Lecture 5
Developing your
Professional Brand.
Kevin Heffernan
Reflection and
reflective writing
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The Hangover
Business Practice for Marketing 2 2
What is Reflection?
• Exploration / examination of ourselves and our
actions (often written but also spoken)
– considered
– rational, unemotional*
– in relation to theory / wider context / other
perspectives
• Why do it?
– to develop understanding / learning / skills
– and give us a path by which to move forward
*(even though it often deals with feelings, reactions and emotions)
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The Basics:
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Contexts and purposes
• Episode / experience/ process
Short/specific e.g. lesson we have taught, procedure we
have carried out
Longer process e.g. project work, group work, course, client-
practitioner relationship
• Critical incident
Positive or negative
• Our own development,
– e.g. skills, strengths, challenges (may also be required for education or
work)
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Exercise:
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Critical Incidents:
• Something that happened that is, in some way,
significant
– For you personally,
– Or in a wider context
• and that you can learn from by considering it more
deeply
• It does not have to be earth-shattering
• It can be either positive or negative
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Skills involved:
• Self-awareness
• Description / factual reporting
• Critical analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation
(Atkins and Schutz, 2008, p.26)
Self-awareness is the main skill that is not usual in other
academic writing.
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Keeping your reflective journal:
At the time: Later reflection
1. Write a description as you see 1. Look back objectively
things now – at what you wrote
2. Compare you now with
2. Include your feelings then: changes?
3. Ask & answer critical
3. Note down anything you might
want to refer to as ‘evidence’
questions
– Relate to wider context
– Justify what you say
4. Note questions or things you
might want to explore if they 4. Learning & moving forward
occur to you
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So Many Reflective Models, which should I
chose?
• May use specific model and follow that structure
• Usually follows basic phases
1. Descriptive (who? what? where? when?)
2. Analytical & interpretive (why? how? so?)
3. Looking forward (where/what now?)
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Key Reflective
Models to
consider/use:
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Borton’s (1970) cue questions:
Later build upon By Rolfe(2001)
Opportunity
for Theory
and
Opportunity
supporting
for Theory
Data
and
supporting
Data
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What does this mean?
Opportunity
for theory &
supporting
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Gibbs Reflective Model(1988)
Opportunity
for theory &
Supporting
data
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Kolb's Cycle of Experiential Learning(1984)
Opportunity
for theory &
supporting
data
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Schon(1993)
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Description:
Ability to give effective account
– others understand what happened as you saw it:
• Pick relevant, significant detail: right amount
• Writing = clear, concise, well structured
• Objective rather than emotional:
– thoughts & feelings are recorded rather than colouring
account/events
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Critical analysis/ evaluation
Aims for deeper understanding
• Breaking down into constituent parts
• Identifying positives / negatives/ issues
• Identifying and challenging assumptions (self & other)
• Making connections (other experience, learning)
• Relating to external sources, e.g.
Theory, research, case studies, wider social/political/economic
context
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Levels of reflection:
Hatton and Smith's (1995) four levels of reflection, summarised as:
• descriptive writing
– a straightforward account of events
• descriptive reflection
– an account with reasons, justifications and explanation for the events
• dialogic reflection
– the writer begins to stand back from the account and analyse it
• critical reflection
– the writer puts their account into a broader perspective
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From Surface to Deeper Learning through
reflection: (Carroll, 2009)
• Noticing:
– Represented as ‘Memorised representation’
• Making Sense:
– Represented as ‘Reproduction of ideas, ideas not well linked’
• Making Meaning:
– Represented as ‘meaningful, well integrated, ideas linked’
• Working with Meaning:
– Represented as ‘Meaningful, reflective, well structured’
• Transformative learning:
– Represented as ‘Meaningful, reflective, restructured by learner,, idiosyncratic
or creative.
Note the presence of ‘reflective’ at the two deepest levels(4 & 5)
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The Reflective
Assignment (2)
Revisited
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Again, do you have any questions
regarding CW2?
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Business Practice for Marketing 2 24
