Reflective Practice Models for Personal and Professional Growth

This assignment explores different reflective practice models that can aid individuals in making sense of experiences, learning from mistakes, and improving decision-making skills. The models discussed include Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, which helps individuals understand their internal cognitive processes, and Kolb's Learning Styles, which provide a logical approach to concepts and ideas. The Experimental Learning Cycle is also examined, comprising concrete experience, reflection, modification, and application stages. These models can be applied in personal and professional settings to promote growth, learning, and effective decision-making.

Reflection Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Individual reflection is the activity of learning of one's own feelings and behaviour and
the reasons that lies behind these learning and behaviours. Writing a individual reflective report
gives an individual clear insights and leads to the further learning. It is the process of
examination of one's own self through different angles that had taken in past. It is a mental
process of the thoughts or opinions that comes in a mind while writing a individual reflections. It
is the process of interpreting what is going on between learning and thinking (Elliott and
Stewart, 2017). Reflective writing is the process of writing on a past life events and thinking how
has past life events or activities has affected an individual's life, and also what an individual
could have done something differently in past to change the outcomes and also what an
individual should do in future. In this report Gibbs Reflective Cycle is taken as framework
which is a popular model for reflection (Bussmann, 2019). Gibbs model of reflection is used
because this model is clear and precise which allows a proper description, analysis and
evaluation of personal experience which helps a individual to make a sense of experiences of the
events or activities and to examine the practices. Gibbs model provides a proper framework for
reflecting on individual's own experiences based on past events and activities and its helps an
individual in developing skills and can review its effectiveness. In this reflective report a
reflection is framed out by me based on the activities carried out by me and my group on
expressing our views on producing a report on “Can money buy happiness?” This report
discusses about the feelings and experiences felt by me and my group during producing a report.
This report also discusses the challenges and issues faced and what are the outcomes and action
plan if the similar situations arises in future.
MAIN BODY
Gibbs Reflective Cycle or model was given by American Psychologist an Sociologist
Graham Gibbs in 1988 (Gibbs Reflective Cycle. 2019). This model encourages the people to
think systematically and precisely about different experience which an individual had during a
specific event or activity, situation. With the help of Gibbs reflective cycle, individual can frame
a reflection on experiences of those previous events or activities in different phases. Gibbs
reflective cycle begins wit a Description and continues with Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis ,
Conclusion and this cycle ends with Action plan and again finally returns to the Description
which completes a Cycle.
1

Illustration 1: Gibbs Reflective Cycle
Stage 1-Description: I created a group of 4 members in order to produce a report of 2500 words
in which we had to express our views of “Can money buy you happiness”. I was as group leader
and I was responsible for assigning different task to my group members. I told to me my group
members that we are going to produce a report on a topic “Can money buy you happiness”. After
knowing the topic of report my team got interested in the activity ans started to make discussion
on it (Quinn, 2018). We planned to use secondary sources of data in order to collected the
information for the report. We used internet, books and journals and also our personal views
about the topic to collect the information. I summarized the entire information for the report and
my team members helped me in gathering and summarizing the information. I faced the
challenges during the activity as we differed in our views and understanding capabilities but I
managed to understand their views about the topic and make team members to work as team. But
at the end we came to certain agreement and agreed upon the views and data collected which we
used for the report and ultimately we were able to complete our report with in a given period of
time.
Stage 2-Feelings: During the activity my feeling was great, as I was chosen a leader of the group
in order to lead my team during the activity. My feelings were high during the activity as it was
my responsibility to complete the entire report within given time limits. I felt as a responsible
person during the activities as all of my team members were dependent on me and put their trust
2

on me. This made me nervous but I decides to not to let them down and proceed towards the
completion of the task (Thrasher, 2017). After completion of the report I felt proud that I was
given an opportunity to lead a team and even my team member were happy to be part of it. Entire
activity was challenging as it was the first time I was leading a team there were ups and down
during the activity but I managed to complete the produce a report. It was a new experience for
me an my team and even the topic was interesting to frame a report on. But overall it was fun
and new experience for me and my team members.
Stage 3-Evaluation: While conducting a activity on the given topic to produce a report it was
really a great experience for me. Every thing during went smoothly as per our plan. We were
successful to build a responsible team and all of the team members were performing their tasks
responsibly which were assigned to them. Were were able to work as a team because were are
friends and we know each other for a long time so that was the reason we were able to build and
work as a succesGibbs Reflective Cycle. 2019sful team. But when there a part of expressing our
personal views about the assigned topic we completely differed in presenting our personal views
which posed certain challenges for me. It was because of difference in our perception and level
of understanding. My team presented there views and had a hot discussion over the topic and
there were certain agrees and disagrees on various points (O'Connor, 2018). But I worked as a
leader and I try to put my team together to avoid further problems made them understand
importance of a team and motivated my team towards achieving our common goal. My team
members were motivated we were able to complete the report.
Stage 4-Analysis: While performing the activity I learned a lot which will be beneficial for me
in future. I learnt that for any team leader is very important because it helps in keeping the team
together what ever will be the circumstances. I also learned that working in a team makes the
task easy to be completed and also helps in making the end results much better. I also learned
that a leader should possess a leadership qualities in order to lead a team in a better way. I also
learned to perform any task or a job there may arise some challenges which needs to be
overcome as soon as possible in order to avoid future risks (Tanaka, Okamoto and Koide, 2018).
Team member plays an important role in completing a tasks and achieving a result. I also learned
that in order to perform a task correctly there is a requirement of a team and also the team
members should possess special skills to work in a team. Also a leader should possess team
3

management skills to manage the team properly. I also leaned that I have some management
issues while I was managing the team which needs to overcome in future.
Stage 5-Conclusion: Performing the activity with my team members has been a positive
experience for me and my team mates. I was able to lead my in an effective way. It was both
challenging and positive experience for me. I was able to produce a report on the given task with
the help of my team members. Each and every member of my team put their efforts in the
activity in order to complete their tasks assigned to them. We worked as an effective team and
supported each at every segment of activity and were easily to deal with the issues and problems
that arose during the activity. While performing the activity it strong build our bond as a friends
and I also got an opportunity to lead a team which is a positive experience for me. During the
activity I also came to know about weaknesses while performing the activity (Wales, 2018). I
need to develop my management skills in future so that I will be able to manage the teams
effectively in future.
Stage 6-Action Plan: My action plan for future would be to improve my management skills in
me so that I would be able to manage the team members properly in future. If the same situation
arises in future I would prefer to use other sources for collecting and gathering data. I would like
to use primary sources of data collection which will make my report more precise and accurate. I
would also like to improve my leadership skills in me to deal with the challenges and issues
more effectively in future. In future I will take up the tasks more confidently and try to perform
the activities more effectively.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that framing a individual report on the past experience is help for the
individual to come through the entire experience and what were the strengths and weaknesses
while performing an event or an activity. It can also be concluded that reflection can help in
evaluating the positive and negative experiences that an individual comes through while
performing event or an activity. Individual reflection also helps to know what would an
individual could have done in order to make the situation much batter and what should an
individual do if the same situation arises in future. This report concludes that Gibbs Reflective
cycle is a helpful model for writing a personal reflections, as with the help of this model an
individual can express its entire feelings of entire activities from beginning to end. Gibbs
reflective model consists of six steps which helps in framing the reflection of entire event in an
4

effective way. With the help of this model an individual can make the description of the entire
activity what was the reason of conducting the activity, who were involved in it what was the
role of every team member during the activity what were the challenges and issued that were
faced by an individual while conducting the activity. It is in framing the entire story of the
activity. With the help of this model an individual can express its feelings and the feelings other
members involved in the activity. An individual can properly make the evaluation of the entire
activity what did and did not went well while performing the activity and why. With the help of
this model an individual can make the proper analysis of various situations faced by the
individual and what were the positive and negative points during the activity. An individual with
the help of this model can frame a action plan plan in future what an individual should do if the
same situation arises in future. It can also be concluded that individual reflection is important for
an individual and it can help in making the decisions much better in future. Other reflective
model can also be used to frame a reflection like Kolb's learning styles and experimental learning
cycle in order to become an effective learner. This model works in four stages which helps and
individual to understand the internal cognitive process. This cycle helps an individual to provide
a logical approach, concepts and ideas etc which provide a people with clear explanation rather
than a practical opportunity. This model consists of four stages Concrete experience in which a
individual comes through new experience or reinterpretation of of existing experience. In second
stage can make a reflection of why a particular experience is important and can analyse
inconsistencies between experience and learning. In third stage an can make the modification to
the existing concept based upon the learnings. At the last stage an individual can apply the idea
in the real world. So this model can also help an individual to become a effective learner.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bussmann, R. W., 2019. Making friends in the field: How to become an ethnobotanist.-A
personal reflection. Ethnobotany Research and Applications. 18. pp.1-13.
Elliott, C. and Stewart, J., 2017. What are the (C) HRD implications of Brexit? A personal
reflection?.
O'Connor, C., 2018. An evaluation of novel methodologies to support reflective practice among
pre-hospital emergency care practitioners (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin City
University).
Quinn, S. J., 2018. PERSONAL REFLECTION How being a tea-cart volunteer changed the way
I see cancer patients and influenced my nursing practice. Canadian Oncology Nursing
Journal/Revue canadienne de soins infirmiers en oncologie. 28(4). p.326.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health. 10(03). p.283.
Thrasher, A. J., 2017. A Personal Reflection from London. Human gene therapy.28(11). pp.959-
959.
Wales, T., 2018. The view from within: a personal reflection on library strategy development in
three academic libraries. New Review of Academic Librarianship. pp.1-15.
Online
Gibbs Reflective Cycle. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.allassignmenthelp.co.uk/blog/your-essential-guide-to-gibbs-reflective-
cycle/>.
6