UU150 Study Guide - Final Guide: Leadership Development, Political Consciousness
Lesson 15: Reflecting on Your
Experiences
Learning Through Reflection
What is Reflection?
Reflection is an active process whereby an individual can gain an
understanding of how historical, social, cultural and personal
experiences have contributed to professional knowledge and
practice (Wilkinson, 1999).
Reflection can be seen as a process. The first step in this process
is experiencing a situation. Next, we either think about the
situation as it occurs or retrospectively. We then may begin to
recreate it in our minds, analyze what happened, think about who
was involved etc. Once we have had a chance to think about what
we experienced, how we acted and how others reacted, then we
have the opportunity to learn from the experience. Ideally, we
use the new knowledge acquired through this reflection process
to guide our thoughts and behaviours in future similar situations.
Reflection and Learning
While learning stems from experience, as you know it does not
just happen. For learning to occur, we all need to participate in
reflection, and record it!! By thinking about what you are
doing/have done and why you are doing/did it, you can transform
your experiences into meaningful learning.
There are ways that you can “practice” reflecting on your
experiences.
Here are some suggestions:
Discussion – engage with your peers, co-workers,
colleagues in conversation. Talk about what you
experienced, how it made you feel, what you learned from
it, how you might do things differently!
Logs/Journals/Diaries – write down what you think.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Reflection is an active process whereby an individual can gain an understanding of how historical, social, cultural and personal experiences have contributed to professional knowledge and practice (wilkinson, 1999). The first step in this process is experiencing a situation. Next, we either think about the situation as it occurs or retrospectively. We then may begin to recreate it in our minds, analyze what happened, think about who was involved etc. Once we have had a chance to think about what we experienced, how we acted and how others reacted, then we have the opportunity to learn from the experience. Ideally, we use the new knowledge acquired through this reflection process to guide our thoughts and behaviours in future similar situations. While learning stems from experience, as you know it does not just happen. For learning to occur, we all need to participate in reflection, and record it!!
