taken, decisions that were taken and the results of those action and decisions.
Emotions is a main point in reflective practice because it assists a employee to explore

their values, feelings and judgments on a specific point. This is to promote for effective learning
about why and what happened. Reflective practice also includes -
Focusing why we did
Focusing what we did
Focusing when it was successful
Focusing on whether it could be have been implement better
Focusing on a proper planning for any modification of our future practice
The Theoretical model of reflection
Gibbs Reflective cycle
Gibbs Reflective cycle is a one of the best model of reflection. In 1988,this model was
implemented by Graham Gibbs to provide effective structure or base to learning from
experiences (Zwozdiak-Myers., 2018). It gives a framework for analyzing the experiences and
provided its cyclic nature that will help us to plan and learn from it. the Gibbs Reflective cycle
includes six stages : 1. explanation of the experiences, 2. thoughts and feelings about experience,
3. assessment of the experience, 4. identify the situation, 5. conclusion regarding what we
learned, 6. effective action plan to deal with exact situation in the future. This model is highly
useful in describing each stage in effective way so that entire experience and feeling is expressed
and presented in clear way. The individual goes through each stage and then describe entire
situation in proper way.
Reflection on personal experience
I have developed the personnel skills in myself such as time management,
communication and decision-making. This experience I have gained from my previous job in
the TESCO store where I was working as a superior , more than 10 employees was working
under me (Ghiasvand And et.al., 2017). This was good opportunity for me to learn new skills
from the superiors of the company. In my store leaders and managers of the company was
having 6 to 8 years of working experience, and they know how to handle the situation at thew
workplace. Manager of the company was very humble with every employee, and he used to
talk with the workers perfectly which shows the professional communication skill of the
person. I used to watch how they are communicating with the customers o the clients. I used to
ask question about the communication then they used to tell me why it is important and how it
important for the professional development of the people.

I bring the change in me a started following my superiors communication style. They
teach me how to communicate with the clients and how you can impress their customers to but
the things. This help me to achieve the goals and objectives of the company, and I was able to
understand the needs of the customers and also help me in my superiors task. Communication
skills helps me to provide proper and clear information to employees with the help of clear
information and the instruction employees started giving their best in the task, and they were
able to achieve the companies goals which affect the performance of the company. Other skills
I have learned is time management, this skill has huge contribution in the professional
development in the individual. This is also the skill which I have implemented with the personal
experience. I have notice that time's management is necessary for the people who want to be
successful. My seniors told me that the if you will care about the times then You can achieve
every goals of your life and it makes you professional and if we will follow the time table it
will also affect the employees who are working under us (Kurtz, Draper and Silverman., 2017).
If you will come late then the employees who are working under you will also come late, and
they will not care about the times so I have implemented the skills in my self and now I do my
every work on the times and I have my own dairy in which I used to write my daily task
which I have to do and follow the times./ This make me punctual of the time and perfect. Last
thing I have experienced was the decision-making and problems solving skill which is also and
part6 of the communication. I have experienced that This skill I have to build myself and when
problem occur in my life then we have t think about it and take the proper decision which can
help us to overcome from the problem.
Relationship between Gibbs Reflective Cycle and Experience
This is cycle which involves various stages in which reflection starts from its initial stage
which is experience. Stages which are involved in this model and my experience are as follows-
Description
The experience regarding self management, communication and interpersonal skills started at my
internship at Tesco. There were various incidences through which I got to understand about self
management, communication and interpersonal skills. Some of the incidences happened where I
experienced that self management is effective and this is my strength through which I can
manage my temper and feelings in critical situations (Sekarwinahyu and et.al., 2019).
Communication skills of me was not good and this I understand when I got chance to speak in

front of team. In this incidence I was not able to communicate properly. Interpersonal skills of
me are not very effective yet not very bad. This requires to be improved so that it can be
improved.- Before conflict all members were working together. They were supporting each
other. Moreover, when conflict occurred i felt nervous. This is because i was facing this situation
first time. Moreover, all team members also got nervous due to conflict.
Feelings
These incidences made me feel that I should improve my communication skills and interpersonal
skills. This also made me realize that at times self management can become my strength. I felt
that I could have performed my role on effective way so that I am able to gain morw skills and
knowledge. It will help me in my professional growth and development. With this I will be able
to attain my goals and objectives in efficient way.
Evaluation
Self management where I was able to manage my temper in a situation where I was in an
argument with my colleague and this turned into a fight and I was able to control my temper and
this ended the fight. I evaluated that there was some positive and negative points from situation.
The position was that conflict was resolved quickly and a systematic communication procedure
was set up. But negative was that it affected my performance as i did complain about it. So, my
behavior towards member was short tempered. The thing that went well working in team. On
contrary, conflict resulted in delay of task and achieving of goals and objectives. It affected on
working culture of project team as well. We all interacted with one another regarding conflict
resolution. This was appreciated by senior and felt good. Communication skills in which I was
not able to communicate properly it was a bad experience because this made me feel
embarrassed in front of the team and my colleagues (Markkanen and et.al., 2020). Interpersonal
skills is a regular experience and though it never became a negative feeling but it never also gave
any positive and good feeling.
Analysis
In this stage I analysed that situation could have been different that if I would not have not
controlled my temper and this could have made the situation worse. Communication skills which
I lacked and because of this I could not present well unlike this if I could have communicated
well I would have avoided embarrassment. Now, i think that during situation, i should have

solved it myself through communication. Similarly, other people also thought that conflict might
be solved within team itself.
Conclusion
In contrary I would have presented myself well and also have managed to make my impression
at Tesco. This is important for my career but because of one mistake and lacking of skill affected
this. Communication skill is also important for other sectors and aspects of life because through
this we can manage to make positive impression. I need to improve this as well as it will help me
in my professional and personal growth. I will get to know about type and forms of
communication.
Action Plan
From this experience I realised need to improving and enhancing my communication and
interpersonal skills. I can work on improving my communication and interpersonal skills. There
are various methods through which I can work on these improving these skills (Tanaka,
Okamoto and Koide, 2018). I joined workshops which provide guidance and assistance on
improving communication and interpersonal skills. For working on these skills continuous
practice at individual level is also important and I started interacting more to improve my
experience and understanding. This collectively contributed for my career as I can present my
though in improved manner.
CONCLUSION
It can be summarized that there are various model and theories of reflection which enables in
analyzing and evaluating experience. Gibbs model consists of 5 stages by which reflection is
interpreted.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Ghiasvand, A. M. And et.al., 2017. Relationship between time management skills and anxiety
and academic motivation of nursing students in Tehran. Electronic physician.9(1). p.3678.
Johnston., 2017. Reflective practice. Teaching Business & Economics, 21(1), pp.19-21.
Knott and Scragg., 2016. Reflective practice in social work. Learning Matters.
Kurtz, S., Draper, J. and Silverman, J., 2017. Teaching and learning communication skills in
medicine. CRC press.
Markkanen, P and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. pp.1-17.
Sekarwinahyu, M and et.al., 2019, February. Development of problem based learning for online
tutorial program in plant development using Gibbs’ reflective cycle and e-portfolio to enhance
reflective thinking skills. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1157, No. 2, p.
022099). IOP Publishing.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health. 10(3). pp.283-288.
Zwozdiak-Myers., 2018. The teacher's reflective practice handbook: Becoming an extended
professional through capturing evidence-informed practice. Routledge.