Core activity 2.5: My Advice for reflective writing

Core activity 2.5: Guide To Reflective Writing for Students - My advice.

Good reflective writing by its nature is personal.  It is a ‘diary’ of thoughts and reflections which can or should demonstrate development of personal academic or professional thought.  Within this personal domain, fear of failure, ridicule or assessment criteria should be absent.  Students should feel at liberty to explain and demonstrate what they felt, how they understood, what mis-conceptions they were under, or misunderstandings they have uncovered.  Reflective writing in this sense is a personal journey to which there is no final destination other than knowledge and understanding. 

At which point reality kicks in. As a student you must demonstrate the above journey within the bounds of academia.  There must be structure and boundaries to your writing. Your rambling thoughts, lack of punctuation and or lack of direction needs to be expunged while retaining the essence of reflection. 

I would offer the broad directional signposts to assist your thinking and structure. Ask yourself the following:

1.   Something Happened?

2.   What Happened?

3.   So What?

4.   What Now?[1]

Asking the question, ‘Something happened?’ is a starter question for you to recognise that something significant did actually happen;  to assist in distinguishing an event out with, or amongst, the automatic functions which form the majority of our lives. Identifying what happened, provides the boundaries and recognition of change and the final questions enable you to explore meaning and possible development objectives.  These questions may seem to deliver a very different process to that of a personal reflective experience outlined in paragraph 1, but it does so in a manner which adds clarity and value to you the student not only in a learning sense but also from an academic perspective.  However, this academic perspective requires a little more understanding. To what end should you ask the four questions above? How does one determine significance?  These answers are to be found within the Framework for personal and professional development on H808[2].

Knowing that these writings and therefore thoughts will be critiqued, requires honesty from you and trust in the staff and mutual respect for your fellow students.  On occasions, discretion from staff and fellow students will be paramount.  What is clear is that reflective writing is a skill that you must develop. It takes time and will improve with effort. Courses where reflective writing skills are necessary should be constructed to enable students to develop these skills to an appropriate level prior to assessment.

One final point, if you have any concerns, ask. Not everyone finds this skill natural, but maybe that is what makes it valuable to us as learners. 

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[1] CETL- Reusable Learning Objects, Reflective Writing, http://intralibrary.rlo-cetl.ac.uk:8080/intralibrary/open_virtual_file_path/i1026n24186t/reflective_writing/reflective_writing.html   accessed on 2/10/2010.

[2] H808 Course Guide, The Open University institute of Educational Technology, http://learn.open.ac.uk/file.php/6847/resources/ebook_h808_courseguide_e5i1_web024148_l3.pdf  accessed on 2/10/2010. 

Core activity 2.5: Criteria for reflective writing - RLO_CETL Approach

Core activity 2.5: Criteria for reflective writing RLO-CETL Approach

I actually found the RLO-CETL piece rather useful in that it provides a framework and a series of questions that can be applied to any given reflective opportunity. The reflective theorist history provided helpful if though not essential background and the simple learning styles questionnaire had merit.   But it was the simple questioning framework of something happened?, what happened?, so what?, and what next? which appeared the most powerful tool here.  The recognition that something had happened and a few questions to follow seem logical and easy to follow for those new to reflective writing. The explicit discussion of why reflect on page 8 was useful to recognize and therefore overcome the habitual  element to our thinking.  It highlighted the conscious effort required and why it is worth while. Section 9, on what should be written about, appeared rather obvious but in the final analysis if a student takes time to write about something that struck them as important enough to take the time to think about it and reflect then it has learning merit.  Whether that merit builds to a course objective is dependent upon the student, learning design and interpretation. Finally, students like to have an example to follow and the one provided on page 10 was sufficiently vague enough in terms of scenario to be applicable, but specific enough to demonstrate the requirements of reflective writing.  I feel I have a grasp of 'how' I should write reflectively, but little idea of how that can be translated into a tutor marking scheme where, as my colleagues have already outlined, the output and determination of development is still subjective.