How do you improve your practice through critical reflection?

1 What is critical reflection?

Critical reflection is a process of thinking deeply and critically about your practice, using various sources of evidence, such as feedback, observations, theories, and research. It involves asking yourself questions that challenge your beliefs, attitudes, and actions, and exploring alternative perspectives and possibilities. Critical reflection helps you to identify your strengths and areas for improvement, and to plan for future actions and learning.

3 How do you practice critical reflection?

Practicing critical reflection can be aided by a framework such as the Gibbs reflective cycle, which consists of six stages: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. To apply this framework to your practice, you should first describe the situation or event in detail, including who was involved and what was the outcome. Then explore how you felt and how others might have felt. Next, assess what was good and bad about the situation or event. Afterwards, analyze why it happened the way it did. Afterward, draw conclusions from your reflection by summarizing what you have learned and how it has changed or confirmed your assumptions. Finally, make an action plan for your future practice by specifying what you will do to improve your practice and how you will monitor and evaluate your progress.

4 How do you document your critical reflection?

Documenting your critical reflection is a useful way to record your learning and development, and to demonstrate your competence and professionalism. You can document your critical reflection in various forms, such as journals, portfolios, logs, reports, or essays. You can use the framework that you have chosen to structure your documentation, and to provide evidence of your reflection process and outcomes. You can also use different formats and media, such as text, images, audio, or video, to express your thoughts and feelings.