Reflective Practice | SkillsYouNeed
First Name *
Email Address *
Get Free Life Skills Advice
from SkillsYouNeed
Personal Skills:
Personal Development Skills
Reflective Practice
Character Building Skills
Assertiveness
Time Management
Stress and Stress Management
Depression
Anger and Aggression
Diet and Nutrition
Exercise and Sleep
Relaxation Techniques
Reflective Practice
What is Reflective Practice?
Reflective practice is, in
its simplest form, thinking about or reflecting on what you do. It is closely
linked to the concept of learning from experience, in that you think about what
you did, and what happened, and decide from that what you would do differently next time.
Thinking about what has happened is part of
being human. However, the difference between casual &thinking& and &reflective
practice& is that reflective practice requires a conscious effort to think
about events, and develop insights into them. Once you get into the habit of
using reflective practice, you will probably find it useful both at work and at home.
Reflective
Practice as a Skill
Various academics have touched on reflective practice and experiential learning to a
greater or lesser extent over the years, including Chris Argyris (the person
who coined the term &double-loop learning& to explain the idea that reflection
allows you to step outside the &single loop& of &Experience, Reflect,
Conceptualise, Apply& into a second loop to recognise a new paradigm and
reframe your ideas in order to change what you do).
They all seem to agree that
reflective practice is a skill which can be learned and honed, which is good
news for most of us.
Reflective practice is an active, dynamic action-based and ethical set of skills, placed in real time and dealing with real, complex and difficult situations.
Moon, J. (1999), Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and
Practice, Kogan Page, London.
Academics also tend to agree that reflective practice bridges the gap between the &high ground& of theory and the &swampy lowlands& of practice.
In other words, it helps us to explore
theories and to apply them to our experiences in a more structured way. These
can either be formal theories from academic research, or your own personal ideas. It also encourages us to explore our own beliefs and assumptions and to
find solutions to problems.
Developing and Using Reflective Practice
What can be
done to help develop the critical, constructive and creative thinking that is
necessary for reflective practice?
Neil Thompson, in his book People Skills, suggests that there are six steps:
Read - around the
topics you are learning about or want to learn about and develop
Ask - others
about the way they do things and why
Watch - what is
going on around you
Feel - pay
attention to your emotions, what prompts them, and how you deal with negative
Talk - share
your views and experiences with others in your organisation
Think - learn to
value time spent thinking about your work
words, it&s not just the thinking that&s important. You also have to develop an
understanding of the theory and others& practice too, and explore ideas with
others. Reflective practice can be a shared activity: it doesn&t have to be
done alone. Indeed, some social psychologists have suggested that learning only
occurs when thought is put into language, either written or spoken. This may
explain why we are motivated to announce a particular insight out loud, even
when by ourselves! However, it also has implications for reflective practice,
and means that thoughts not clearly articulated may not endure.
difficult to find opportunities for shared reflective practice in a busy
workplace. Of course there are some obvious ones, such as appraisal interviews, or reviews of particular events, but they don&t happen every day. So you need
to find other ways of putting insights into words. Although it can feel a bit
contrived, it can be helpful, especially at first, to keep a journal of
learning experiences. This is not about documenting formal courses, but about
taking everyday activities and events, and writing down what happened, then
reflecting on them to consider what you have learned from them, and what you
could or should have done differently. It&s not just about changing: a learning
journal and reflective practice can also highlight when you&ve done something
well. Take a look at our page
to find out more about the cycle of learning (PACT) and the role
that reflection (or &Considering&) plays in it.
learning journal, it may be helpful to work through a simple process, as below.
Once you get more experienced, you will probably find that you want to combine
steps, or move them around, but this is likely to be a good starting point.
The Reflective Learning Process
Identify a situation you encountered in your work or personal life that you believe could have been dealt with more effectively.
Describe the experience
What happened?
When and where did the
situation occur?
Any other thoughts you have about the situation?
Reflection
How did you behave?
What thoughts did you
How did it make you feel?
Were there other factors that influenced the situation?
What have you learned from the experience?
Theorizing
How did the experience match with your preconceived ideas, i.e. was the outcome expected or unexpected?
How does it relate to any formal theories that you know?
What behaviours do you think might have changed the outcome?
Experimentation
Is there anything you could do or say now to change the outcome?
What action(s) can you take to change similar reactions in the future?
What behaviours might you try out?
The Benefits of Reflective Practice
Reflective practice has huge benefits in increasing self-awareness, which is a key component of , and in developing a better understanding of others. Reflective practice can also help you to develop , and encourages active engagement in work processes.
situations, keeping a learning journal, and regularly using reflective
practice, will support more meaningful discussions about career development, and your personal development, including at personal appraisal time. It will also help to provide you with examples to use in competency-based interview situations.
See our pages on
to find out more about how taking time to think and plan is essential
for effective working and good time management, and for keeping your strategy
on track. This is an example of the use of reflective practice, with the focus
on what you&re going to do and why.
Reflective practice is one of the easiest things to drop when the pressure is on, yet it’s one of the things that you can least afford to drop, especially under those circumstances. Time spent on reflective practice will ensure that you are focusing on the things that really matter, both to you and to your employer or family.
To Conclude
Reflective practice is a tool for improving your learning both as a student and in
relation to your work and life experiences. Although it will take time to adopt the technique of reflective practice, it will ultimately save you time and energy.
Continue to:—How can I improve my spoken English?—You have to practice _______ as much as you can.
B. speaking
D. to speak
1. 即使我可以失败，我也要试一下。
I will have a try, _____ _____ I may fail.2. 小孩子生气时间不会长。
The children never _____ _____ for long.3. 我觉得有些压力，因为我的口语没有提高。
I feel _____ _____ stressed out because my spoken English isn"t improving.4. 王校长将在学校毕业生晚会上做热情的讲话。
Headmaster Wang will _____ _____ warm _____ at the school _____ party.5. 为你们将来的幸福干杯！
_____ _____ your future happiness !
根据中英文提示完成句子。
1. 在我们从Uluru回去的时候，有许多袋鼠从我们的车旁蹦过去。________ from Uluru, there were many kangaroos that ________ our car.2. 顺便说一下，我能再借一下你的相机吗？________ , can I ________ your camera ________ ?3. Ayers Rock大得让我吃惊：有3.6千米长，348千米高。I ________ how big it was: 3.6 kilometres ________ and 348 kilometres ________. 4. 澳大利亚人在很多方面和我们一样。The ________ are like us ________ .5. 大部分澳大利亚人都说英语，尽管他们也有一些特别的表达方法，例如“好运一天！”和“别提心，伙计。”________ Australians speak English, ________ they have some________ "Good Day!" and "No worries, mate."6. 我的骆驼一直都躺着，每个人都觉得很搞笑。Everyone else thought ________ was very funny that my camel ________ .
根据汉语提示完成句子,每空一词。
1．她认为学习英语语法太令人厌烦了.
She thinks__________ English grammer is too__________．2．她还说看英文电影根本没有益处.
She___________ watching English movies wasn"t helpful_______ _________．3．记住流行音乐的歌词对提高我们的英语水平也有点儿帮助.
Memorizing the words of____________ songs also__________ a little to improve our English.4．它能有助于改进我的说话技巧.It can help to____ my________ ____________.5．有时,他发现看英文电影是令人沮丧的,因为(影片中的)人们说得太快.
Sometimes he finds watching English movies
_____________because the people speak too________.6.你是如何做有关词汇问题的调查的?
__________do you do a_______ about________?
高考全年学习规划
该知识易错题
该知识点相似题
高考英语全年学习规划讲师：李辉
更多高考学习规划：
客服电话：400-676-2300
京ICP证050421号&京ICP备号 &京公安备110-1081940& 网络视听许可证0110531号
旗下成员公司Why You Need To Directly Practice Your Social Skills |
Available now - The book based on the site:
Why You Need To Directly Practice Your Social Skills
To improve your social skills you have to practice them.
That sentence is probably one of the most important ones on this site.
All the advice here can help you have a better idea of what or not to do in social situations, but you still have to hone the actual skills in real life.
It's the same for any other ability people can have.
This point is really basic, and you can read the same advice in dozens of other places.
I still have to mention it though because it's so important.
If your interpersonal skills are a little shabby, you've likely spent much less time socializing compared to most people.
Some combination of your personality and your life experiences has caused you to miss out and fall behind your peers.
You need to get out there as much as you can and put in the hours to catch up.
You need time to become familiar with all the little things everyone else learned years ago.
You have to put yourself in a variety of circumstances, try out different methods of interacting with people, make your inevitable mistakes, and slowly get the hang of things.
With practice, situations you used to awkwardly bumble your way through will turn into ones you've come across dozens of times
and know how to handle.
Skills and traits that are forced and stilted at first will become second nature, and almost feel like you've always had them.
You'll be able to think quickly on your feet.
You'll start to gain a confidence that comes from realizing you've been around people successfully before, and you can do it again.
Attitudes have to be practiced as well
Your social success will partially be determin how confident you are, how positive your self-image is, how optimistic you are, how you view other people, and so on.
Helpful attitudes have to be built up over time too.
They're quite abstract and psychological, but they still have to be earned through real-world experiences and successes that support feeling that way.
It's usually easier said than done to just read about a way you should think and instantly change how you look at the world.
Learning by observation is also useful
You have to directly practice skills like making conversation.
While you're around people you also can't help but take in what everyone is else doing and incorporate some of the ideas you notice into your own personality and style.
This goes for learning positive new concepts to use, but also things to avoid.
It's good to be open to learning from anyone.
Sometimes you may not be crazy about a person on the whole, but you could still pick up some good isolated skills from them.
Like with direct practice, this process is gradual.
You won't change overnight just from watching people, but eventually the benefits will pile up.
It's another reason to simply spend more time in social situations.
At times the observation process is conscious and deliberate.
Like you'll notice someone has an effective way of introducing themselves, and decide to do the same thing.
It can also happen unconsciously.
As you hang around people enough, certain traits of theirs will rub off on you without you noticing.
Practicing specifically what you want to work on vs. spillover effects
A point on what types of practice experiences to seek out: There are lots of different ways to socialize with other people.
Chatting to someone over coffee isn't the same as debating them.
In one sense, you'll get good specifically at what you practice.
Learning to have deep conversations with people won't make you all that much better at cracking jokes and being the life of a party.
If you want to get better at something in particular, like being able to think of things to say in group conversations, then put yourself in more situations where you can do that.
Sometimes someone will take up an activity like public speaking, hoping it will help them get along with people more easily, and then later find that the skills needed to give good speeches don't 100% translate into helping them, say, mingle at raucous parties.
One is rehearsed and pre-planned, the other is more improvised and spontaneous.
So on one hand, try to directly work on the things you want to get better at.
But it's obviously not that cut and dry.
Getting better at one type of socializing can have spillover effects into other areas.
To get back to the example from a second ago, becoming a good speaker may make you more confident and polished on the whole.
Your sense of humor or ability to tell a good story may improve.
Learning to handle the nerves from speaking before a crowd may make you more at ease in smaller groups.
Realistically you'll end up doing a mix of specific and indirect practice.
It all helps in the long run.
While practice is important, diving into social situations totally unprepared can be counterproductive
When I say 'practice' I'm not suggesting you blindly force yourself into scary interactions you don't know how to handle and hope for the best.
That's just setting yourself for failure, discouragement, damaged self-confidence, and reinforced anxiety.
You need to prepare by reading up on how to handle the situations you have trouble with (e.g., how to start conversations and then keep them going).
That way you'll have a rough starter plan going in.
You also need to begin addressing any
you have that make socializing out to be more dangerous and high-stakes than it is.
Where to practice
This article covers some places where you can rack up that practice time you need:
Available now - The book based on the site:
Search This Site
Copyright 2016 . Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate any articles without permission.这是个机器人猖狂的时代，请输一下验证码，证明咱是正常人~25 Things You Should Know About Protagonists & terribleminds: chuck wendig
Chuck is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Under the Empyrean Sky, Blue Blazes, Double Dead, Bait Dog, Dinocalypse Now, Beyond Dinocalypse and Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. He also the author of the soon-to-be-published novels: The Cormorant, Blightborn (Heartland Book #2), Heartland Book #3, Dinocalypse Forever, Frack You, and The Hellsblood Bride. Also coming soon is his compilation book of writing advice from this very blog: The Kick-Ass Writer, coming from Writers Digest.
He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, and their feature film HiM is in development with producers Ted Hope and Anne Carey. Together they co-wrote the digital transmedia drama Collapsus, which was nominated for an International Digital Emmy and a Games 4 Change award.
Chuck has contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor to The Escapist, writing about games and pop culture.
Much of his writing advice has been collected in various writing- and storytelling-related e-books.
He currently lives in the forests of Pennsyltucky with wife, two dogs, and tiny human.
He is likely drunk and untrustworthy. This blog is NSFW and probably NSFL.
You may reach him at terribleminds [at] gmail [dot] com.
Share this:
Like this:
Like Loading…
Like this:
Like Loading…
%d bloggers like this: