Reflective writing is a process of
putting into writing your reflective
thinking reflective thinking is actually
the important part of the process the
writing is just a way of documenting
that this has happened when people first
start to reflect they often think that
it's about looking back at an event and
thinking about what they've learned from
the experience what they don't realize
is that it is equally about looking
forward imagining future events and
thinking about how the lessons you've
learned could be applied it is therefore
a three-stage process looking back and
analyzing and projecting into the future
without the third stage it could be
pointless it's also really important but
when you look back at an event you don't
just concentrate on it in isolation you
need to take a metaphorical step
backwards so that you can see it in the
context of other events and other
learning these can and should influence
your viewpoint when reflecting on that
event all of this can be written about
in your reflective writing when most
people reflect the write about what
happened about when it happened often in
the form of a timeline I did this that I
did that they write about who was
involved and perhaps where it happened
these are useful things but they are
basically descriptive and writing about
them does not actually contribute to
useful reflection instead you should
write about your thoughts about the
event during it after it and since you
should also include information about
how it made you feel were you were
comfortable doing it did you feel
confident about it instead of what when
who and where you need to write about
why why did you do it that way
how how will you change in the future
you should also think about the
implications you learned something but
so what how does that help you
writing that answers these questions is
truly reflective so how much description
is needed and how much reflection
description is important but it should
be kept to a minimum
it exists merely in order to put the
reflection into context a typical piece
of reflective writing should have short
bouts of description followed by a lot
of reflection one important part of
reflection is hindsight this is the
ability to look back as an event with
knowledge that wasn't available during
the event typically some hindsight will
initially hit immediately following an
event as a result of knowledge gained in
the process of that event this is the if
only moment when you first look back
what then happened is you gain more
hindsight gradually over time as more
knowledge becomes available this can be
incredibly frustrating if you think you
can't change things
however if at the point you reflect you
realize you've learned a lot from the
experience and you can change things in
the future this is actually very
empowering when writing about that
learning it is important to not only
think about how it can be directly
applied to similar situations but how it
can be adapted and translated to other
situations for instance if you have to
give a presentation you may spend a lot
of time preparing for it and be really
happy with the way that you went when
you delivered it but what if someone
afterwards asks you a really awkward
question one you haven't prepared for
you might feel a bit flustered and not
answer it how you would have liked when
you reflect on this you may write about
how you did not like that feeling and in
future presentations you'll need to
think about more possible questions and
prepare answers beforehand however you
may also think about other situations
where thinking beyond the immediate
problem would come in useful and you may
realize
but despite being unprepared you did
manage to give an answer of sorts this
they make you realize that you can't
think on your feet and give you
confidence to do the same in other
situations you could put all of these
thoughts into your reflective writing if
you imagine an experience as a wet cloth
the purpose of reflection is to wring
every last drop of learning out of that
experience it's also about showing that
you can think about how you can put that
learning into action
nobody's saying this is easy when you
first start writing your reflections
down it can seem very strange you may
learn things about yourself you're not
comfortable with you can feel like
you're really struggling uphill however
when it becomes a regular activity it
can feel perfectly normal and relatively
easy the great thing about reflecting is
that it's very rewarding when you
realize that you can analyze things and
work out possible ways forward for
yourself your self-confidence gets a
real boost reflective writing is just to
where to formalize and encourage such
reflective thinking