Enzyme, Pharmaceutical Aids, Miscellaneous Last Part of Chapter no 5th.pdf
Reflective Practice Workshop
1. OSC
Office of Scholarly CommunicationOffice of Scholarly Communication
Reflective PracticeWorkshop
Claire Sewell
Research Support Skills Coordinator
Office of Scholarly Communication
ces43@cam.ac.uk
2. OSC Slides will be available
All images are under CC0, unless indicated otherwise
You will get all the slides
– no need to write
everything down
4. OSC
What is reflective practice?
Everyday reflections
Models of reflective practice
Overcoming barriers
Dealing with feedback
Introduction to reflective writing
Topics for today
6. OSC What does reflective practice mean?
Reflective practice is the
ability to reflect on one’s
actions so as to engage in a
process of continuous learning
-Wikipedia
8. OSC
Helps to overcome
‘self-talk’
Shows what went
wrong/right
Aids creativity and
avoids stagnation
Overcomes
assumptions
Key part of ‘emotional
intelligence’
Helps maintain
work/life balance
Why reflect?
9. OSC Positive vs. negative experiences
Is it better to reflect on positive or negative experiences?
10. OSC Positive vs. negative experiences
Is it better to reflect on positive or negative experiences?
Can be very motivating
Want to replicate
success
But it can overlook
problems
Easy to learn from
Always something to
improve on
But can cause
negativity
12. OSC Individual reflection
Reflection that is personal to you or close friends
On the commute
In the shower
Talking to a friend/partner at the end of the day
Journal/diary
Staff review and development
13. OSC Group reflection
Reflections shared with others in groups/teams
Team meetings
Away days
Formal methods of reflection
Guided reflections
Journal clubs
15. OSC
Set ground rules
Make sure everyone
gets a chance to speak
Resist the temptation
to offer solutions
Listen!
Facilitating group reflection
16. OSC
Sit back to back
Person A describes the
diagram and Person B
draws it
Three minutes then
swap
No questions allowed!
Listening exercise
17. OSC Integrating reflection into your day
Think of reflection as a philosophy not a set of
activities to complete
Look at the reflection you already
practice
Create an open and honest team
environment
Evaluate your experiences and
ask for external input
24. OSC
Gives you a structure to
follow
Provides a starting point
Allows you to assess all
levels of a situation
Shows when the process
is complete
Pros of models
25. OSC
Implies steps have to be
followed a certain way
In the real world you
may not start at the
beginning
Models may not apply to
every situation
Reflective practice is a
continuous process
Cons of models
27. OSC Barriers to being a reflective practitioner
What are the main barriers to being reflective?
No time
Organisational culture
Lack of skill
Environment
Motivation
Yourself = biggest barrier
28. OSC Overcoming barriers
Make time for reflection
Set aside regular time, especially after an event. Turn off emails
Find a critical friend
Someone who you trust to be a sounding board
No right way of reflecting
Tips and techniques but you need to
make them work for you
30. OSC
Feedback = any information you get about
yourself
Receive it from multiple people every day
Can be formal or informal
Enables us to see ourselves from another point
of view
What is feedback?
Icons: Zlatko Najdenovski via Iconfinder (CC-BY)
31. OSC
Be confident in what you’re saying
Be aware of tone and body language
Try to be positive rather than negative
Be specific rather than vague
Allow the other person
to respond
Giving feedback
32. OSC
Think about the person giving you feedback
Do you respect this person’s opinion?
Do they practice what they preach?
Do they have an agenda?
Are they open to feedback?
Receiving feedback
Remember to listen to what is
being said
33. OSC
Truth triggers
Set off by the substance of
the feedback itself
Relationship triggers
Set off by the person
giving the feedback
Identity triggers
Something about the
feedback hits a nerve
Feedback triggers
Thanks for the Feedback / Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen
35. OSC
Measuring your effectiveness
Asking questions (and answering them)
Demonstrating how you have put into practice
what you have learnt
Not just description!
What is reflective writing?
36. OSC
Reflective writing is… Reflective writing isn’t…
Written in the first person Written in the third person
Analytical Descriptive
Free flowing What you think you should
write
Subjective Objective
Tool to challenge assumptions Tool to ignore assumptions
Time investment Waste of time
Myth busting
The Reflective Practice Guide / Barbara Bassot
38. OSC Reflective writing example
“I went on a useful marketing training course”
“I identified a need to increase my marketing
skills. The training course on marketing gave me
lots of tips about presentation and enhanced my
knowledge. I then took ideas to the publicity
group and developed three for use in new
publicity materials. I intend to monitor the
impact of these over the coming months”
40. OSC Driscoll’s What model
What? – describe the situation: achievements,
consequences, responses, feelings and problems
So what? – discuss what has been learnt:
learning about self, relationships, models, attitudes,
cultures, actions, thoughts, understanding and
improvements
Now what? – identify what needs to be done in
order to improve future outcomes and develop
learning
41. OSC
Person one
Describe an activity you
have recently taken part in
Person two
Ask what, so what, now
what?
Two minutes and switch
Reflection in action
Agree ground rules with participants
Group introductions – who we are and why are we here?
Topics for today
Handout page 2 – what does reflective practice mean for you?
No correct answers – it can be a personal response
Feedback to the group FLIPCHART
Wikipedia definition = one possible definition of reflective practice
Essentially taking an experience and learning from it so we can do it better next time and then putting this learning into action
Comes from the health and education professions but growing importance in information profession
Imagine you have come home at the end of a rubbish week and find that you have access to a time machine
You can go back to the start of the week and do anything you like differently – what would you change, why and how? This is reflection
You are trying to improve things by thinking them through and using this to change outcomes
Putting this into practice = reflective practice
Helps with the issue of ‘self-talk’ – that little voice in your heard reminding you of all the things that you could have done differently
Shows what went wrong/right – can help you to find areas that you need to improve but can also highlight things you’re doing well and should keep doing
Aids creativity and avoid stagnation – thinking about what you are doing and why you are doing it that way can help you avoid getting stuck in a rut. You can learn from others about different ways to do things and try new approaches
Overcomes assumptions – all of us make assumptions about people and situations as part of human nature. Taking a step back through reflection can help us to challenge some of these assumptions and see things from a new perspective
Key part of emotional intelligence – the ability to understand and remain in control of your emotions in certain situations which can help you to understand certain situations
Helps maintain work/life balance – reflection offers a defined process of thinking things through which hopefully means they don’t go round in your head resulting in the ability to leave work at work
Is it better to reflect on positive or negative experiences (or both)? = common question
ASK THE AUDIENCE: Who focuses more on positive experiences? Who focuses more on negative experiences?
There are pros and cons to each approach
Focusing on positive experiences can be very motivating as it makes you feel that you’re doing something right, it can show you things that are going well so you can replicate them in the future – how did you achieve this and how can it be replicated with other projects? But it can also mean that you can overlook problems and only focus on the things that work
Negative experiences are easier to learn from – if something went wrong then don’t do it again. It’s always easy to identify areas for improvement in things that went wrong and you can improve on these. But focusing too much on what went wrong can be demotivating and cause a lot of negativity which does more harm than good
You probably practice more reflection in your everyday life than you realise. Handout page 3 – chat with your neighbours and list all of the different ways and places you might reflect during a typical day
Feedback and record on flipchart
Most of these activities can be divided into individual and group activities
Individual – reflection that is either personal to you or shared only with close friends. These are the suggestions I came up with. Most of these reflections use the internal voice. Debated whether to include staff review on this list but it is a personal document that you then discuss with one person. It takes quite a lot of insight to get a lot out of this type of reflection but it comes with practice
Group – these are reflections shared with larger groups like your work team. My suggestions are on the screen. You might share reflections on how things have gone during events at regular meetings or away days, you may have a formal method of reflection (OSC PRESENTER REFLECTION DOCUMENT), there are also guided reflections and journal clubs which offer something concrete to discuss to get the reflections going
Group reflections are useful as a way to explore multiple perspectives and get different viewpoints. It aids creativity and helps us to question our assumptions
Want to explore group reflections in more detail. There are different types of groups:
Peer support groups: informal rather than led by a single person. Group members offer advice and insights without offering solutions
Action learning sets: focus on solving a particular problem. The problem is outlined by one member and then other members ask questions to draw out a solution. Actions are then planned as a result
Guided reflection groups: small groups who meet regularly and are guided by a mentor. Each member brings along at least two experiences they have reflected on – one positive and one negative. These groups often have discussions related to relevant theory
Team reflections – undertaking reflections in a specific team (usually a work team). Over time this can build into a really useful method of reflection
Facilitating group reflection well is a challenge but there are some things you can do to make it easier:
Set group rules – as we did at the start of the session. This helps everyone know what to expect and should be mutually agreed
Make sure everyone gets a chance to speak – there will always be one person who will dominate the conversation but a good facilitator will work to control them and make sure that everyone gets a chance to say what they want to say
Resist the temptation to offer solutions – a facilitator is there to facilitate the discussion but not to solve everyone’s problems for them. The advantage of group reflection is that is allows for a variety of viewpoints to be shared, not just the facilitator’s
The most important thing you can do is listen – this will encourage others to talk and help you to learn about different viewpoints as well
This exercise will help you to develop your listening skills
Handout page 4 – listening exercise
Sit back to back and choose Person A and Person B – Person A will describe the diagram and Person B will draw it. You have three minutes to draw the diagram from the description given and Person B can’t ask questions. After three minutes swap and Person B describes whilst Person A draws
FEEDBACK FROM THE GROUP: was that easier than you thought, harder? Was it easier to listen or to describe?
It’s important to try and build reflection into your day as a philosophy rather than as a set of activities to complete
Most people will find that they already practice some of the reflective activities we’ve already looked at so it’s a question of building on these
It’s important if you can to create an open and supportive team environment where people feel encouraged to reflect and supported to act on the results (easier said than done). Can try a ‘bottom up’ rather than a ‘top down’ approach to building this. Can be through an open door policy informal chats or a more formal method of reflection – it may take time!
Try to evaluate your experiences and ask for external input when needed. If you get into the habit of recording some sort of reflection then you can build on this e.g. feedback forms after this workshop for me to reflect on
We use reflection all the time in libraries but we don’t give it a label
Reflective practice has a background in medicine and teaching but it is becoming increasingly important in the information profession
Several ways we use it:
Service improvements – looking at why things are working and why they’re not working is something we do every day. This is how we improve the services we offer and create/adapt new ones
Personal improvements – might be in a job application or interview situation, as part of an appraisal or review or just for our own professional development
CILIP qualifications – reflection is a major component of these
Academic qualifications – library (or other topic) qualifications often require some sort of reflection on your current practice and how this relates to theory
Scholarly communication – reflection is the first step towards solving a problem and this can lead to research and sharing the outcomes of this with the wider profession
Reflective practice in librarianship is part of evidence based practice = when you make decisions based on the research and other evidence that you can gather
Term that originated in medicine as a way to apply research findings to critical decision making
Starts with an area where there is some sort of problem or librarians are looking to improve their practice existing research is gathered to address this problem or support a possible solution the evidence is critically appraised to check whether it is valid and reliable the valid research is then applied to the problem final step is to evaluate the process and determine if there has been any impact and if there is room for improvement this may lead to new problems being discovered and so the process goes on
Librarians are very good at the gathering and critical appraisal parts of this cycle but need to do more to create evidence – fill the gap by acting as practitioner researchers
Obviously for this process to take place there has to be existing research to gather and build upon and that’s where workplace research comes in
Can help you make informed decisions based on solid results rather than just relying on a gut feeling
Can also help to improve the culture of the organisation as it moves towards making decisions based on evidence
This leads us nicely on to the next section where we look at various models of reflective practice
This is a workshop in itself so I’ve picked the models that I think are the most useful
These models are all shown in your handouts (pages 5-8)
This is probably the most simple model of reflective practice
You start with an experience, you reflect on it and then you take some action as a result of this reflection e.g. change the thing that wasn’t working
This model takes things a step further:
Concrete Experience - (a new experience of situation is encountered, or a reinterpretation of existing experience)
Reflective Observation (of the new experience. Of particular importance are any inconsistencies between experience and understanding)
Abstract Conceptualization (Reflection gives rise to a new idea, or a modification of an existing abstract concept)
Active Experimentation (the learner applies them to the world around them to see what results)
Again, this model builds on the previous models and adds more steps:
Description – what happened?
Feelings – what were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluation – what was good and bad about the experience?
Analysis – what sense can you make our of the situation?
Conclusion – what else could you have done?
Action plan – if is arose again, what would you do?
ASK THE AUDIENCE: Are there any particular models which stand out for people or that they are drawn to?
Reflective practice models are useful for a number of reasons:
They give you a structure to follow which people often find helpful (particularly when new to reflection)
They offer a place to start which takes some of the pressure off
Shows all of the different levels of a situation which helps to ensure you don’t miss anything out
Gives you a target to aim for – when the reflection process on one part is complete you can start again on another piece of reflection
There are also some reasons to be cautious about reflective practice (or any other) models:
Models are often cycles which imply that the steps have to be followed in a certain way which may not be the case
All models offer a starting point but it might be that you need to start at a different place in the cycle
Some models set unrealistic expectations of a something that can be followed in every situation whereas there may be different models for different real world scenarios
Reflective practice is a continuous process but models imply that reflection has a defined ending point which can be misleading
ASK THE AUDIENCE: Can they think of any more pros and cons? List on handout page 9
Quick look at some of the common barriers to being a reflective practitioner
ASK THE AUDIENCE: Handout page 10 – discuss with neighbours and list some barriers to reflective practice
Feedback onto flipchart
These are some of the main barriers I could think of:
Lack of time – it’s one more thing to cram into a busy job
Organisational culture – a lack of support from management who don’t see reflective practice as a valuable activity
Lack of skill – no knowing where to start or how to reflect
Environment – actually finding a place where you can get into that reflective headspace
Motivation – lack of support and time can take a toll. It can be hard to motivate yourself to do this with no apparent reward
Yourself – probably the biggest barrier and the hardest to overcome. Good reflection takes a certain level of self-insight which can be uncomfortable for a lot of people
Some tips on how to overcome some of the commons barriers to reflection:
Time is probably the biggest barrier most people will face. Try to make reflection a habit, set aside regular time to reflect. Turning off your emails can help to avoid distractions – people can wait for fifteen minutes for a reply or they would have called you. IDoneThis. Block off regular time in the diary
Find a critical friend to offer you another point of view. You can meet them for coffee or lunch. Having a friend to talk to might make things a bit easier than reflecting with a stranger or on your own
Remember that there is no one right way of reflecting – do whatever works for you and don’t be afraid to try different things
Feedback is something we all deal with every day – whether it’s wanted or not
Important form of self-reflection and source of ideas
Feedback is any information you get about yourself during the course of a day
We receive feedback from multiple people every day and it can be both formal feedback such as a manager over a recent project or informal feedback such as someone complimenting you on your haircut
The important thing about feedback is that it enables us to see ourselves from a different point of view which can help us to reflect
360ិ feedback involves collecting feedback from all around to give you a complete picture – collect it from attendees, supervisors and peers at an event
Giving feedback is one way of reflecting on the performance of others which can help to
It’s important to be confident in what you’re saying if you want to give good feedback
Think about the tone you use and the body language you display when giving feedback and make sure this doesn’t contradict your words
Not always appropriate but try to be positive rather than overly critical (depending on the situation)
Always be specific on what you are giving the person feedback on or you risk your message getting lost
Give the other person a chance to respond to your feedback, whether it is positive or negative
Feedback can be a difficult thing to receive so here are some tips to help you step back receive it constructively
Think about the person who is offering you feedback:
Is this a person whose opinions you respect? This will influence how you take the feedback and you are more likely to take notice of the information if you actually respect the person
Do they practice what they preach? It’s really hard to take feedback from someone who does the opposite of what they are advising you to do
Do they have an agenda you need to know about? Are they trying to flatter you into agreeing to something? Are they trying to put you off something?
Are they open to feedback themselves? Can they dish it out but not take it?
Regardless of how you feel about the person listen to what they are saying rather than how they are saying it. They may still have a valuable point and this can be great for reflection
There are three main triggers which can cause us to get defensive with feedback. Having an awareness of these can help you to take a step back and actually listen to the message:
Truth triggers – set off by the substance of the feedback itself and makes us think it’s unhelpful or untrue
Relationship triggers – set off by the person giving the feedback
Identity triggers – something about the feedback hits a personal nerve and causes us to question what we think about ourselves
This could be an entire workshop on its own – this will only be a brief introduction
Reflective writing is one of the most popular methods of reflective practice and can be done either solo or in a group. The actual act of writing something down helps us to filter the information we receive
It’s about measuring the effectiveness of what you’ve done rather than just talking about what you did
In reflective writing you are constantly questioning yourself and then answering these questions
It’s about showing what you have learnt and how you have put this into practice – you’ve been to this course and learnt how to do something but what are you going to do with this knowledge?
Crucial to remember that it’s not just about description but about asking those difficult questions
Outline of what reflective writing is and isn’t (listed on handout page 11)
Discuss with neighbour. Think about some areas in the workplace where you might use reflective writing – handout page 11
Example of how to take experiences and transform them into reflections
The first sentence tells us what you did but doesn’t include any reflection
The second paragraph tells us what happened, why it was important, how it helped the writer to develop and what their next steps are going to be
Simplest model to follow for reflective writing and the one used in the previous paragraph
Use the three questions to prompt you into reflective writing
With a bit more explanation – what, so what, now what?
What? – describe the situation: achievements, consequences, responses, feelings and problems
So what? – discuss what has been learnt: learning about self, relationships, models, attitudes, cultures, actions, thoughts, understanding and improvements
Now what? – identify what needs to be done in order to improve future outcomes and develop learning
Handout page 13 – chance to put this model into practice in pairs
Person A needs to describe an activity and Person B needs to ask the three what questions. After two minutes then switch so that Person B is describing the activity
One barrier in particular to reflective writing – the fear of a blank piece of paper or computer screen can make it hard to actually get started
Free writing can help with this – take a prompt and just write for five, ten minutes. Don’t worry about sentence structure, grammar or spelling – just write. See how much of the page you can fill. You can always come back and distil it into something better later
Choice of two exercises:
HANDOUT PAGE 14 Take a picture and use this as a prompt to start free writing. Doesn’t matter what you write – just write something for five minutes continuously. Don’t worry about sentence structure, grammar or spelling. No one will see this but you. Just an exercise to get something down on paper. You will be surprised at how much flows when you stop worrying so much. What are the people thinking and feeling?
HANDOUT PAGE 17 Think about one specific event or activity that you feel you could learn from – it doesn’t matter if went wrong or right. Use the prompts on the sheet to write to write a short reflective piece on the activity. Again, don’t worry about sentence structure, grammar or spelling, just write something for yourself
GROUP DISCUSSION: Do activity and then compare experiences in group discussion
Congratulations – you have just completed some reflective writing!
Think of reflection as a time investment not a time drain – try to make regular time
Reflection doesn’t have to just be about the big things – you can reflect on anything that happens during your day
Choose a method that works for you – if writing is hard then use something else